AP Capstone Seminar 2018-19 AP Testing Date: 8am May 7

Ms. Crystal Salcido (Room 302) http://crsalcido.weebly.com/ Remind 101 – Dial 81010 @semsalcido
Mrs. Emily DeSantis (Room 309) http://ejdesant.weeby.com/ Remind 101 – Dial 81010 @g96dkg

Welcome to AP Capstone Seminar:

Goals of course
1. Students will develop and apply discrete skills identified within the scope of the following five big
ideas:
Q – Question and Explore
U – Understand and Analyze Arguments
E – Evaluate Multiple Perspectives
S – Synthesize Ideas
T – Team, Transform, and Transmit
2. Students will explore arguments through several themes, using connections from cross-curricular areas
and using multiple perspectives and lenses related to those themes.
3. Students will collect information through research of a wide variety of sources.
4. Students will develop communication skills through working collaboratively within teams, writing
written responses, developing multimedia presentations, and defending conclusions or recommendations.
(from: Course and Exam Description, AP Seminar, Part of the AP Capstone Program, 2014-2015, p.10)

Participation is a vital component for success in this course and a part of the assessment for the course,
both as your school grade and the AP score you receive from the College Board. As such,
● All students are expected to be in class and participate every day.
● All students are expected to compliment and question the work of others in an atmosphere
of collaboration and respect.
● All students are expected to make a firm commitment to team members to complete
individual work to the best of their ability in a timely manner.
● Late work will earn no higher than an 80% unless student is absent in which case
assignment must be turned in upon returning to class at the start of the period!

Tentative Timeline
Week Start Date Topics
1 Unit 1: News – Introduction to Themes and Structure of an Argument

2 Introduction to Good Questions and Multiple Lenses and Perspectives

3 Lines of reasoning, RAVEN, begin debate preparation

4 Debates IRR Intro

5 Comparing Arguments review, QUEST, wrap up Unit 1

6 Unit 2: XXX – advanced search tutorial

7 MLA style, begin work on smaller “practice” Team task

1
8 Student research for “practice” Team task

9 Team presentations for “practice” team task, Fallacies, inductive/deductive reasoning

10 Practice AP Exam Session II, fishbowl topics to find interests of students

11 **Fall Break**
12 Unit 3 ; understanding the theme, advanced searching; Interviews, analysis of sources

13
Debrief of presentations thus far, review plagiarism, APA style

14
Prepare for debates/ Choose Team and team building

15 Debates

16 Debrief debates and unit 3, introduce PT1: Team Multimedia Project

17 Start PT1 – Define roles, develop a good question, start individual portion

18 Team Research Project– Individual portion

19 Individual portion of PT1 due (Final exam week)

20 Work on Team Script and Presentation

21 Work on Team Script and Presentation

22 Finish Team Script/Start Team Presentations

23 IRR due
Begin TMP--Team Presentations – End PT1

24 Discuss/Start Performance Task 2: Individual Research Project

25 Individual Research Project

Begin TMP Presentations

26 Individual Research Project

Give Resource Packet

Finish TMP Presentations

2
 27 Individual Research Project
Go over “good” questions and sources

28 Individual Research Project

29 Individual Research Project

30 Individual Research Project

31 Individual Presentations

32 Individual Presentations

IWA Due
33 Review AP exam topics

PT 2 Due
IMP and start presentations

34 Review AP exam topics

35 Review, AP exam
PT 2 Due

Must Upload! PT 2
EOC Prep!
Rest of year: Prepare for AP Capstone Research

Capstone EOC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

College Board Policy on Plagiarism and Falsification or Fabrication of Information

Participating teachers shall inform students of the consequences of plagiarism and instruct students to
ethically use and acknowledge the ideas and work of others throughout their course work. The student’s
individual voice should be clearly evident, and the ideas of others must be acknowledged, attributed,
and/or cited.
A student who fails to acknowledge the source or author of any and all information or evidence taken
from the work of someone else through citation, attribution or reference in the body of work, or through a
bibliographic entry, will receive a score of 0 on that particular component of the AP Seminar and/or AP
Research Performance Assessment Task. In AP Seminar, a team of students that fails to properly
acknowledge sources or authors on the Team Multimedia Presentation will receive a group score of 0 for
that component of the Team Project and Presentation.

