Welcome to Advanced Placement U.S. Government and Politics! For those of you who are unfamiliar it, AP is program that gives students an opportunity to take college-level courses and exams while still in high school. More than 14,000 high schools participate in AP and more than 4,000 colleges accept AP credit. Nationally, the College Entrance Examination Board offers thirty-three exams in twenty-three subject areas. (These are the same people who administer the SAT and a variety of other college entrance exams.) Hamilton High School currently offers seven such exams in the following areas: U.S. Government and Politics, Art History, Biology, Calculus, Chemistry, English Literature, European History, Psychology, and U.S. History. A student enrolled in AP courses can complete up to two semesters of college while still in high school, saving valuable time and money.
A well-designed AP class in U.S. Government and Politics will give students an analytical perspective on government and politics in the United States. This course includes both the study of general concepts used to interpret U.S. government and politics and the analysis of specific examples. It also requires a familiarity with various groups, institutions, beliefs, and ideas that constitute U.S. government and politics.
Goals of the Advanced Placement Program in U.S. Government and Politics
Students successfully completing this course will:
Required Supplies
You must provide a notebook, looseleaf paper, and a binder to save all handouts (start with this). The textbook is James Q. Wilson's American Government Brief Version, 8th ed. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2007). Be sure to have a notebook and plenty of looseleaf paper. Internet access is required, since all assignments will be posted online.
Required Skills
You will have written homework nearly every night. The textbook will be supplemented by primary source materials and contemporary news analyses. Many of the assignments in class will involve analyzing primary sources, maps, tables, and charts. All students should read a newspaper or watch television news every day. Students will also watch various documentaries and episodes of West Wing throughout the semester. Short writing assignments will occur every few days in class, and there will be approximately eleven essays over the course of the semester.
Organization of the Course and Tentative Timetable
Unlike other AP classes at Hamilton, this one will be taught in one nine-week semester. That means we have to move fast.
Advanced Placement Examination in U.S. Government and Politics--Monday, May 4, 2009.
Individual and Team Effort
Success in this class will require a level of responsibility, cooperation, and interaction, which you may not have experienced before. Your individual effort will consist of reading, writing, analyzing, synthesizing, and greatly expanding your base of knowledge. It is very important that you complete all the required readings and the related assignments. Always remember that I am here to help you, and you are here to help each other. If there is ever anything you do not understand, let me know in a respectful manner, and we will try to figure it out together. If there are any changes that you feel need to be made in the class, please make me aware of those as well. I take student concerns very seriously and am always willing to listen to you. With these things in mind, it is my hope that this will becoming one of the most rewarding classes of your high school career.
Evaluation of Achievement
Your achievement in this course will be assessed and recognized in two ways. One will be a half unit per quarter and will become part of your high school record (A, B, C, D, or U). The other (5, 4, 3, 2, or 1) will determine whether you have qualified to earn college credits. Because this course is based on challenging college-level material, your grade will be assessed on a curved scale. Your nine-week grade will be calculated as follows:
Unit Tests = 35% Participation = 25% Assignments = 25% Chapter Quizzes = 15%
Unit tests will be part multiple choice and part essay. They will be evaluated according to the AP grading system (to be explained later in class). Chapter quizzes will be a combination of identification and short answer. The quizzes are open-notebook, so it is to your advantage to take good notes, both in and out of class. Per school board policy, the nine-week grade will count as three-fourths of your final grade, and the final exam will count for the remaining fourth.
The National Exam for College Credit
The examination is two hours and twenty-five minutes in length. It consists of a forty-five-minute multiple choice section and a hundred-minute free-response section. Each half of the exam is worth 50 percent of the total score. There are sixty multiple choice questions that breakdown as follows:
I. Constitutional Underpinnings of U.S. Government = 10% II. Beliefs and Behaviors = 15% III. Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media = 15% IV. Institutions of National Government = 40% V. Public Policy = 10%
There are four mandatory free-response questions. They are drawn from four of the six categories listed above.
After you pass your exam, you'll want to know where take can take your credits. Click here for a complete listing of all University of Wisconsin System schools and the scores they will accept. Click here for all other colleges.