Educational Activism: A Call for an AP US Women's History Course

This presentation will share a handmade poster highlighting a unique proposal for an Advanced Placement (AP) U.S. Women’s History course created by high school teachers and current AP history students. This poster will cover information that has been shared in an online petition that has gained support from nearly 1,500 people, including many important historians. (www.change.org/apwomenshistory) The poster will include a full year of topics that could be taught as part of this innovative course. Participants attending this poster session will learn about unique pedagogical strategies regarding student-led educational activism and hear in detail about the course proposal which would provide a full year’s worth of curriculum covering women’s history at the high school level. The course proposal will build upon the College Board course pilots for AP African American Studies and AP Business that have generated a great deal of interest among students and high school teachers. Topics that will be highlighted as part of this course proposal will include statistics about the lack of representation of women in current AP courses, teaching inclusive and intersectional feminist history and highlighting lesser known stories about important American activists such as Zitkala-Sa and Alice Dunar Nelson. Visuals and lesson plans will be included. The poster session will highlight the fact that high school students are seeking to take college level courses and earn college credit in high school and when they do not have access to these courses, it can discourage them from taking a women's history class or pursuing history in college if it’s not offered at an AP level. It will also address the lack of documents written by and about women in current AP history and social science courses.