Advanced Placement English and First-Year Composition : An Analysis Using Activity Theory with Implications for Transfer

Abstract

A growing trend in secondary and higher education today is students' ability to earn college credit while still in high school. Currently, there are four main ways for students to earn this early credit: the Advanced Placement (AP) Program, an International Baccalaureate (IB) diploma, dual enrollment, or early college. The AP Program, particularly the AP English program, is the focus of this research project, for successful scores, a three, four, or five on a five point scale, on either AP English exam translates to advanced credit and exemption from first-year composition course(s) in college. The purpose of this qualitative, descriptive research project is to determine whether or not an AP English course taken in high school functions like a first-year composition course in college and to locate what, if anything, about writing transfers. In order to examine both contexts, the project utilizes activity theory as its theoretical frame to uncover the ways in which both academic systems operate and transfer theory to determine what articulates across these spaces. This project utilized survey data and observation material from both courses taken over the course of a semester, as well as textual information provided by the AP Program's website in order to triangulate the findings and make comparisons across systems. The findings suggest that while these two systems share some similar activities, very little seems to transfer.