Online for the 2025-2026 School Year
Teacher: Michael Munson
Email: mjmunson719@gmail.com
AP U.S. Government and Politics
Teacher: Mr. Michael Munson
Email: mjmunson719@gmail.com
Tuition: $700 for those who registered by July 1, and $750 beginning July 2.
Enrollment: Follow this link to enroll in AP U.S. GoPo 2025-26. If you are among the first 10 students to submit this form you will be automatically added to the class roster and receive an email verification of your status as an enrolled student in AP U.S. Government & Politics 2025-26. If your registration is 11th or later you will be informed that you have been added to the course waiting list according to the order in which your registration was received.
Who should take this course? Academically motivated high school students who are interested in learning more about the functioning of American government, democracy, and the political processes that influence the creation of public policies. Students should be willing to accept an average weekly workload of approximately 8 hours that include reading the textbook, assignments, assessments, and occasional collaboration with classmates on certain assignments, and participation in one weekly Zoom meeting.
Course Text and Additional Resources:
Required Text: Keeping the Republic: Power and Citizenship in American Politics. 9th edition (or later). CQ Press, 2019.
ISBN 10: 1544326033 ISBN 13: 9781544326030
Recommended Supplemental Text for review and exam practice: The Princeton Review: AP U.S. Government & Politics Premium, 2023 Edition
Other Resources that will be used frequently:
*Oyez.org – This online database provides succinct and accessible overviews for all Supreme Court cases.
*The National Constitution Center’s Interactive Constitution (https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution) – This online resource is an annotated U.S.Constitution that includes essays from multiple perspectives that frame the debates underlying key clauses and provisions of the U.S. Constitution. The National Constitution Center also has a blog that applies constitutional principles to current events.
Technology Requirements for the course:
*High-speed internet access
*Google account for email and joining the course on Google Classroom
*AP Classroom (you will receive an enrollment number and instructions in August)
*Zoom video from (for the live sessions--you only need the free version)
AP® U.S. Government and Politics Course Description:
AP U.S. Government and Politics is a college-level full-year course that prepares students for success on the AP® Exam (in early May 2025). AP GoPo will provide students with the political knowledge and reasoning skills that are the foundation of thoughtful and meaningful engagement in the processes of American politics and government. It is important to note that this course is a political science course that studies the interconnectedness of the different parts of the American political system and the behaviors and attitudes that shape this system. Throughout this course we will reference the Constitution to analyze competing narratives that have led to political motives and social movements that have influenced government actions.
AP® U.S. Government and Politics frames the acquisition of political knowledge and understanding within the “big ideas" regarding American government and the political process, students will learn to analyze current, and historical, political events using the same political reasoning used by professional political scientists.
Course Content and Big Ideas: Course content consists of the essential political knowledge that will focus on developing an enduring understanding and big ideas about American government and politics.
Big ideas that flow through the content of each unit of study include:
- Constitutionalism (CON)
- Liberty and Order (LOR)
- Civic Participation in a Representative Democracy (PRD)
- Competing Policy-Making Interests (PMI)
- Methods of Political Analysis (MPA)
Reasoning Processes: The reasoning processes are a style of thinking that facilitate connection-making and analysis in the pursuit of effectively demonstrating the disciplinary practices of political science. These reasoning processes form the cognitive bridge between the course content/big ideas and the disciplinary practices.
The course reasoning processes include:
- Definition/Classification: Demonstrating knowledge of course concepts
- Process: using evidence to explain how and why political processes influence government actions
- Causation: Explaining causes and effects of political principles, institutions, processes, and behaviors
- Comparison: Explaining similarities and differences among political principles, institutions, processes, and behaviors
Disciplinary Practices are the tasks students apply to course content using the reasoning processes above. Proficiency in these practices gives students the necessary skills to analyze political information in multiple formats and helps students develop accurate, thoughtful, and well-reasoned positions with supporting evidence regarding issues related to government structures, political narratives, citizen participation, and how policy outcomes are formulated and administered.
Disciplinary skills in this course include:
*Application of political concepts and processes in contextual scenarios
*Analysis of Supreme Court rulings applied to different scenarios
*Analysis and interpretation of quantitative data presented in tables, charts, graphs, maps, and infographics
*Analysis and interpretation of foundational documents and other text-based and visual sources
*Develop and support an argument in essay format
Note: All class coursework will focus on the acquisition of content and the application of these disciplinary practices and reasoning skills.
The Course will begin Wednesday August 20, 2025 with a live meeting via Zoom to introduce the Course, weekly Zoom meetings, Google Classroom, and a brief discussion to introduce U.S. Gov't. and Politics content.
