Grade Level Student Cohorts
The AAPLE Academy includes 33 freshmen, sophomore, junior, and senior students (a total of 132 students). Each class of AAPLE students acts as a grade level cohort that matriculates through the AAPLE academic pathway, leadership program, and service work together. While many students in each cohort have very similar coursework, only one class is taken with all AAPLE students. AAPLE Students take one “AAPLE Academy Cohort Class” together each semester. This single period acts as the student’s cohort class and is taught by an Academy teacher. AAPLE cohort courses provide an amazing platform for facilitating deep and layered integration of eight identified leadership competencies, objectives, traits, projects, speakers, enrichment, and excursions.
AAPLE Cohort Courses
Nine SBUSD School Board approved courses in the areas of Advanced Placement or Honors History, English and Science are integrated with AAPLE’s eight leadership competency focus areas. Each course offers active interaction of traditional core course standards and AAPLE leadership competency focus areas which results in a dynamic and pragmatic academic learning experience. All integrated leadership competency curriculum assignments, projects, and enrichment activities are included in the students’ AAPLE Leadership Portfolio which is finalized for presentation in the AAPLE Leadership Seminar capstone course taken in the 12th grade.
AAPLE Leadership Seminar: This course serves as the AAPLE Academy senior capstone class. This is a one-term course that will provide, in a seminar format, an overview of theoretical constructs and practical applications of academy leadership competencies, traits and objectives. Students will further identify and develop their individual approaches and characteristics of effective leadership. Student’s will finalize their leadership portfolio by evidencing AAPLE students’ academic leadership and service experiences put into action in order to continue to effect positive change locally, nationally and globally. The course is committed to teaching leaders how to organize efficient and effective action toward a goal. Students will identify their growth as leaders by investigating where they were, where they are, and how they will continue to lead and serve in the future. Students will develop short-term and long-term leadership objectives through readings, lectures, and discussions and will present their four-year sustained leadership project.
AAPLE English 9 Honors: English 9 AAPLE is a survey of the literary genres of poetry, drama, the short story, the novel, and nonfiction. Particular emphasis will be given to improving students’ skills in expository writing and the rudiments of literary analysis. This course includes all the elements of English 9 but offers greater enrichment through additional reading of challenging literature (both fiction and nonfiction) and more frequent and rigorous literary analysis. In addition, this integrated AAPLE Academy cohort course, Academy leadership competencies are woven into lessons, assignments, projects, and enrichment excursions. In aligning with the new state standards, students will develop skills necessary for succeeding in college and career. Students will experience relevant, yet rigorous material that will enhance his or her capacity for creating and synthesizing information. Students will work over the course of their four-year cohort classes to develop their leadership competencies and evidence their development in their cohesive leadership portfolio and capstone sustained leadership service project. In their first year, students will begin to explore the competencies and characteristics that make up a leader. They will also discover and interpret characteristics that enhance their self-awareness and understanding of responsibility as a leader. Throughout the course, students will participate in outside classroom enrichment activities. Students will be expected to respect and honor the activity (be it a play, museum etc.,) with their behavior. As leaders, students will involve themselves in service in the campus and community.
AAPLE AP Environmental Science: The goal of the AP Environmental Science AAPLE course is to provide students with the scientific concepts and methods required to understand the functioning of the natural world and to identify and analyze environmental problems, their associated risks and ways of resolving or preventing them. Environmental science offers rich opportunities to further AAPLE’s mission to integrate AAPLE’s identified leadership competencies and focus on civic engagement into curriculum. The subject is interdisciplinary, embracing a wide variety of topics from different areas of study and lends itself to the student of leadership and deep and sustained contribution to our community and the world. Throughout these topics there are several major unifying themes: Science is a process of understanding the physical world, Energy conversions underlie all ecological processes, The Earth itself is one interconnected system, Humans alter natural systems, Environmental problems have a cultural and social impact, Human survival depends on developing practices that will achieve sustainable systems. AAPLE APES will further enhance student’s development of their leadership portfolio and capstone sustained leadership service project. Integrated topics in the course include species interactions, biomes, biodiversity, human demographics, land use, biogeochemical cycles, agriculture, freshwater and oceanic resources, pollution, waste management, climate change, renewable and nonrenewable energy, global economics, and environmental legislation. These topics will be studied through a variety of activities and sources, including laboratory investigations, presentations and discussions, articles and films, field trips and guest speakers.
