Did you know that FDR offers AP Seminar as a science credit? AP Seminar is the first course to the AP Capstone sequence which includes AP Seminar and AP Research. It is taught by an amazing teacher, Ms. Yuan. After taking both courses and scoring a grade above 3 in each course, you will earn the AP Capstone diploma.

AP Seminar is a course where students are encouraged to demonstrate critical thinking, collaboration, and improve academic research skills on topics of the student’s choosing. The course focuses on how to find reliable sources, write research and argumentative papers with different perspectives, present your findings, and enhance your academic writing skills. AP Seminar is different from all other AP courses, because a test is not the only thing that decides your grade. The assessment consists of two performances tasks and the end-of-course exam.

The first performance task is worth 20% of the final AP score. It is a group project where the group members agree on a specific issue, then each group member researches and writes a paper regarding a different perspective, finally they combine all the perspectives into a presentation. The presentation must display the issue and the main solution and alternate solutions for the issue that the group chose. At the end, the teacher asks a question to each member of the group.

The second performance task is worth 35% of the final AP score, and it is completely done individually. It consists of researching and writing an argumentative research paper connecting the stimulus materials provided by College Board. For instance, this year’s theme was resilience, so every student’s research was focused on some aspect of resilience and incorporated at least one source from the stimulus materials. This performance task also requires a presentation at the end, where you prove why your argument is relevant. The end-of-course exam is worth 45% of the final AP score. It is administered during the AP exam season which is typically at the beginning of May. The exam consists of two parts and lasts two hours. The first part is analyzing an author’s claim and line of reasoning. The second part is writing an argumentative essay using the sources that are provided.

I highly recommend taking AP Seminar because it prepares you for college. AP Seminar requires you to write research papers with reliable evidence, enhanced academic language, and properly formatted citations which will be beneficial in the classes you will take in college.