Like many teachers in our school, the passionate and hardworking Mr. Meyerowitz often spends the end of every school year tripping all over himself to get prospective sophomores to take his Colonial and Post-colonial History (CoPoco) course (and LitCrit, but honestly, who cares about that one?) in junior year. His competition? AP Euro and AP World. Often, he hires (a.k.a bribes with…promises of future benefits) multiple students from our course to create a video advertising the class to their peers. When I viewed the delightful video, I thought to myself: if Mr. Meyerowitz is so desperate to get attention for his course, why don’t I help him out a little? (A bribe, if you will!) So here I am, telling you all the reasons why, if you have the opportunity one day, it would be in your best interest to take CoPoco.
The Classroom Experience
Like any traditional history class, CoPoco is a course that requires note-taking. Extensive note-taking. But hey, if you were taking AP Euro or World, the note-taking is just as bad, if not worse! In fact, my Euro notebook (yes, I take two history courses because I’m insane) is already completely used up, whereas my CoPoco notebook still has nearly a third of its pages remaining! So clearly, as this rock-hard evidence demonstrates, CoPoco is the least note-heavy of the three history courses.
Furthermore, unlike other history classes, CoPoco doesn’t have any tests. Like, literally zero. So if you don’t feel like reviewing, you can take notes in class and never look at them again! Your grade will not suffer for it!
Um…If your name is Mr. Meyerowitz, please skip past this next sentence:
I’ll admit that I haven’t reviewed the CoPoco notes I’ve taken. Don’t get me wrong! The content is fascinating, and I’m learning a lot. But there are lots of other things I could be reading instead, and there are no tests I have to cram for!
But CoPoco isn’t just easier in regard to note-taking. If you truly love history, the course content is also far more expansive than the AP alternative. You get to see global history from the perspective of places like Africa, Asia, and the Americas, rather than just from Europe or America. Furthermore, the content of the course (all designed by Tsar Meyerowitz himself) is rigorously fact-checked and constantly updated. You see, our glorious Supreme Leader Kim Jong Meyerowitz takes great pride in the slides he creates. Once, I got the rare honor of looking at what he was doing on his computer (because he accidentally kept the projector on without freezing it—shocker: history teachers aren’t great with tech). I saw him editing the slides that we just went over, so next year’s students will have a better lecture than we did. Meyerowitz’s class will keep getting better year on year, and the content will get more sophisticated. So the younger you are now, the better CoPoco will be when you inevitably choose to take it!
Homework
Close Readings! Yes, those are the only pieces of homework you will get on a regular basis. Hopefully, they don’t instill as much fear into you as the words DBQ or LEQ, because they’re not nearly as scary. You see, every week or so, Mr. Meyerowitz asks that we read a text from our “Course Reader” and write a quick, 300-500-word analysis on it. WAIT! Don’t leave! It’s honestly not that bad, and it’s considerably better than the alternative. In both AP Euro and AP World, you have to write 11 essays throughout the year, each one between 1,000 and 1300 words. There are 30 Close Readings in CoPoco, so the class essentially gives you the same length of essays in a larger number of assignments. Furthermore, while Close Readings are the only consistent homework in CoPoco, both Euro and World require weekly SAQ and LEQ practices that almost always run above 200 words on top of the essays themselves. So, if you hate writing essays, CoPoco is the right path to go down!
Furthermore, Close Readings give you so much more leeway regarding what you can write! For Euro or World essays, at least, if you’re not within the word count, -1! If you don’t underline all your topic and concluding sentences, -1! Don’t cite the textbook 9 times? -1 for each time you fall short! Don’t use three primary sources or six key terms from the textbook? -1! And that’s not even including the draconian rubric for soundness of argumentation and grammar! By contrast, I’ve written CoPoco essays while barely able to see straight (in my defense, it was midnight, and I don’t usually stay up that late) and have still received full credit. Of course, I’m not telling you that you can do well without trying, because Ayatollah Meyerowitz isn’t just going to give out free 20/20s. However, if you read the text, talk about it in your Close Reading, and say something interesting, you’re basically guaranteed full credit on every assignment!
Projects
I’m not going to sugarcoat it: CoPoco is a project-centered course. That fact alone turns off a lot of prospective students. Indeed, I was almost one of them. But today, projects are not the terror they once were, and are probably some of the most rewarding endeavors I’ve undertaken in high school!
To spice up this article a bit (not because this article is boring or anything…just cause), I’ve decided to do a “choose your own adventure!” Here are your two options: if you are one of the two students who love history, pick path 1! If you are literally anyone else, pick path 2!
Path 1: The Place for History Addicts
Projects are the perfect place to show off your history skills! Each trimester, you conduct research on a specific area of history of your choice and make a project. For the first trimester, your goal is to explain the goals and effects of European colonialism across the globe. If you love research, this is the perfect opportunity. You are required to find only seven sources: two from the internet and five from academic journals or the San Jose Public Library. The vast quantity of sources in that library is truly astounding, and many of the dusty old volumes haven’t been opened in decades. I still remember pulling a book on Afghanistan from the shelf that hadn’t been touched since 1978!
By the way, the T1 project will be in groups, so it also helps you a bunch with teamwork!
That experience gave me an incredible summer program application!
The T2 research experience is even more exciting and incredible. Using thirty or more sources of any kind, create a podcast, exhibit, documentary, paper, performance, etc., individually or in a group. If you love art, the exhibit is the perfect place to show it! If you love video editing, try the documentary or podcast! If you’re just a boring, lame history major like me, go for the paper! Whatever you choose, you’ll create something you are truly proud of! I know my group and I did!
Path 2: The Place for Everyone Else
OK, you guys wanna get into a good college, right? Perfect! Projects are the best way to show Caltech or MIT (the only two schools you STEM nerds have any interest in) that you can innovate and conduct research beyond the mundane requirements of the classroom, and beyond your STEM courses. It is also how Mr. Meyerowitz will determine who in his class is truly creative, conscientious, and hard-working, or in other words, worth writing a recommendation letter for.
And let me tell you: Mr. Meyerowitz’s recommendations are some of the best in the entire school. But to get one from him is a privilege, not a right. If you think you’re up to it, CoPoco is the place for you to be!
I’m not saying that the other history courses are bad, nor am I criticizing their teachers in any way. Indeed, AP Euro was an amazing experience, and I would proudly recommend it to any student who asks me in the hallways. But if you’re looking for something out of the ordinary for your junior year history experience; if you’re looking for a place to be creative and show off all you’ve learned in high school; if you’re looking for a teacher who will write those who impress him an unbeatable rec letter, CoPoco is the class for you!