AAPLE English 10 Honors: This course provides a standards-aligned survey curriculum for college-bound students. Students will work on improving their skills in language arts, and have considerable opportunities to practice and develop their skills in reading, writing, speaking, listening and critical thinking. Students will also be faced with a rigorous series of expository writing modules, modules based on California State University recommendations. Students will engage in a survey of World Literature and be faced with a considerable amount of writing tasks in a variety of formats. The course is designed to examine individual tendencies in leadership and to further develop leadership competencies in each student. The theme of leadership will be explored in various historical and fictional world leaders, and, through this exploration, students will attempt the answer the question of what makes an effective leader. To track this, we will be completing several assignments that align with the Academies leadership competency model and that will be include in student’s Leadership Portfolio Project.
AAPLE AP World History: This survey course covers the history of the World from 10,000BCE to the present day, focusing specifically on the social, political, economic, and cultural trends that have shaped and molded human society since our existence. Designed to train the student on the work of a historian, this course will do more than give students an in depth understanding of the past, it will challenge students to think critically about it and connect deeply with it. As an AAPLE Cohort Class the course will place and emphasis on world leaders and will integrate the Academies identified leadership competency focused curriculum. Students will examine the writings of historians, picking out bias, evaluating their use of evidence, and analyzing their arguments. Because history is more than just written sources, students will be analyzing various types of artifacts from different time periods and places, including images, objects, and songs, drawing conclusions based off the evidence they find. As an AAPLE Cohort class and to further the leadership and service objectives of the Academy, students will develop their argumentation skills, both orally and in writing. Students will truly learn what it means to be a global citizen and global leader, learning more about cultures and peoples different from our own. In short, the course is designed to introduce students to college level learning and to broaden their understanding of the world and humanity with an emphasis on leaders of the world. Throughout the course, students will be focusing on their individual leadership competencies and entries to their AAPLE Leadership Portfolio, either through writing or presenting. One of the most exciting arguments historians debate is the role of the individual in shaping the progress of history. Can one person really have an impact? World History is full of examples to investigate and search out. Students will be reflecting in the impact of these individuals and what caused them to be so influential as we progress through the history of humanity.
AAPLE AP English Language and Composition: An AP course in English Language and Composition engages students in becoming skilled readers of prose written in a variety of rhetorical contexts, and in becoming skilled writers who compose for a variety of purposes. Both their writing and their reading should make students aware of the interactions among a writer’s purposes, audience expectations, and subjects, as well as the way genre conventions and the resources of language contribute to effectiveness in writing. In addition, AAPLE students will continue their personal and academic quests to refine their leadership competencies, their definition of leadership, expand their knowledge of both World and American leaders, and apply those characteristics to themselves. AAPLE students will continue to develop and lead their service projects to help benefit our community.
AAPLE AP US History: The Advanced Placement American History course for 11th graders is a rigorous course designed to prepare students for the Advanced Placement examination. In addition to chronological-topical coverage of United States history, its background and development, emphasis is given to conceptual and interpretive understanding, as well as a focus on significant social issues. The AAPLE scholar additionally focuses on the development of a sophisticated understanding of leadership in the history of the nation – the people and events and ideas that inform leadership in the United States and in the young AAPLE scholar’s own quest for developing the Academies leadership competencies. The students are expected to develop a significant depth and breadth of historical knowledge, the ability to express what they have learned, and how what they are learning applies to their leadership competencies through readings, bibliographical assignment, and extensive essay writing.
AAPLE AP English Literature: This two-term literature-based advanced placement course for seniors is designed as a college-level introduction to comparative literature. In the course, students will read challenging works from a variety of genres (short story, poetry, drama, and the novel). Students will compose a series of in-class essays in preparation for the AP exam, as well as three out-of-class papers of increasing length and complexity that demonstrate the process of revision and refinement of critical thinking. In addition, students are assigned five leadership competency integrated assignments and will attend two enrichment activities emphasizing the integration of the AAPLE’s leadership and service mission. Examples include but not exclusive to authorial leadership, justice system multi-genre projects, founding documents argumentative essay, into the wild self study. Finally, students will make final additions and revisions to their Leadership Portfolio Project, which provides evidence of each student’s leadership competency development and growth community service and leadership throughout his/her high school experience.
AAPLE AP American Government and Politics: This is a one-term course designed to provide students with a critical perspective on government and politics in the United States. The course furthers the AAPLE Academy mission to develop informed, passionate leaders by deepening their understanding of the American political system, developing their leadership competencies, and inspiring them to lead. The course involves both the study of general concepts used to interpret American politics and the analysis of specific case studies. All the institutions of government, both formal and informal are studied. An introduction to political theory is included. The final elements of the AAPLE Leadership Portfolio project will be examined and completed. The reading and written work assigned are of a college level and provide a very scholarly approach to this discipline.