You can find past essay questions and scoring guidelines here: http://apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc/members/exam/exam_information/2089.html. Dd has been looking at essay questions and making a quick outline with a thesis and points to cover, then looking at the scoring guidelines. I'd definitely have him go ahead and take it!

Are the 9's on his essays from an online teacher or have you graded real essays based on the scoring guidelines at AP Central? Some teachers score kids much higher on essays than they would score on the exam. I would have him do a real released exam if you have one and score the essays using the scoring guidelines. If he is really getting 9's on the essays, he should be fine. As you can see from the scoring calculator linked above, you don't need to get nearly all of the multiple choice questions right to get a 5. My dd has been pretty consistently scoring about 75 % on the MCQ. With that score, she just needs 6's on the essays to get a 5.

Did you steal my son???? On the bright side, a couple of my older kids were like this and they got over it. I can't really say how -- it's like a PP said, a switch flipped.

My kids all took it and got great scores (all above 750, several got 800). We aren't native speakers, but we did start them on French as preschoolers and they took the subject test the same year they took APs.

If you are applying to elite schools, the scores for how ever many they require count as heavily as the regular SAT, so you want a few really top scores (i.e., you're shooting for three 800s). The rest of the scores are to show that you've mastered subjects, so it's okay to have lower scores. We had our kids retest for any where their scores were below the mean, but we didn't worry about a few scores in the mid-600s when they had plenty of other really strong scores. My kids have always taken the subject tests the same year they take APs in each subject.

My kids have lots of SAT IIs. They will all be on the report you send to colleges. They use the top two or three in their formula (or--if they ask for specific tests, they'll use those.) At least one book I read say they count as much as the regular SAT, so take them seriously. The remaining tests provide outside verification of your child's grades and show that he's learned each subject well.

Still, I wouldn't give up. I have a high school student in one of my classes who is extremely bright but struggles terribly with spelling. What I did was pick a couple of words a week that she was consistently misspelling on in-class essays and tell her I wanted her to do whatever it took to get them down. I think that made it manageable for her -- learning to spell everything correctly was an impossible task, but learning two or three words in a week was easy. She has made great progress that way. I always tell kids that spelling is like playing a sport. Some kids are natural spellers like some are natural athletes, but a clumsy, awkward kid who goes out and shoots baskets and runs for a couple of hours a day can become a pretty good ballplayer.

You don't! If he's going to go to college, he will most likely be writing essays on exams without a spell checker. It will be embarrassing to him if he spells like a third-grader. What I did with my terrible speller was make him write EVERY word he misspelled in ANY subject five times. Like many of us, he can be pretty lazy and wants to take the easiest path to be done with his work. I gave him the motivation he was lacking by making it less work for him to just buckle down and learn to spell the words. He still misspells words from time to time, but overall, he's pretty decent and more importantly, confident.

For American Lit, I have an anthology -- Adventures in American Literature. I use that as a spine and arrange my list chronologically based on it. I'll include poems and short stories from the text as well as novels from each time period. The final list ends up being way too long for any kid to read in a year, so they pick and choose from it with some required works in each genre/time period. For AP Lit, students must choose from this list: http://mseffie.com/AP/APtitles.html.

I always choose some and let them choose some. For American lit (10th), for example, I have a reading list dd chooses books from. A few, like Scarlet Letter, are non-negotiable, but she has a lot of freedom to choose what she likes. In 12th grade, my kids plan the whole course. For example, Ds19 really likes Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, etc., so his course was "Modern American Literature." In AP Lit (11th grade, which I teach to a group), we do two plays and four novels that I have chosen with the open question in mind. (The last essay on the exam is an open question that they answer using any book they studied. I want to be sure they are well prepared for whatever question they get.) In addition, they read one play and three novels that they choose.

Have you looked at McDaniel? I know kids who have gotten very nice merit aid packages there. In general, even your safeties should be colleges your child would be happy at. Our kids never applied to College Park or UMBC because we didn't want to be tempted by a full scholarship if we really didn't like the school. Their safeties were schools like Grove City. I have heard good things about St. Mary's and it's beautiful there!

