I’ve said this many, many times and will continue to repeat it: good writing is good writing regardless of how it’s assessed. These are reminders and strategies that have helped my students become better writers: Frequently share sentences you like and why you like them. Have students emulate these sentences in your own writing. We should be encouraging and modeling both reading as readers and reading as writers to our students. These beautiful sentences are posted in my classroom; keep your students surrounds by words and let the words do their work! Review transitions before writing. I got this idea from Sarah Brown Wessling and use it yearly. Before we write (since I teach AP Lit, we usually do this before a timed essay), we go around the room and each student shares a transition word followed by something to remember while writing. For example, I’ll start us off by saying, “Use short quotes rather than ... KEEP READING

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This is how things go in E225: we hit the ground running in the fall unpacking independent and choice novels, exploring poems and writing poetry blogs about living poets, and experimenting with the craft of writing. Then sometime around February a student will say, “Should we be practicing multiple choice?” and I am snapped out of Barber High School Book Club to the reality of the AP exam. Multiple choice practice can be dry and routine, and while I’m a believer that sometimes we (I include myself in this) need to roll up our sleeves and do the work, the work can be both fun and productive. Here are some engaging ways to keep students moving forward in developing skills for successful multiple choice (and more importantly successful reading). Activity 1 – Multiple Choice Gamification (Matt Brisbin) Choose a full-length multiple choice exam and divide it by passages. Group students in threes or fours and ... KEEP READING

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This post is written by Adrian Nester who put some thoughts on paper after the pilot reading. I have added a few ideas which are in italics and a teaching point for each path. Before launching into this, I want this sophisticated point (haha) to guide your approach to Row C in the classroom: Do not worry about the sophistication point. Whether they get it or not is a non-issue to me. Of course I want them to do well on the exam and want to prepare them as best as I can, but I will not let myself stress out about it. Nor should you. Teach your students to write essays that explore tensions and complexities within a text, interpret a text within broader contexts, accounts for alternative interpretations, and uses a vivid and persuasive style. If we are teaching these things, our students will not only be prepared for the exam but will ... KEEP READING

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A major concern for my students going into the AP exam is confidence – especially with multiple choice. Even students who generally do well on practice sets tend to self-doubt and second guess themselves, so this time of year I want to do what I can to build confidence. My friend Lisa Boyd always says (and so I now also say), “You are taking the test; don’t let the test take you.” This empowers students that they do have some control over how they approach the exam and work through it. The following slides are ones that Lisa and I have used in training. The first three are hers; the last four, mine. As always, use what you can. Lisa Boyd teaches AP Lit and Seminar at Luella High School in Locust Grove, GA; she is also an experienced AP Lang teacher. She serves as department chair, a College Board AP Advocate, NMSI consultant, and ... KEEP READING

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I was in the classroom for two days this past week – Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday I had a doctor appointment (get those skin checks, friends) and was in DC the rest of the week helping our son and his wife move. WOW – so much has changed since I walked out of the classroom on Tuesday! I obviously knew that we would most likely close at some point, but things have moved at lightening speed. I put out a call to our community to share resources and am included both email and comment responses that I received. I anticipate that I’ll be sharing more posts like this over the next few weeks. We have a workday tomorrow which is when I’ll get my online act together (I chose to be fully present with our family last week which meant I was fully absent from school). We had just finished Act II of Othello and ... KEEP READING

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Before we launch into today’s post, I would like for you to stop what you’re doing and take a deep breath. No really, stop and breathe. Now do it for a second time. And take a final cleansing breath. Release all of the stress, negativity, and toxic energy in your body and fill your lungs with  clean air and fresh energy.  I find myself doing this several times each day; otherwise, I get overwhelmed. And in doing this I have returned to a philosophy that has guided my teaching for years: Less is More.  For me, I do not plan to introduce a lot of new material, bombard students with lots of technology (even though our current circumstances will force us to experiment with different tech), or pressure myself to keep up with the teachers on social media who are “crushing it” during this transition. I do plan to continue giving a REASONABLE amount of ... KEEP READING

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Julie Adams shared this lesson a few days, and I think it translates perfectly to an online activity for students. Enjoy! Just a few days ago when we were still in school, I was searching for ways to give my students the practice and feel of exam day without creating an enormous amount of paperwork. I also wanted to expose students to a larger volume of prose passages without generating a complete essay for each passage. It just so happened that a few hours earlier I had an interesting conversation with some friends about a running concept called “speed work.” Here’s what it means and how it relates the AP Literature classroom: (Graff Template PDF) First, the term “speed work” is often used by runners who are preparing for a marathon. Marathoners schedule certain days of practice that are dedicated to running for speed rather than their typical distance running. For example, a runner who ... KEEP READING

