Advanced Placement (A.P.) Program

Develop and practice the skills in research, collaboration, and communication that you’ll need in any academic discipline. You’ll investigate topics in a variety of subject areas, write research-based essays, and design and give presentations both individually and as part of a team.

Build on what you learned in A.P. Seminar to deeply explore an academic topic, problem, or issue of individual interest. Through this exploration, you will design, plan, and conduct a year-long research-based investigation to address a research question.

This course is designed to help high school students become skilled readers of prose written in a variety of periods, disciplines, and rhetorical contexts and to become skilled writers who can compose for a variety of purposes. Through their writing and reading in this course, students should become aware of the interactions among a writer's purpose, audience expectations, and subjects, as well as the way writing conventions and the resources of language contribute to effective writing.

This Advanced Placement Literature and Composition course is designed to teach college-level literary analysis with an emphasis on writing about literature. Students will accomplish this through closely reading a variety of genres of varying lengths and from various time periods. Reading, writing, thinking, and responding are all recursive and reciprocal. Because this is a composition course, students write extensively as they analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of advanced literature and explain their interpretations of it. To help students make these analytical shifts, classes will hold literature discussions and revision workshops designed to help students craft effective essays and responses. The goal is to help students make the shift from comprehending surface meaning toward a deeper understanding of a text's complexities. Prerequisite reading assignments for this course will be posted on the district website.

All students interested are required to meet with the instructor at the end of the school year to receive detailed requirements of the A.P. course. All students entering this A.P. course MUST fulfill portfolio requirements. The Advanced Placement course curriculum is administered by the A.P. Central College Board and developed by a committee of college faculty and A.P. teachers to cover the in-depth, “information, skills, and assignments found in the corresponding college course.”

A.P. Music Theory seeks to provide students with skills necessary to succeed in music theory at the collegiate level. This course teaches students a working literacy in all elements of music, both visually and aurally. Aural skills, compositional skills, analytical skills, and performance skills are all emphasized throughout the course.

The purpose of A.P. Stats is to introduce students to the major concepts and tools for collecting, analyzing, and drawing conclusions from data. Students are exposed to four broad conceptual themes, such as exploring data, sampling and experimentation, anticipating patterns, and statistical inference.

A.P. Pre-calculus is designed for every student who’s ready to take pre-calculus in high school. If you plan to complete Geometry and Algebra 2 (or Integrated Math 3 instead) before your senior year, A.P. Pre-calculus is for you.

A.P. Calculus AB is a one-credit math course that focuses on students’ understanding of calculus concepts and provides experience with methods and applications. The course requires students to use definitions and theorems to build arguments and justify conclusions. A.P. Calculus AB is designed to be the equivalent of a first semester college calculus course devoted to topics in differential and integral calculus.

A.P. Calculus BC is a one-credit math course designed to be the equivalent to both first and second semester college calculus courses. A.P. Calculus BC applies the content and skills learned in A.P. Calculus AB to parametrically defined curves, polar curves, and vector-valued functions; develops additional integration techniques and applications; and introduces the topics of sequences and series.

Learn the principles that underlie the science of computing and develop the thinking skills that computer scientists use. You’ll work on your own and as part of a team to creatively address real-world issues using the tools and processes of computation.

The A.P. French Language & Culture course emphasizes communication by applying interpretive, interpersonal, and presentational skills in real-life situations. This includes vocabulary usage, language control, communication strategies, and cultural awareness in an exploration of culture in both contemporary and historical contexts. The course develops students’ ability to explore concepts related to family & community, personal & public identity, beauty & aesthetics, science & technology, contemporary life, and global challenges.

The A.P. Spanish Language and Culture course takes a holistic approach to language proficiency and recognizes the complex interrelatedness of comprehension and comprehensibility, vocabulary usage, language control, communication strategies, and cultural awareness. Students should learn language structures in context and use them to convey meaning.

Advanced Placement Biology is a college level biology course designed for able high school students. A college textbook is used, so students should be able to read above grade level and have above-average grades in biology and chemistry. At the end of the year, students will be encouraged to take the A.P. exam which will determine their eligibility for advanced placement and/or credit in college biology courses. The two main goals of A.P. biology are to help students develop a conceptual framework for modern biology and to help students gain an appreciation of science as a process. Students are encouraged to focus on understanding important relationships, processes, mechanisms, and potential extensions and applications of concepts.

The A.P. Chemistry course is designed to be the equivalent of the general chemistry course usually taken during the first college year. The A.P. Chemistry course focuses on a model of instruction which promotes enduring, conceptual understandings and the content that supports them. “Big ideas” in the A.P. Chemistry course include structure of matter, properties of matter, changes in matter, thermodynamics, and equilibrium. Students who take A.P. Chemistry will also develop advanced inquiry and reasoning skills, such as designing a plan for collecting data, analyzing data, applying mathematical routines, and connecting concepts in and across domains. Successful completion of high school chemistry is a prerequisite for this course.

Explore concepts such as kinematics; Newton’s laws of motion, work, energy, and power; systems of particles and linear momentum; rotation; oscillations; and gravitation. You’ll do hands-on laboratory work and in-class activities to investigate phenomena and use calculus to solve problems.

In this course, students will explore and investigate the interrelationships of the natural world, identify and analyze environmental problems, both natural and human-made, evaluate the relative risks associated with these problems, and examine alternative solutions for resolving and/or preventing them. Skills students will develop include: explaining environmental concepts and processes; applying quantitative methods in solving problems; analyzing a research study to identify a hypothesis; analyzing data, visual representations, and writings; proposing a solution to an environmental problem and supporting ideas with evidence. Students enrolling in A.P.ES should demonstrate strong skills in reading and writing, and should have above average grades in Biology.

Advanced Placement U.S. History is a challenging course that is meant to be the equivalent of a freshmen college course and can earn students college credit. It is a two-semester survey of United States history from the age of exploration and discovery to the present. Solid reading and writing skills, along with a willingness to devote considerable time to homework and study, are necessary to succeed. Emphasis is placed on critical and evaluative thinking skills, essay writing, interpretation of original documents, and historiography. The required Summer Reading Assignment for this course will be posted on the Oxford High School Webpage.

This course gives the student an analytical perspective on government and politics in the United States. This course includes both the study of general concepts used to interpret U.S. politics and the analysis of specific examples. It also requires familiarity with the various institutions, groups, beliefs, and ideas that constitute U.S. politics. Students will become acquainted with a variety of theoretical perspectives and explanations for various behaviors and outcomes.

The Advanced Placement European course covers the modern period from approximately 1450 to the present. It traces themes in political, diplomatic, economic, intellectual, social, and cultural history. It is comprehensive in scope and coverage of events and personalities of the past. Thus, students are encouraged to master the broad chronological contours of modern European history as well as to have in-depth knowledge of specialized topics. Students will also become familiar with the historian’s craft of analyzing and synthesizing primary sources and have experiences in this practice. Students successfully completing this course should be prepared for the A.P. Exam in European History.

Explore how humans have understood, used, and changed the surface of Earth. You’ll use the tools and thinking processes of geographers to examine patterns of human population, migration, and land use.