Students are given an evaluative
essay exam as a pretest to evaluate the level of historical knowledge brought
into the classroom. This is really a "wake-up call" for the students to make them
aware that they actually know very little about early U.S. history and also to
alert them to the fact that this is going to be a no nonsense semester. The result
of the test was interesting. Several students told me that they had gone home
that night and told their parents that they were going to flunk history. Other
students related that they had contacted their previous history teachers, including
honors AP history, and told their teachers that they had not prepared them adequately
for college. The students did recover from this shock however and were very proud
of the progress that they made as measured by their final exam.