College Board AP African American Studies logo

In the upcoming 2024-2025 school year, LT is set to offer a brand new course: Advanced Placement African American Studies. Newly out of pilot status, this college level course will be open to all junior and senior students hoping to fill an elective spot with a class covering aspects of identity, art, history, and literature. 

“The most important thing to know is that this is a class for every student,” Director of Equity and Belonging Jennifer Rowe said. “We’re really excited about [informing people about the class].”

While the last two years have only allowed a limited enrollment pilot status stage for this course, next school year marks the first open enrollment and official year, Rowe said. In its pilot stage, a small group of schools across the nation introduced the course to a select number of students. This was an approximate two year endeavor. LT now welcomes AP African American Studies for its first official year nationwide. 

In February 2023, rising LT junior and senior students will be eligible to request the course in their 2024-2025 class schedule. This class is a studies course, meaning it combines history, art,  and language arts opposed to a singular subject. It is classified as interdisciplinary and will count as an elective at LT. 

“What’s really cool is that students can select topics that interest them within [the curriculum],” Rowe said. “There are so many research opportunities for each student’s individual interests. In particular, there’s a big research project. Students select a topic that they want to research, and then synthesize.”

Students in the course will have individual and group research opportunities that suit their interests and passions. The curriculum covers a wide range of topics, from the history of African tribes, the slave trade, the Civil War, the Civil Rights movement, and all the way up to modern times, Director of Curriculum and Instruction Scott Eggerding said. The four AP themes consist of the following: migration and the African Diaspora; intersections of identity; creativity, expression, and the arts; and resistance and resilience. Each AP theme will be assessed throughout the course and on the final College Board AP exam. The three AP Skill Assessment Categories for both the exam and coursework are applying disciplinary knowledge, source analysis, and argumentation.

The department hopes to promote information and highlight this class for future students.

“The greatest benefit is the opportunity for students to learn about a very important and often overlooked history that our country as a whole has not fully understood or validated,” Eggerding said. “Studying the origins and impact of slavery has the potential of leading to a greater understanding of the many facets of what it means to be an American.”