"Ahhh, the smell of AP exam booklets in the morning....."

 

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    It's that time again. This week, the first week of June, a thousand or so Advanced Placement high school teachers and college history professors will be in downtown Tampa, Florida at the Tampa Convention Center, spending a week reading AP US History exam essays and short answer responses and awarding scores that may translate into college credits for the over 500,000 high school students around the world that take the AP US History exam each year in early May. Tampa is one of several sites that host AP readers of various subjects; other sites include Kansas City, Cincinatti, and Louisville.

(Tampa Convention Center, where the deed is done.)

    History teachers and professors from all over the US will start arriving in Tampa on May 31, and they will find their hotel rooms, meet up with new roommates or old friends, and find their reading assignment. Over the next week, they will report to their assigned reading room and their assigned table. More introductions as readers meet their table leader and tablemates; usually there are 8 table members. Each table is assigned a specific prompt to score. The table leader begins going through some training exercises, calibrating, it's called. The readers read some sample responses along with scoring commentaries provided by a few table leaders and question experts and creators. The point is to get the readers on the same page, so to speak, to build a consistency so that reading scores are less arbitrary, less subjective. The hope is that different readers will be able to score the same responses with close to the same score.

    Scoring happens over the next 7 days, from 9 AM to 5 PM. Readers move at their own pace, and table leaders "backread" often, that is, read essays and scores that tablemates have scored to make sure the scores are consistent. These are long days, with readers reading hundreds of responses a day. To break things up, there are stretch breaks and a lunch break. Some tables create games to play, and there's usually lots and lots of candy available. It is a long day. 

    In the evenings, there are sometimes best practices presentations, vendor tables, and maybe authors doing book talks. People also find others with similar interests or hobbies, so there may be groups of runners, walkers, musicians, etc, meeting up. Others check out restaurants. Still others just chill in their rooms, maybe reading, or, for a misfortunate few, even doing schoolwork (shudders).  

    I was fortunate to be a reader for several years. I had put off applying to be a reader for years, because I couldn't imagine reading hundreds of essays a day. Grading my own classes' essays was an arduous chore that I sometimes put off for too long.  However, I realized that readers were correct when they told me that I should go. It is a hard week, but it came with benefits. It made me a better AP teacher because I saw how the "sausage is made" so to speak, and I enjoyed meeting new people, and gaining different perspectives. I've always said that the best professional learning for teachers is always just getting teachers together to talk and to share.

    So, to my friends and roommate who are returning to Tampa this week: Good luck, have a great time. I'll miss you (but I live only a half-hour away now.....)

Take a Walk!

     When you are in a new city, and you're a history buff, how do you get your history? At ground level, of course. Take a walking tour; learn history, meet new people, and get some exercise, all at the same time.

    Walking tours can be found in every city. How do you find one? Google it. Check to see if the city has a visitors bureau location or webpage. Discount sites like Groupon, Local Flavor, and Travelzoo also list tours. Tripadvisor is a great source, too. If you're staying in an Airbnb, you can find experiences listed. If you're staying in a hotel, ask the concierge or look for brochures in the lobby. Also check with local museums. The Tampa Bay History Center runs several walking tours, and we've done two so far.

    My wife and I love doing walking history tours and walking food tours in cities that we visit. On a walking tour, you're part of a small group of interested and interesting people, and you're guided by a person who is excited to share his or her town's history with you.  On a food tour, you have the added benefit of tasting some great food at several restaurant stops along the way. 

    Tours are usually 2-3 hours long, easy walking, with lots of steps. Sometimes your guide might be in costume or in character, like the great Freedom Trail tour we took in Boston, when we had "Prince Hall" leading the way. Sometimes you just get an interesting local character, like Larry from Holy City Tours in Charleston, who told us all about the "naughty women" of Charleston's history.

Larry, Charleston                                      Prince Hall, Boston

    Walking tours are the only way you can get a close-up look at architectural details and historical markers you would probably miss otherwise. These pictures are from our most recent walking tours in Tampa, a general history tour and a Black history tour.  They were both very fun and educational. Did you know, for example, that Tampa Florida was called the Harlem of the South because of the thriving Black business and arts community? Tampa was a major stop on the "chitlin' circuit", the network of theaters where Black performers played for enthusiastic Black audiences. Greats like Ray Charles, Ella Fitzgerald, and numerous Jazz greats made regular trips through Tampa. On the general history tour, we learned that Tampa was a hotbed of organized crime activity. ( So much so that I think the Tampa Bay History Center should create a walking tour dedicated to organized crime.)

   We have done some great food tours on our travels, and I'm already looking at a few offerings for future tours. In Ybor City (old Tampa), we had the best Cuban sandwich ever and saw cigars being made by hand like they were made there over a hundred years ago. In Philadelphia, we sampled a great Philly cheese steak (from a mom and pop neighborhood place, not one of the tourist traps), and we found out what a tomato pie was (basically a cheese pizza, sorry Philadelphians).

    
    If you're not a foodie, or even if you're not a huge history buff, there is probably a walking tour in every city that will strike your fancy. There are ghost tours, murder tours, scandal tours, etc. Go ahead and check it out. I bet your own city has a tour or two, and you can learn some neat local history, and when you travel, look for tours in your destination city.  They're fun and educational, and they give you great ideas for places to explore and places to eat at on your own.

Cracker Country

     Do you know how the phrases Florida Cracker or Georgia Cracker came into being?  The phrases refer to early Georgia and Florida pioneers who started rounding up and herding the cattle that were descended from the first cattle brought to North America by the Spaniards in the 1500s and 1600s. Over time, some cattle escaped or were abandoned, and they bore many generations of feral cattle. When white settlers moved into Georgia and Florida, they re-domesticated the cattle. By the 1800s, these men were called cow hunters, because they had to venture into unsettled land to catch the cattle. They were also called Crackers because of the sound made by one of their most often used herding tools, the bullwhip.     

    Today, at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa, there is a great living history experience called Cracker Country.  ( http://www.crackercountry.org/ )  Cracker Country is a rural Florida living history museum, founded with the purpose of preserving Florida's rural heritage.  Its mission, first and foremost is education, so it is not open to public everyday. During the normal school year, it is open for school field trips and for homeschoolers, and it is open to the public for the duration of the Florida State Fair in February.  There are also a few weekend and evening programs that are open to the general public during the year.

        Like other historic villages, structures have been moved to Cracker Country from all over Florida, including a train depot, a school, a church, a couple of farm houses, and the childhood home of a former Florida governor. Docents and living history interpreters are on hand to tell the history of each structure and to answer questions. You can watch as interpreters work metal in the blacksmith shop, weave, make candles, make butter, wash laundry, or perform other activities of farm life in rural 1890s Florida.  

    Every day, more and more people move to Florida, many from urban areas in the North. Cracker Country is more necessary every day to ensure that this important part of Florida history is not forgotten.