Advanced Placement Course Descriptors
AP Studio Art Program
The AP Program offers three studio art courses and portfolios: Two-Dimensional Design, Three-Dimensional Design, and Drawing. The AP Studio Art portfolios are designed for students who are seriously interested in the practical experience of art. Students submit portfolios for evaluation at the end of the school year. The AP Studio Art Program consists of three portfolios – 2-D Design, 3-D Design and Drawing – corresponding to the most common university foundation courses. Students may choose to submit any or all of the Drawing, Two-Dimensional Design, or Three-Dimensional design portfolios. AP Studio Art students create a portfolio of work to demonstrate the artistic skills and ideas they have developed, refined, and applied over the course of the year to produce visual compositions.
AP Calculus AB
AP Calculus AB and AP Calculus BC focus on students’ understanding of calculus concepts and provide experience with methods and applications. Although computational competence is an important outcome, the main emphasis is on a multi-representational approach to calculus, with concepts, results, and problems being expressed graphically, numerically, analytically, and verbally. The connections among these representations are important.
Teachers and students should regularly use technology to reinforce relationships among functions, to confirm written work, to implement experimentation, and to assist in interpreting results. Through the use of the unifying themes of calculus (e.g., derivatives, integrals, limits, approximation, and applications and modelling) the course becomes cohesive rather than a collection of unrelated topics.
AP English Literature and Composition
The AP Literature and Composition course aligns to an introductory university-level literary analysis course. The course engages students in the close reading and critical analysis of imaginative literature to deepen their understanding of the ways writers use language to provide both meaning and pleasure. As they read, students consider a work’s structure, style, and themes, as well as its use of figurative language, imagery, symbolism, and tone. Writing assignments include expository, analytical, and argumentative essays that require students to analyze and interpret literary works.
AP Psychology
The AP Psychology course introduces students to the systematic and scientific study of human behaviour and mental processes. While considering the psychologists and studies that have shaped the field, students explore and apply psychological theories, key concepts, and phenomena associated with such topics as the biological bases of behaviour, sensation and perception, learning and cognition, motivation, developmental psychology, testing and individual differences, treatment of abnormal behaviour, and social psychology. Throughout the course, students employ psychological research methods, including ethical considerations, as they use the scientific method, analyze bias, evaluate claims and evidence, and effectively communicate ideas.
AP French Language and Culture (challenge course only)
The AP French Language and Culture course engages students in an exploration of culture in both contemporary and historical contexts. The course develops students’ awareness and appreciation of cultural products (e.g., tools, books, music, laws, conventions, institutions); practices (patterns of social interactions within a culture); and perspectives (values, attitudes, and assumptions). Students who have successfully completed Core French 30 are encouraged to challenge the AP exam.
AP Music Theory (challenge course only)
Students who have successfully completed music theory courses, such as courses offered through the Royal Conservatory of Music, are encouraged to challenge the AP exam.
For all questions related to the Advanced Placement Program at Winston Knoll Collegiate, please contact Tracy Wharran at (306) 523-3403
