AP Seminar ELA – Will Higgins

This session AP Seminar for ELA – with Will Higgins is offered ONLINE during Week 2: June 22-25, 2026 

Meet your APSI Consultant for AP Seminar ELA, Will Higgins

After graduation from Rutgers University with a BA in Economics, a stint on Wall Street, and several years as a music teacher, Will Higgins returned to the graduate school at the College of New Jersey where he earned his MAT. He has been teaching since 1990, instructing world champion music groups, and teaching high school English at public schools in New Jersey and Massachusetts, where he currently resides. 

Will has extensive experience teaching AP English Language and Composition, serving as a reader for several years; teaching AP Literature and Composition; and teaching AP Seminar and AP Research since 2013 at Dartmouth High School in Dartmouth, MA. 

He has been an AP Seminar reader for many years and has worked with the College Board as an AP Consultant in AP Seminar since 2015. In addition, Will has been a part-time lecturer in First Year English at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth for over 20 years.

APSI Course Description

This four-day AP Seminar ELA training invites educators to dive into the heart of the AP Capstone Program through the QUEST framework: Question and Explore, Understand and Analyze, Evaluate Multiple Perspectives, Synthesize Ideas, and Team, Transform, and Transmit. Participants will experience how each stage strengthens students’ critical thinking, collaboration, and communication skills while learning practical ways to connect inquiry and research with their existing state English Language Arts standards.

Throughout the week, educators will explore how to align novel studies, poetry, and other literary units with the AP Seminar curricular framework to deepen analytical reading, argumentation, and synthesis. Each day blends interactive model lessons, collaborative discussions, and guided planning focused on pacing, syllabus development, and lesson design. Participants will also gain hands-on experience using College Board resources, including AP Classroom, the Digital Portfolio, and the teacher community, to support effective instruction.

The APSI session provides full preparation for all AP Seminar assessments: Performance Tasks 1 and 2 and the End-of-Course Exam. Teachers will unpack student samples, explore scoring rubrics, and practice scaffolding strategies for research, writing, and presentation. By the end of the week, participants leave inspired and equipped with classroom-tested approaches and adaptable materials that bridge ELA content and AP Seminar skills.

Will Higgins’s APSI in AP Seminar and AP Seminar for ELA will prepare new and experienced teachers to teach their students in the fall, and workshop participants will obtain many dynamic and effective AP Seminar classroom tools. APSI participants will work through the same activities and instructional tools that they will be using with their own students in the fall, and this APSI will give them with the experience and knowledge necessary to fully prepare their students for the two performance tasks and end of course exam. Many past participants have positively rated the collegiality and effectiveness of his APSIs, whether in-person or online. Teachers taking AP Seminar with ELA will also intensively discuss how English Language Arts can be taught with and through AP Seminar. All participants will leave the APSI having planned their AP Seminar school calendar for the year and will have begun work on the AP Seminar syllabus.

2026 WaltonAPSI / AP Seminar ELA / Will Higgins