CollegeBoard

CollegeBoard’s Pre AP 1 Curriculum offers students more skill-based learning that will be essential to future high school, college, and professional careers.

When English 9 teacher Jessi Dykstra was assigned to pilot the new English curriculum at the beginning of this school year, she wasn’t entirely sure what to expect, but she certainly didn’t expect College Board to recommend a deep dive into the lyrics of Hamilton for the acclaimed Shakespeare unit.

Knowing that a majority of her students would check right out of the lesson, she decided instead to let them explore a song of their choosing and how the lyrical composition relates to Shakespeare’s work. The new Pre Advanced Placement (AP) 1 curriculum, though allowing Dykstra to take some creative liberties like the aforementioned, has given her a more specific outline, rather than the vague outline she received for English 9.

“There’s freedom in that, which feels nice because I can teach what I’m passionate about, or what I think my kids would be really excited about,” Dykstra said. “However, the not-so-great side of that is that I didn’t have a lot of direction. I didn’t know what exactly I needed to cover, what would be covered later, or even what they had already covered.”

Since the district didn’t think this change could happen so quickly, the curriculum change wasn’t reflected in PowerSchool for the 2024-2025 school year. Starting this year, however, current eighth-grade students have chosen not between English 9 or Honors English 9, but Pre AP 1 or Honors Pre AP 1. Additionally, future sophomores are now choosing between Pre AP 2 and AP Seminar, a class that juniors conventionally take. 

The reason for this change is to make English curriculums across all three schools more consistent so that no matter where someone lives in the district, they receive more or less the same education. FHC’s principal, Jonathan Haga, has helped implement the new curriculum at FHC, placing particular stress on teachers’ roles in lesson building.

“While there’s a couple units that will be aligned [across FHPS] via College Board, there’s a good portion of it in which our teachers can still be creative,” Haga said. “Our teachers can still work toward what our students need. They can still bring their passion for teaching into it. We want to make sure our teachers don’t lose any of the amazing skills that they have due to their curriculum shifts.”

By providing a general outline of the year, the English curriculum is unified across all of FHPS—but Dykstra can still use her judgment as an educator to create the best possible learning environment for her students. For example, the Pre AP 1 curriculum didn’t place as much emphasis on the Shakespeare unit as Dykstra would have liked, so she had her students explore Shakespeare’s work more in-depth than what College Board prescribed. The Pre AP curriculum also provides a better base for AP classes in students’ future educational careers.

“[The Pre AP] curriculum is much more driven towards both the SAT and what AP classes are looking for,” Dykstra said. “From my experience, Pre AP 1 has been much more writing heavy, including really making students break things down and think and provide more evidence and reasoning.”

Using the Pre AP curriculum, Dykstra can build off of a curriculum that considers previous and future learning. The learning strategies students use in Pre AP courses will help them succeed in AP English classes they may choose to take later in high school. This additional emphasis on skills used in the future will assist in creating English curriculums that flow into each other and truly help students learn. 

AP Seminar builds on these necessary skills, teaching how to construct a quality research paper and necessary presentation skills. Morgan Beckett, who teaches the course mostly to juniors, is excited to expand AP Seminar to next year’s sophomores.

“Several schools throughout the country have chosen to have AP Seminar as a tenth-grade class because it’s a pretty good introduction to what AP is like,” Beckett said. “It’s also very skill-based, as is Pre AP, which is beneficial because you guys are living in a world in which critical thinking skills, writing skills, and presentation skills are very, very imperative.”

With this new opportunity presented to FHPS students, many may worry that the district is offering these taxing courses too early in their educational careers. Just this year, FHC decided to make World History and AP World History a freshman-level class, rather than the typical Civics and Economy semester-long courses in years past.

To students who have just come out of middle school, the pressure of AP classes may seem a little daunting. Now, with AP Seminar becoming a sophomore class, students can take up to three AP courses—maybe even more, depending on their personal curriculum.

“We do have some students, specifically freshman year and sophomore year, who, that first time they take an AP class, it’s a little shock,” Haga said. “The stress is real, but we offer a lot of support that some of our students don’t often take advantage of.”

Struggling students can talk to their counselor, their teachers, or National Honor Society tutors in order to get the help they need. What’s important to consider is that teachers are here to help students succeed—students have every possible opportunity to take advantage of that.

It’s essential for students to choose the course that is best for their learning—even if that means they’re not being challenged. Despite this, many students may feel pressured by colleges, parents, or their peers to take many demanding classes. While it is incredible how many AP classes FHC offers, this often takes away the option of many students to take the other, more creative classes they wish to take.

“It kills me every year when a kid is filling out their course guide, and they say ‘I still can’t fit in an art class, and I really wanted to take an art class in high school,'” Beckett said. “Try yoga, try architecture, try a business class here, where you don’t have to pay for it because you don’t want to have to pay for it in college and realize you just don’t like it, or discover a new passion.”

Regardless of their educational background, students are encouraged to challenge themselves—whether that be taking an AP class, participating in many extracurriculars, or performing well on standardized tests. If students feel uncomfortable in an AP course, less demanding classes are always an option. If students struggle in APs, FHC offers a great support system that students can easily take advantage of.

“Sometimes that pressure to be great, to be in an AP class, outweighs what we’re capable of—but that’s what [the FHPS staff] is here for: to support that,” Haga said.