AP Tests A Tool For Teachers

— Hundreds of thousands of high school students across the country take Advanced Placement exams every spring. Someone has to grade the essays. Several teachers from Springdale have made a habit of helping with this chore.

One of them is John Stewart, an AP U.S. history teacher at Har-Ber High School. He explained the process to the Springdale School Board at its meeting last week. Almost every June since 2006, Stewart has made weeklong trips to Louisville, Ky., where he joins others in grading the approximately 1.2 million essays written for the AP U.S. history exams.

Stewart said he typically reads between 250 and 500 essays per day over seven days. No names are attached to essays he grades. He wouldn’t know it if he received an essay from one of his own students.

“It’s a challenge, but it’s well worth it,” he said.

The experience he gains as an AP test grader lends him credibility when it comes to preparing his students for the test, Stewart said.

“When I’m teaching how to write an essay, for structure or analysis, I don’t have to wonder what a reader in Louisville is looking for,” Stewart said. “I know exactly what they’re looking for.”

One example of an essay question from a past AP U.S. history exam goes like this: In what ways and to what extent did constitutional and social developments between 1860 and 1877 amount to a revolution?

Most of the essay readers are college professors. Stewart said he’s one of the very few high school teachers who participate. In the past year he’s been joined by Ryan Guyton, an AP U.S. history teacher at Springdale High.

Other Springdale teachers who assist in grading AP tests in their respective subjects include Wendel Nothdurft, an AP government teacher at Har-Ber High, and Ellen Rainey, an AP Spanish teacher at Har-Ber.

Stewart enjoys the camaraderie at the annual grading get-togethers.

“To see how other teachers teach certain topics, it’s really worthwhile,” he said. “And just to stay on the front lines of what’s changing in my discipline, and what’s coming down the pike. It’s about what you can bring back to the classroom.”

Mike Fotenopulos, who teaches both AP world history and AP U.S. history at Har-Ber, has been going to Salt Lake City for the past six years to grade AP world history essays.

“I equate it to sports,” Fotenopulos said. “You become a better football player if you understand all the rules. If you understand all the expectations and nuances and rules of this test, you become a better teacher of it.”

Fotenopulos cited a question asking students to analyze and compare the results of the fall of Rome to the fall of Han, China. Many students, rather than focus on the results of the falls, will start writing about the history of those two empires. That’s not answering the question, he said, and will result in poor scores.

“We’re trying to get these kids to see the question, answer it wholly and move on,” he said.

About 100,000 students take the AP world history exam each year. When he grades an essay, he said he is expected to abide by a checklist of requirements that each essay should have. He called the experience the best overall staff development activity he attends.

“You get to sit with some of the best teachers in the United States all around you, and just pick their brains,” he said.

Most essay readers earn $1,600 for their work, Fotenopulos said.

AP exams are given each May. Test scores are delivered to students around the first week of July.

Success on the tests can help students earn college credit and stand out in the college admission process.

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