Appreciating AP United States History with a Peer Tutor

This article was part of a series by the Board of Student Academic Support Services (SASS) that interviewed OHS course peer tutors about the courses they tutor. You can book an appointment with these peer tutors through the OHS Writing Center, which can be found on the OHS Gateway site. 

SASS: What did you enjoy about APUSH?

David Sacks (‘18): Well, the course itself is extremely interesting. Of course, it’s a limited amount of time to cover an expansive history with innumerable fascinating details, but it definitely provides a good comprehensive overview of American History and helps foster critical thinking. The best part of the course is arguably its teacher, Dr. Sletcher. Dr. Sletcher presents the material in an insightful fashion, bringing clarity born of his own clear and comprehensive understanding of the material to his students. So, what I enjoyed most about the course was the material and the way Dr. Sletcher forced us to think critically and analytically about what we studied so that we could understand the material in a larger, conceptual manner.

SASS: What challenged you the most in APUSH? How did you overcome those challenges?

David: The readings are somewhat long (though they could definitely be longer) but, more significantly, quite detailed. You can’t fudge it, and you also have to synthesize it, wrap your mind around it, if you want to get enough out of it to do sufficiently well. This just takes discipline... The other component which challenged me the most probably was that of the Writing Assignments. Writing a good paper in APUSH naturally takes a slightly different skill set than writing a good paper in English. Paramount are historical knowledge, structure, and analysis. Good writing as far as grammar and style is encouraged but slightly less emphasized (it’s still pretty important though). Historical structure is one of the trickier parts of that. 

SASS: What tips do you have that could be useful to students taking APUSH?

David: Listen to Dr. Sletcher, seek him out if you need help or want to talk more about a topic, and pay attention, particularly to the reading and in class. There is no substitute for knowledge. If you pay attention and try to construct your own narrative understanding of the events, you should be fine for quizzes. For writing, which is tricky, just make sure you cite enough facts to make a decent argument, have a historical structure (social, economic, and political is a good starting point), and provide analysis (show an understanding of and knowledge of the context surrounding whatever particular events you’re discussing).

SASS: About how much time did you spent a week working on assignments and preparing for discussion sessions in APUSH?

David: One could say I went a bit overkill on the Writing Assignments at the beginning. Actually, when I stopped going overkill, they got better, smoother, and more to the point. An appropriate time for the WAs is perhaps two to four hours before editing. The readings should take anywhere from 60-120 minutes, maybe longer, depending on how quickly you read. I honestly don’t recall how long it took me. I will say, though, that it’s about more than the discussion section: what it and everything else in the course requires really is a reasonably thorough understanding of the text so you can present your arguments in class and in papers, and make sense in general. If you did the reading significantly before class, however, reviewing the summary and using it to go over the events and themes in your mind is a good tack. This also worked reasonably well for me when it came to quizzes.

SASS: What was your favorite topic covered in APUSH?

David: Definitely the New Deal and the Four Freedoms. I’m a big fan of Roosevelt’s brand of liberalism and the way he restored capitalism with a new caveat — freedom from want. I also really enjoyed studying Johnson and the War on Poverty, for similar reasons (his liberalism seemed to me to stem from FDR’s). Dr. Sletcher raises an interesting discussion about some of the graphs commonly shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of Johnson’s policies and asks us to engage critically with the material.

SASS: What assignments did you enjoy doing in APUSH?

David: I particularly enjoyed the second writing assignment, for which I picked the prompt concerning a comparison of the English Bill of Rights to the American Bill of Rights. Dr. Sletcher assigned it, I believe, to show us the very real roots of American constitutional tenets in the English government with which the Founding Fathers had abundant experience. It was quite interesting. The Historiography Assignment was also quite unique, getting us to engage with different perspectives on the American Civil War and to think like historians.

SASS: Did you have any experiences with APUSH that could encourage those who are uncertain of the course to want to take it?

David: I spent a good amount of time talking with Dr. Sletcher about the different themes of the course and enhancing my understanding of the history, while connecting it to the present. I do believe history and the present both benefit from being related. Really, it’s just that American History is so fundamental to who we, America, are, as a country and a people, and Dr. Sletcher, with his incredibly rich understanding of and appreciation for our history and talent as a teacher, made the course so much more than worthwhile.