AP Sem: Feb 27-March 3

I sent a very stressed/overwhelmed group out of my room today, and I’m feeling a little bad about it. By Tuesday, they are charged with coming up with rough drafts of their research questions, and they all have so many questions about their questions that they are making themselves miserable!! As I told them in class today, most of them are the types of students that would happily jump through any hoops I give them; unfortunately, this is a hoop-free assignment! They need to think about the stimulus materials, consider how they connect, and find a way to channel those connections into a research question. I’m hoping you can help me out this weekend by engaging them in a little discussion about their potential questions. Please assure them that these are just draft questions at this point!! We will talk a lot more, discuss, and adjust as they move through the research process.

I’ve shared a few documents with them on Google Classroom to help them out, including a breakdown of the rubric for this paper.  Hopefully they will spend some time looking at that rubric this weekend.  On Monday we will do some more talking and thinking about the stimulus materials. By Tuesday, they will need drafts of their questions and I will set them loose to research.  We have talked a lot about balancing time as we move into this busy season of AP exam prep. They all have a lot on their plates, so the more you can encourage them to work hard while they are in class, the better!!

Happy discussing!! (Hopefully you’ll get more out of them than I get out of my son when I ask about school.)