The Course

Pre-AP Dance

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Course Overview

Pre-AP Dance emphasizes the process of creating, rehearsing, and refining movement, in addition to highlighting culminating performances. Assessments are designed to be relevant and accessible, evaluating a range of skills, habits, and/or dispositions that are central to dance learning, including experimentation, reflection, and embodied decision making. 

The Pre-AP approach to dance instruction positions rehearsal and movement exploration as essential spaces for students to test ideas, make choreographic choices, and revise their work in response to feedback. Lessons include recommendations for adapting instruction to a variety of settings, making use of available resources already present in your school.

Arts Areas of Focus

The areas of focus are reasoning skills that provide vertical alignment within a discipline, giving students the opportunity to develop and strengthen these skills as they progress through subsequent Pre-AP courses and into advanced coursework.

  • Analysis and interpretation
  • Peer-to-peer dialogue
  • Experimentation
  • Reflective writing

Course Resources

Download

Pre-AP Dance Course Guide

This is the core document for Pre-AP Dance. It includes the course framework, offers a program overview, and describes the instructional approach and assessments.

  • PDF
  • 1.41 MB

Downloads

Pre-AP Visual and Performing Arts State Standards Crosswalks

Back mapped from AP course expectations, the Pre-AP course framework aligns with many state standards. These documents detail alignment coverage of the Pre-AP course framework and state standards to support teachers in planning their course. When designing their courses, teachers should consider the Pre-AP framework as well as state and local requirements.

Downloads

Pre-AP Visual and Performing Arts State Standards Alignment Summaries

The Pre-AP course framework is back mapped from AP course expectations and aligns with many state standards. These documents summarize the alignments to the state standards.

Course Content

Pre-AP Dance has three modules. Review their key topics and the recommended length for each module:

  • Module 1: Sources (~25 class periods)
  • Module 2: Structures (~25 class periods)
  • Module 3: Iteration (~25 class periods)

These big ideas are integrated throughout all modules of each arts course:

  • Observe and interpret
  • Practice and experiment
  • Research and make
  • Reflect and evaluate
  • Revise and share

Each module contains:

  • Model lessons: Student and teacher resources that demonstrate how to translate the course framework, shared principles, and areas of focus into daily instruction.
  • Performance-based assessments: Arising from authentic work students complete within a module of study, the assessments are designed to evaluate an entire range of abilities: technical skill development, purposeful refinement and revision, and the student’s ability to reflect upon and communicate about their work.

Pre-AP Course Audit

Before implementing a Pre-AP course, teachers need to complete Pre-AP Course Audit. This process is required to: 

  • Grant teachers access to Pre-AP Classroom, including instructional materials, professional learning, and assessment tools 
  • Authorize the school to use "Pre-AP" in its course names 
  • Include the school in Pre-AP Course Ledger 

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Start Pre-AP Course Audit

Find more information about getting your course authorized through Pre-AP Course Audit.

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Search the AP Course Ledger

The AP Course Ledger lists secondary school courses offered worldwide that are authorized to include either AP or Pre-AP designation when listed on students' transcripts.