AP GoPo Reading Calendar

In case you wanted a more visual version of the reading calendar handout... tadaaa! I made this in Word for myself, and then I thought, "This'll take two seconds to copy-paste onto the RAM blog, and it might be useful to someone!" Might as well, y'know?

Unit 1  "Constitutional Underpinnings"	Winter Break	Ch 1: The Study of American Government (p.2-19)
		Ch 2: The Constitution (p.20-49)
	1/13	Ch 3: Federalism (p.50-77)
		Unit 1 test
Unit 2 "The Judiciary, Civil Liberties, Civil Rights"	1/20	Ch 16: The Judiciary (p.438-468)
	1/27	Ch 5: Civil Liberties (p.100-129)
		Ch 6: Civil Rights (p.130-160)
	2/3	Unit 2 test
Unit 3 "Political Beliefs, Behavior, Campaigns, Elections"	2/10	Ch 4: American Political Culture (p.78-99)
		Ch 7: Public Opinion (p.162-181)
	2/17	Ch 8: Political Participation (p.182-201)
		Ch 10: Elections and Campaigns (p.234-269)
	2/24	Unit 3 test
Unit 4 "Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Mass Media"		Ch 12: The Media (p.298-324)
		Ch 9: Political Parties (p.202-233)
	3/3	Ch 11: Interest Groups (p.270-297)
		Unit 4 test
Unit 5 "Congress, the Presidency, the Bureaucracy"	3/10	Ch 13: Congress (p.326-363)
		Ch 14: The Presidency (p.364-407)
	3/17	Ch 15: The Bureaucracy (p.408-437)
	3/24	Unit 5 test
Unit 6 "Public Policy, Foreign Policy, and the Budget"	3/31 (selected readings)	Ch 17: The Policymaking Process (p.470-491)
		Ch 18: Economic Policy (p.492-513)
		Ch 19: Social Welfare (p.514-533)
		Ch 20: Environmental Policy (p.564-580)
	4/7	Unit 6 test
Review	4/14	final gov't exam & econ review
	4/21	spring break
	4/28	review
	5/5
	5/12	AP Gov't/Pol exam 5/13 AP Microecon exam 5/15

December 9

Today, Dr. Preston started off class by talking to us about journals and homework. Dr. Preston recommends that everyone take their journals home over the break, in order to review them (personally, I've found that my journals are a good source of personal statement fodder) and/or write more on the prompts that you feel could be improved. The same goes for our blogs-- if you're missing assignments, or just wanna fix that one post that you totally BS'ed at 2:00 in the morning to get it done (we've all been there), you're more than welcome to improve them over the break and resubmit it to Dr. Preston. After all, the school calendar may be ending, but in Dr. Preston's words, "Your learning calendar never stops."

Then Dr. Preston passed back some graded papers. BTW, if you REALLY want his grading system converted to letter grades, here it is:

✓+ :)	A
✓+	A-
✓ (comment)	B
✓	B or C

After that, Dr. Preston asked for volunteers to bring food for our finals period/party, so if you were absent today and want to bring food, you should send Dr. Preston an email. Same goes if you have specific logistics requirements for your final (ex. fridge for food, room opened early for setup, space to store your baking soda volcano, large amounts of paper towels and/or Windex to clean up mess made by said volcano, etc.) and didn't get a chance to tell Dr. Preston today.

Also, if you're looking for a reason to come to school on Dummy Day, Dr. Preston will be available for individual conferences about grades/English/whatever with anyone who's interested.

Besides our final showcase, we have one more assignment this semester: write a time-capsule email to the future you at futureme.org. Then you'll write a blog post entitled "LIFE AFTER THIS BLOG POST," but don't copy-paste your email to publish on your blog (well, unless you really want to). Instead, write about the *experience* of writing the email to yourself.

Finals Schedule

TUESDAY

0 Period	7:30 - 9:20
Lunch	9:20 - 9:40
1 Period	9:50 - 11:40
6 Period	11:50 - 1:40

WEDNESDAY

2 Period	8:30 - 10:20
Lunch	10:20 - 10:40
3 Period	10:50 - 12:40

THURSDAY

4 Period	8:30 - 10:20
Lunch	10:20 - 10:40
5 Period	10:50 - 12:40

December 6

Today Dr. Preston started off class by saying something cryptic about a group that walks among us that's about to shake things up. So be on the watch, folks!

After that, we did our journals, of course (and it happened to be the last journal topic of 2013! Can you believe that?).

Then we each filled out an evaluative introspection, and for the rest of the period we talked with our groups about our final presentations, which will be Wednesday for 3rd period and Thursday for 4th and 5th. If you'd like a tool for communication with your group, our shoutboxes are still up for grabs!

December 4 & 5

On Wednesday and Thursday, we busted our brains out on the vocab and essay finals, respectively. 'Nuff said.

Oh, except also you should follow Dr. Preston on Twitter. Now 'nuff said :)

December 2

This post is a little late but I figured later is better than never (:
On Monday, December 2nd, we started off with our journal as usual then Dr. Preston discussed what we would be doing for the rest of the semester. He said that on Wednesday we would be having our vocabulary final and on Thursday we would be having an in-class essay; also that we will be presenting our English presentations during finals week.