March 17, 2015

AP US History conference

Today was the first of three days I will spend in Concord this week.  Each year, the New Hampshire Historical Society sponsors a conference for students taking AP US History and I always take my class.  The Historical Society is located right behind the New Hampshire State House and is a beautiful building.  The conference is four hours and consists of a talk by a former teacher from St. Paul's, Mr. Bill Kellogg, who talks to the students about the AP exam and the expectations.  Mr. Kellogg is retired and lives in Denver but comes home each year to speak at this conference.  He used to be an exam reader so he speaks from personal experience.

Following Mr. Kellogg's talk there is always a lecture on some aspect of social studies from a scholar.  Some years they are excellent like last year's talk on Civil War monuments in New Hampshire and some are so so like a talk we once heard on baskets!  This year's talk was about the 1774 attack on Ft. William and Mary (now Ft. Constitution) in New Castle.  I confess that I didn't know anything about this topic so I enjoyed learning something new (you can read the presenter's, Tom Kehr, article on the attack here).  The schools then broke into groups and worked on an thesis writing activity and after lunch made presentations on their thesis statements.  We were all wrapped up a little before 1pm.

Tomorrow I am taking my AP Government and Politics class and my Youth and Government group to the State House for Catholic Day - more to come on that tomorrow.

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