A student who incorporates falsified or fabricated information (e.g. evidence, data, sources, and/or
authors) will receive a score of 0 on that particular component of the AP Seminar and/or AP Research
Performance Task. In AP Seminar, a team of students that incorporates falsified or fabricated information

3
in the Team Multimedia Presentation will receive a group score of 0 for that component of the Team
Project and Presentation.
(from AP Seminar Course and Exam Description, p.35)

AP Seminar Assessment Overview (for determining your AP score in this course)

Students must complete two in-course performance assessment tasks and one end-of-course exam. All
three assessments are summative and will be used to calculate a final AP score (1-5) for AP Seminar.
Team Project and Presentation – 20%
Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation – 35%
End-of-Course Exam (2 hours) – 45%

Performance Task 1: Team Project and Presentation

Students work in teams to identify, investigate, analyze, and evaluate an academic or real-world problem,
question, or issue. Each team designs and/or considers options, alternatives, and approaches; develops a
written report and multimedia presentation to communicate its conclusion, solution, or recommendation;
and provides a defense to questions posed by the teacher.

PT1 is assessed through the following three components:

1. Individual Research and Reflection (single document, approx. 2,000 words: 1,200 research/800
reflection). Worth 50% of PT1 grade.
2. Team Multimedia Presentation and Defense (8-10 minutes, plus defense questions). Worth 50%
of PT1 grade.
You will be given details of the Task Guidelines when we are ready to begin Performance Task 1.

Performance Task 2: Individual Research-Based Essay and Presentation

The College Board will annually release cross-curricular source material (texts) representing a range of
perspectives focused on a single theme. Students will use these texts to identify a research question of
their own; conduct research; analyze, evaluate, and select evidence to develop an argument; and present
and defend their conclusions. The final paper must refer to and incorporate at least one of the provided
sources.

PT2 is assessed through the following three components:

1. Individual Written Argument (approx. 2,000 words). Worth 60% of PT2 grade.
2. Individual Multimedia Presentation (6-8 minutes). Worth 30% of PT2 grade.
3. Oral Defense (two questions from the teacher). Worth 10% of PT2 grade.
You will be given details of the Task Guidelines when we are ready to begin Performance Task 2.

AP Seminar End-of-Course Exam

The exam consists of five items (three short-answer and two essay questions). The three short-answer
questions assess analysis of an argument in a single source or document. The first essay question requires
the student to perform a close reading of two documents and perform a comparative analysis and
evaluation of the author's’ arguments. The second essay question assesses students’ skills in synthesizing
and creating an evidence-based argument. In April, you will be given details about the components of the
exam and how they are assessed.

Evaluation and Grading for classroom grade

9 Weeks Test – 10%
Participation – 10%
4
Formal Assessments – 20%
Daily Work – 60%

The classroom teacher will be providing feedback to students in traditional ways such as the grading of
assignments and discussion of work. The teacher, for this class, will also be giving both a classwork
grade on the Performance Tasks as well as submitting a recommendation to the College Board on each of
the Performance Tasks to be used for the AP score (1-5). The College Board will assess the
recommendations given by the classroom teacher, but has the right to change any score given. Therefore,
your teacher will not and cannot discuss the “AP” score given once Performance Tasks are completed.

Unit Theme 1: News

Formative Assessments: Summative Assessments:
● Annotations ● Analysis essay
● Participation in class research activities ● Debate/process
● Self-reflection

Unit 2:
Formative Assessments: Summative Assessments:
● Annotations ● Individual notes/reflection from team
● Participation in class research activities process
● Self-Reflection One Pager ● Team Presentation
● Team Script
● Socratic Seminar
● Fishbowl discussion

Unit 3
Formative Assessments: Summative Assessments:
● Class discussions ● Peer editing/evaluation of writing
● Annotations of articles ● Interview discussion with adults
● Debrief activities ● One pager writing assignments
● Team debate/evaluation
● QUEST evaluation