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Thanks to Matt Brisbin for this step by step guide to facilitating online discussions! (I’m having trouble with the author settings on here and can’t take my name off and put his on, but this is his post. I’ll figure this glitch out after the pandemic.) It’s hard to believe that it has already been nine days since I’ve last seen my students face to face (10 for my B day classes). The time away and the much slower pace of life that we’ve all experienced has given me some much needed time to reflect on how this pandemic will start to shape the work we do as educators. Yesterday I stumbled upon this beautiful poem written by Father Richard Hendrick, a Capuchin Franciscan brother in Ireland, in response to the pandemic. If you haven’t read it yet, stop now and take a look.  The faith he has in humanity to not only find connection, ... KEEP READING

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Starting tomorrow, Wednesday, March 25th, students and teachers will have access to live AP review courses. Carlos Escobar and I will be leading the AP Literature reviews. I can honestly say this is one of the greatest privileges and most daunting tasks in my career (did you catch the complexity in my feelings?!?!?!). We, like all of the other AP Lit teachers, will not know the exact exam question until April 3rd, so we are creating content without a specific end in mind. However, the more Carlos and I spoke (which by the way was for the first time this past weekend), we realized what our task would be: provide students opportunities to read closely, think critically, and write analytically. As long as students are doing these things on a regular basis, they will be able to approach the exam confidently.  Our goal is for these lessons to be a resource. They in no way ... KEEP READING

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I give this handout to my students at the beginning of the year; it includes questions to ask and writing stems for different elements of literature. If your students are like mine, moving them from identifying devices and different elements to explaining how these function within a text is challenging and often a new concept. These questions, some from Digging into Literature by Wolfe and Wilder, help students think about how to use specific devices and elements to dive deeper into a text. The writing stems were created to serve as “training wheels” for students who needed a little extra support as they begin writing literary analysis pieces. After reading for the Zenobia question, Adrian Nester created Struggling with Zenobia Graphic Organizer and Questions which works well for online and/or independent learning. This video is full of great reminders for Q2. Here’s a link to Melissa Smith’s Choice Board which I will be adapting and using after break. ... KEEP READING

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I was jolted out of spring break mode today when I looked at my calendar and realize I only have 11 classes with my students before the exam. I tell my class at the beginning of the year that this class is not at all about the exam and this class is all about the exam and we will live in that dichotomy all year. And while we don’t talk about the exam hardly at all first semester, it’s time to focus on the exam!! Here are notes from this week. I wish we could download our entire presentation, but at this point that’s not an option. After all of this is over, I will go back, rework presentations enough so I can post, and organize it all. I’m also including my boot camp notes. As always, make a copy and use what you can. All of these are ideas and resources I’ve collected from ... KEEP READING

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Hello, friends! I typically post videos from Q1, Q2, and Q3 readers this time of year along with a video on multiple choice strategies. However, since we’re only focusing on prose analysis now, I decided to triple up and share these three videos from Q2 readers last year. Thanks to (in alphabetical order) Julie Adams, Matt Brisbin, and Melissa Smith for making these.

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The time between spring break and the exam is my favorite time in the classroom. I typically taper off instruction so my students are fresh on exam day, and we spend a lot of time looking back and looking forward. The first day after break I had students an piece of timed writing paper and listen to them moan and groan about writing then tell them their timed writing is a letter to their future self which I will mail (sometimes I have to explain this process) in five year. We watch famous commencement addresses, give paper plate awards, and one of the things my classroom is most known for – post college acceptance letters, military commitments, career paths, and gap year plans. Here’s what a typical end of the year looks like . . . But now we don’t share a physical space, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to ... KEEP READING

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What a wild and crazy year. This year, probably more than ever, seniors are looking for closure and will enjoy an opportunity to think about something other than writing a prose essay. Here are four activities from teachers in our AP Lit community that will keep students engaged after the exam. End of Year Reflection – Elizabeth Chatwell All of our AP Lit students are surely tired of reading, analyzing, and writing. So this project asks them to audio/video record themselves reflecting on the year. This may need to start as a beginning of the year project that culminates in an end-of-year reflection. But I am sure it could be tweaked.  My co-teacher, Angela Bien, and I ask our students to keep a reflective blog (an e-Portfolio created using Google Sites) of their work throughout the year. After each project, presentation, and essay, we ask them to upload their work to their Site and then ... KEEP READING