The Course will end in May of 2026 with the AP Exam. The specific date of the exam is not yet available.
Breaks during the school year:
*Thanksgiving Break: Nov. 24 - Dec. 1, 2025
*Winter Break: Dec. 22, 2024 - Jan. 5, 2026
*Spring Break: April 1 - April 10, 2026
Course format:
Weekly Assignments: Assignments with due dates will be posted every Sunday (except during breaks) and appear in the Stream and Coursework Tabs on Google Classroom and on the Google Classroom calendar. Students are expected to complete all assignments in the assigned order, including readings, by the due dates indicated on Google Classroom. When necessary, extensions for assignment completion will be granted if they are requested in advance with a reasonable explanation.
Live Video Sessions via Zoom: There will be one required weekly Zoom Meeting on either Tuesday or Thursday that will be approximately 1 hour long. The specific day and time of the weekly meeting will be determined by class consensus through a series of surveys that will begin in August, prior to our intro meeting on August 20. The live meetings are an opportunity for interactive DISCUSSIONS covering course content and skills.
Course and Unit Structure in brief: The course strictly follows the Course and Exam Description of AP® U.S. Gov't. & Politics consists of 5 specific units shown below.
Unit 1: Foundations of American Government
Students will investigate the foundations of American democracy and government to understand the purpose and function of government as it navigates the balance between liberty and order. Students will learn foundational concepts such as state, nation, politics, and sovereignty and alternative ideas of democracy. They will gain an understanding of the philosophical principles behind the U.S. Constitution and American government while considering how these principles shape important constitutional applications including limited government, judicial review, popular sovereignty, federalism, checks and balances, separations of powers, limited government and popular sovereignty.
Unit 2: Interaction Among Branches of Government
Students will explore policy making process with a focus on the complexity of interaction between multiple government institutions. Students will explore issues and perspectives and apply their knowledge to expand their understanding of the creation and imposition of public policy. By analyzing the legislative, executive, and judicial powers of the national government students will acquire a complex and relevant understanding of the separation of powers and the system of checks and balances.
Unit 3: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights
Students will connect the founding principles of American government to the debates over the appropriate balance of liberty and order, noting how citizens and other groups have pursued policy solutions to protect the civil liberties and civil rights of all Americans, laying the foundation for later discussion of other ways in which citizens can participate in government. The Constitution, primarily through the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment protect the civil liberties and civil rights of citizens, though the extent of those protections and the need to protect the safety and general welfare of individuals has long been debated. Through social movements, legal challenges, and acts of Congress, citizens have attempted to restrict the government from unduly infringing on individual rights and from denying equal protection under the law.
Unit 4: American Political Ideologies and Beliefs
Connecting the application of political science methods to the development of social and economic policies that Americans support, advocate for, and adopt is foundational to understanding the ideologies of political parties and patterns of political participation. American political beliefs are shaped by founding ideals, core values, linkage institutions, and the changing demographics of citizens. These beliefs about government, politics, and the changing role in the political system influence the creation of public policies.
Unit 5: Political Participation
Students will come to understand the many ways that they can influence policy-makers and impact the decisions that will affect their daily lives.
The principle of rule by the people is an essential foundation of the American political system and requires that citizens engage and participate in the development of policy. Under the Constitution, governing is achieved directly through citizen participation, although there are institutions that inform, organize, and mobilize support to influence government and politics. These linkage institutions provide many venues for citizen influence on policy making.
Assessments and Assignments: The AP® U.S. Government and Politics Exam contains multiple choice questions (MCQs) and four types of free response questions (FRQs). The FRQ types are Concept Application, Quantitative Analysis, Supreme Court (SCOTUS) Comparison, and an Argument Essay. Each of these types of questions, and the political reasoning and disciplinary practices they require, are woven into course assignments so that students have a full year to consistently practice and develop the thinking and writing skills necessary for a successful AP® Exam experience. Unit exams and review assessments also incorporate the AP style of questioning and should be considered as direct practice for scoring well on the AP Exam.
Instructor Qualifications: Since 1992 Mr. Munson has taught multiple Advanced Placement courses Over the years my students have performed remarkably well on AP exams. The mean score of his students on the 2024 AP U.S. Gov't &b Politics exam was 4.8 with 80% of his students earning a score of 5. He is a licensed 7-12 Social Studies teacher with BA degrees in history and secondary education-social studies from Bemidji State University and has accumulated over 70 graduate credits in teaching social sciences.