U.S. Government and Politics

This APSI course will include a discussion on each section of the Course and Exam Description (CED) to make connections to the Curricular Requirements along with developing a semester or yearlong instructional plan that incorporates all units, topics and skills of the course as referenced in the CED. It will include curriculum adjustments and instructional strategies that will help to foster diversity & inclusion and equity & access to recruit and retain underrepresented students and identify classroom-level policies and practices that enhance or restrict student opportunities to participate in AP programs. The course will discuss examples of how AP Classroom can be utilized to develop each skill/practice using example student data provided by the College Board and develop lesson plans that reinforce topic and skill connections. It will identify and explain various strategies & pedagogical tools, including AP classroom, that teachers can incorporate in their lesson plans to teach the content and skills in the CED. Lastly, the course will help teachers determine how to leverage the data in AP Classroom to practice interpreting data within the Instructional Planning Report to identify student strengths and weaknesses and reflect on implications for instruction.

Instructor: Lynnette Russo

Lynnette Russo currently teaches in Fairfax County, Virginia. She has been teaching social studies for 26 years and AP U.S. Government and Politics for 11 years. In addition, Lynnette teaches a college preparation course called AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) and a Current Affairs/Law in Action elective this school year. She has a B.A. in political science from LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY and a M.Ed. in Secondary Education from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Lynnette is a National Board Certified teacher in Social Studies-History Adolescents and Young Adulthood. She has a passion for developing and improving herself as a teacher as well as helping others to do the same. During her tenure she has served as lead mentor to her school coordinating mentors for novice teachers and teachers new to the school. She served as the collaborative learning team leader for the government team for many years as well. For Fairfax County Public Schools, she has led various workshops, including Street Law, the DBQ project, and Dinah Zike’s foldables. Lynnette has been an AP exam reader since 2017, vastly improving her ability to prepare students for FRQ writing on the AP U.S. Government exam.

She has traveled to, and participated in workshops around the world, including to Azerbaijan and Macedonia with Street Law’s Deliberating in a Democracy program, South Korea with the Korea Foundation, Germany with Fulbright, and New Orleans and Hawaii with the World War II museum. Lynnette looks forward to meeting new and experienced AP U.S. Government teachers and helping them through their preparation and delivery of the course.