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Summer work. Some schools require it; other schools forbid it. Some teacher assign a whole class novel while others offer choice. Some assignments include writing components while others do not. The reality is there is no right or wrong way to do summer work. Each AP program has a different type of student and culture, and summer work is a reflection of that. Here are three approaches to summer work: Summer Assignment 1 – Sarah Carter Conklin, Bridgman, MI I have assigned summer reading since I began teaching AP English Literature in 2009. At the time I started teaching AP, the students at my school had limited exposure to major literary works. The sophomore level course was a public speaking/beginning composition hybrid where they read no major works. They had two novels and a play (The Great Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God, and The Crucible) during junior year and I felt summer reading was ... KEEP READING

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“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” – Maya Angelou Here are some resources to help us know better so we can do better. What I do know is we do not need a lesson or unit on race; these conversations permeate everything we do in our classrooms. Honestly, some of us (three fingers pointing back at me) need to stop doing for a while and take time to listen – really listen to those who are hurting. I have a lot of room to grow here but am committed to take time to ask questions, accept feedback, and grow in my views concerning race. These sites/articles are ones that I’ve personally read; I’m sure there are so many more. If you have others that need to be added, please post in the comment section. I am redesigning this website over the summer and will house all of ... KEEP READING

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Today and tomorrow I will be posting reflections from several different readers who participated in the 2020 reading. These reflections will focus on the writing and teaching application and not the scoring process itself. If you were a reader and would like to add an observation, send it my way. Roy Smith, Round Rock, TX – For this year’s AP Literature and Composition Reading, I scored the excerpt from Jennifer Egan’s Novel Look At Me.  I was impressed that students were able to read, write, and think critically at a high level after enduring such a disruptive end of their senior year. Most students earned the Row A by writing defensible thesis statements as to “Moose’s complex state of mind.” Fewer students established sophisticated lines of reasoning making this a focus area next year. Row B (evidence and commentary) is where my focus was this year and will continue to be next year. Students did ... KEEP READING

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Jim Wickes, Dalton, GA – During this year’s Reading, I had the pleasure of reading essays on an excerpt from a short story from 1895, Kate Chopin’s “Her Letters”, written about an unnamed female protagonist who struggles with the moral conflict and the physical act involved in burning letters from a former love interest.  I felt this was a really accessible passage for students as the complexity of the situation wasn’t really difficult to find, but as in years past, students had a difficult time in demonstrating their understanding of how Chopin used literary devices to develop the complexity of the situation.  For example, almost all students recognized the significance of the setting, the fact that it was raining outside juxtaposed against the warmth of the fire, but they didn’t necessarily pick up on how this juxtaposition served as a metaphor for how the narrator felt, the contrast between the stillness of the rain reflecting ... KEEP READING

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Virtual. Hybrid. Face to face. All of the above. School looks different for everyone this year. The one thing that seems to be consistent between all of us though: a flood of ever-changing information. Most days during the first week I felt like I was bouncing back and forth between these two GIFs.  Except when I was “in class” then the crazy seemed to stop and even though class over Zoom is far from normal, I metaphorically closed the door to Room E225, and things felt somewhat normal for 75 minutes.  Here’s my scenario this year and thoughts after my first week. My district – Atlanta Public Schools – is virtual for the first nine weeks as of now. We are required to hold synchronous classes every day; each class is 75 minutes. Last year we were on a 4×8 A/B block; this year we transitioned to a 4×4 so students would only have four ... KEEP READING

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Whenever someone asks me what my preferred method of teaching is these days, I tell them, “I prefer to be teaching face to face in a non-pandemic world.” But we’re in a pandemic, and we are 100% virtual (shout out to APS for deciding this early and giving teachers plenty of time to plan). I am embracing and leaning into the perks of working at home (athletic wear everyday) and not focusing on the negatives (desperately missing being in the same physical space as my senior babies). I am not quite settled in and still feel like a duck who looks calm on the surface but paddling frantically underwater or even toppling over at times. I am very transparent with my students about mess ups or things not going as planned and think they appreciate that. Here are my thoughts after Week One of virtual learning. After three weeks, I don’t have it all figured ... KEEP READING

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