This year marks the first that AP World History is available to freshmen as an A-Day, B-Day schedule. It is linked to English 1 honors.

Brooke Willse is among the students to take the course.

“I took it just because it was AP World History, and I always thrived in both history and English throughout middle school. I thought it’d be challenging cause in middle school I wasn’t challenged by those classes, so I wanted to have something that would be more challenging for me,” Willse said.

These students are having to make adjustments, since they’ve come into a new school and are starting off with a challenging class. Nathan Welty is not accustomed to the amount of work, but he is still managing the class and having fun.

“There’s a lot of cool information in it, and it goes more in detail, so I get a better idea of the subject,” Welty said.
Chris Monte, AP World History teacher has prior AP experience over multiple years and was asked this year to teach the class.

“I think AP World History is a great course. There’s just amazing information that I think educated people should know, and we certainly have some great students here that can handle it,” Monte said. “The thing I like most about the AP World and US, which I’ve taught many years as well, is just that the study habits you’re going to develop are things that my students going through the course don’t really enjoy, but I hear back from them when they go to college, and they tell me ‘wow I’m really glad I took that course.’”

Some of the students said the enjoy the variety of switching up courses each day, but that the lapse in days can be difficult to keep focus.

“You aren’t learning the things every single day, so it isn’t always fresh in your mind,” Willse said. “You really have to pay attention to what you are doing and what you are reading for it to stay in your mind.”

Even though this course has its positives and its negatives, it has taught these students how to manage their time and how to get their work done.

“In middle school, it’s like everything was due a set day, and you have a set amount of time. With this, it’s kind of different. You have larger amounts of work due at a later date, so it’s up to you how you pace yourself, and I think I’ve learned a lot about that,” Willse said.

Although the AP exam is at the end of the year in May, it is still something that the students have to begin studying and preparing for early.

“I’ve already gotten lots of books to prepare and study through it, so I’m not that worried about it,” Welty said.

Monte is working to make sure his students are ready for this exam.

“I want my students to do well on the AP exam. A track record of students do well on the exam. As a parent of a child who took many AP classes, the AP exam is very important. That’s our target; that’s our goal, and I feel that’s a big part of my responsibility as the teacher,” Monte said.

There are still some kinks to work out, but Monte wants people to keep taking it.

Monte said, “I think we definitely have a large section of students who can do this. It’s not for everybody, but if you’re not going to take the reading seriously, AP might not be what you want to do. Of course, we try to teach and do other things, but you’ve gotta do that reading.”