Hello AP Teachers!
I know for some of us the summer just began, but we are back on August 1st with students and I am taking a look at last year's first few weeks. I really want to change up my AP Themes intro. We use SPICE, but I am not opposed to trying something else. Does anyone do something they love when teaching AP Themes? Looking for some new inspiration!
Jessica Lindenmeier I do a day on themes using the PIECES acronym, mainly because we start school on a Wednesday so this allows me to stall because its usually my Friday lesson 
I make students do their first homework assignment the night before by reading and marking up this reading: https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/PDFs/AP-World-History/Unit1/AP-Themes-and-the-Course-Narrative?Id=3034&share=link
They then come into class, turn in their HW (because we always do HW collection on Friday), and then we watch the themes video: https://www.oerproject.com/OER-Materials/OER-Media/PDFs/AP-World-History/Unit1/AP-Themes-and-the-Course-Narrative?Id=3034&share=link just to reinforce things.
My students sit in pairs so I have one person in the pair the Barkus Aurelius story and the other one the Peter the Pup story. Each student marks up their story for the themes and explains to the other person how the themes show up in their story.
I also give them this handout which I think helps explain the PIECES categories better: https://brownsburgk12in-my.sharepoint.com/:b:/g/personal/mnowotarski_brownsburg_k12_in_us/EbgZ1rE95HtCs0mS2l2KfPUBri6WS-6CFkmLanRMSa-jNg?e=PUgSl7 I have no idea where I got it from , but it's not mine originally. Throughout the year, on each homework assignment, I have them write PIECES as part of their heading and circle the themes for that particular assignment. Not sure if it helps them, but it makes me feel better that we are consistently hitting the themes.
Donnetta Elsasser Here is a copy of my SPICE chart. Melissa shared her PIECES one. I think I like the idea of PIECES better for this year because of its additional theme.
There's really no difference between the two acronyms. AP World just loves acronyms . SPICE fit with the older course description. PIECES fits better with this because they specifically added innovation/technology as a theme when the course switched to 1200. Some people stuck with SPICE and made it into SPICE - T ( a nod to Mr. T or Ice-T the rapper )
Jessica Lindenmeier I don't know if this has always existed, and I've just now noticed, or maybe it's new. However, there's a topics button on the top bar with the courses. When you press on it, you get a list of items that deal with that topics from all courses. This might be helpful to the themes idea as well.
Rachel Phillips Kathy Hays is this something new or have I really just not noticed it before?