I just did Wuthering Heights with my AP Lit students. One thing that struck me is what a great narrator Nelly Dean is. She is the one likable character in the book and she is actually sympathetic to all these crazy, evil people even while she recognizes how crazy and evil they are. Also -- it is a great book for discussing setting. Each of the three main settings -- Wuthering Heights, Thrushcross Grange, and the moor -- is symbolic. The moor is wild and unrestrained, like Heathcliff. Thrushcross Grange represents refined civilization and Cathy chooses it over Heathcliff but never really belongs there. I also like the way the book ends with the hope that Hareton, who has been abused by Heathcliff in the same way Heathcliff was abused by his father, and young Cathy may actually have a healthy relationship. In a recent thread, someone said that people usually like either Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre. That's true for me. I've reread Jane Eyre several times, hoping I could come to like it, but I've always hated it. I somehow really like Wuthering Heights, though!

No -- they still had a solid reading list; it just wasn't as oppressive as what I made my poor older kids suffer through! I'd list it as two courses: Medieval and Renaissance Literature History of the Middle Ages ..or whatever... I'd split the readings into history and lit and tell what they covered in each. That was just for ninth grade, though -- after that we did traditional AP classes because dh thought it would look better to colleges.

I started with Omnibus many, many years ago when it was just a reading list and I adjusted it for my family. First -- we all did the same subject every year. So when the older kids did the first year of Omnibus, we all did Greece and Rome. I did some of the readings as read-alouds. Also -- I also used audio books for the harder works. We have six kids and taught them in pairs and I got lighter and lighter on the reading list as we went. I chose the best/most important works to expose them to and let a lot go. I don't think my younger two are any worse off for reading a few select chapters of Herodotus instead of trudging through the whole book, you know? My older kids think it's greatly unfair. =) I also departed from Omnibus after the second year because I didn't like their reading list. I made my own list for the modern times following Veritas Press's explorers -1815/1815 to the present set up so the younger kids could study the same thing. From 10th grade on, we completely left Omnibus and did AP History classes.

This is my very favorite -- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/059069328X/sr=8-1/qid=1397920499/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=&qid=1397920499&seller=&sr=8-1 It seems to be out of print -- and I can't believe how much the new copies are going for. There are some cheap used copies though. These are poems about trucks and a few of them are really, really good. Now I can't wait to read them to my grandchildren!

We always had our kids take the SAT in middle school. You don't need to do it through a talent search; anyone can sign up.

Most recently -- The Book Thief -- when Liesel talks to Rudy's dad at the end. I saw the movie with a group of kids from a class I teach and I was relieved that they left that scene out of the movie. I was afraid I'd be a complete mess!

I agree! I lost a close friend suddenly at 17, and being close to his parents helped more than anything. His dad really pulled me through!

We tried to use authentic materials when possible, for example, we have all the Tintin books and movies in French. We also used some translated materials -- Disney movies and such. My youngest dd (15) told me recently that she's never seen Sound of Music or Wizard of Oz in English! We'd get materials in Europe when we took trips, or we'd order them through Amazon.de, etc. We have a dvd player hooked up to our computer with the region set for Europe. As far as dh and I, we listened to news, read the paper online, read and did grammar with the kids, and so on.

We did -- we started French and German in preschool. Dh speaks a little French and we both speak some German, but we were by no means fluent before we started teaching out kids. In elementary school, we just did LOTS of exposure -- videos, songs, audiobooks. If our kids watched a movie, it was in French or German. At middle school we started some writing and grammar. Our kids took APs in both languages early in high school and got 5s easily.

I have a large plastic container that I mix it in. It's a gallon jar that pickle relish or something came in. I pour in a 75 oz box of powdered detergent and 3/4 cup TSP, put on the top and shake it well. A friend of mine just puts the detergent in the dishwasher and adds a teaspoon of TSP to each load.

If anyone is interested in a graduate course for educators on implementing a project-based curriculum, check out this opportunity from National History Day: http://thevoiceofnhd.wordpress.com/

If anyone is interested in a graduate course for educators on implementing a project-based curriculum, check out this opportunity from National History Day: http://thevoiceofnhd.wordpress.com/

That's exactly the "regional spice" I was talking about!

I took jelly bellies once and they were a huge hit. I've also taken maple syrup packed in my luggage and a spice that is characteristic of our hometown.