Check out some ideas and resources for teaching a line of reasoning with your AP Lit students in preparation for the AP Lit exam.
Another resource I found was THIS website. It gives a detailed description of all the characters (to my knowledge) and also has links to quotes from them. A student made Prezi can be found HERE. It has small, quick descriptions of characters, and also shows the relationship between each character.
When the College Board came out with the new rubrics, they set aside a point that is designated for the ap lit thesis. 1 point they get or...
This blog post presents 10 MORE engaging and challenging poems to enrich your AP English Literature curriculum, plus several more honorable mentions!
One of the essential skills that our AP English students need is to develop a line of reasoning in the essay writing.
These student reference sheets for synthesis, rhetorical analysis, and argumentation are an easy-to-use tool that AP Language and Composition students will turn to again and again. Perfect for introducing the course, teaching each essay, or end-of-the-year review, these “cheat sheets” are available in an attractive, print-and-go format. Each quick reference sheet includes information about the AP Language and Composition exam, tips for unpacking the tasks involved in each essay, and suggestions for reading/writing. Definitions, close reading, thesis statements, organizational patterns, common pitfalls—it’s all captured in six total pages (two pages per essay so that you can copy them front-to-back). This product is also available in the AP Language and Composition Bundle. Save over 20%--buy now and get all the updates at no additional cost! Related Resources: AP Lang & Comp Introductory Unit: What Does it Mean to Be An AP Student? AP Lang & Comp Unit: History of English Rhetorical Analysis Bundle: Organizers, Activities, and Assessments A friendly note: This work is protected by copyright. You may use my products in your classroom, but you may not distribute them (this includes posting them online for public access). The copyright information on each page must remain intact. If you are interested in sharing with your colleagues, please send them the link to my store! Multiple license discounts are available. Let’s connect! My blog: The Rhetor’s Toolbox Pinterest: The Rhetor’s Toolbox on Pinterest
This blog post presents 10 MORE engaging and challenging poems to enrich your AP English Literature curriculum, plus several more honorable mentions!
Are you a teacher looking for ways to prepare your middle and high school students for advanced reading and writing? Look no further. This post will give you the top four skills all ELA students should learn. Inspired by AP English Literature and Composition skills and objectives, you'll learn strategies, tips, lesson ideas, and more for effective and efficient English language arts instruction.
If you have ever taught Shakespeare’s plays or sonnets, then you know students can struggle to unlock the language and meaning of the text. The following two anchor charts have been tremendou…
Are you a teacher looking for ways to prepare your middle and high school students for advanced reading and writing? Look no further. This post will give you the top four skills all ELA students should learn. Inspired by AP English Literature and Composition skills and objectives, you'll learn strategies, tips, lesson ideas, and more for effective and efficient English language arts instruction.
Rhetorical Analysis Outline Worksheet. Rhetorical Analysis Outline Worksheet. Argumentative Essay High School Buy Essays Online at Our
This blog post presents 10 MORE engaging and challenging poems to enrich your AP English Literature curriculum, plus several more honorable mentions!
AP Language and Composition shouldn’t be the only place where students learn certain skills. In fact, these skills are so important, they should really be spiraled down into all of the grade levels leading up to Lang. Here are my top four recommendations to consider in your vertical articulation
Definition and a list of examples of synecdoche. Synecdoche is when a word that refers to a part of something is substituted to stand in for the whole.
Anaphora and epistrophe both use repetition to make a point. Let’s define them and look at anaphora and epistrophe examples together.
If you want to know how to annotate a book for AP English Literature and Composition, follow these 5 steps to annotate effectively and prepare for the AP exam.
We all want students to know how to annotate and automatically do it when they are handed a piece of literature. The trouble is, for most students annotation is something they do for the teacher, and not for themselves. They don’t take any ownership of the process and don’t see any payout at the end. ... Read more
Are you a teacher looking for ways to prepare your middle and high school students for advanced reading and writing? Look no further. This post will give you the top four skills all ELA students should learn. Inspired by AP English Literature and Composition skills and objectives, you'll learn strategies, tips, lesson ideas, and more for effective and efficient English language arts instruction.
As I graded 500+ essays for the 2020 exam, I created a skills list of roses and thorns (positives and negatives) to help inform our instruction in AP Lit for the upcoming school year using the new rubric. I have compiled a list of important writing skills that we need to focus on in the upcoming sc
By studying the titles used in the AP English Lit open question, teachers can find new books for their students and themselves.
AP Lit should not be a hub for white authors. Access this list to find a wealth of strong authors to diversify your AP Lit curriculum.
This is the written version of my 2021 Mosaic presentation on integrating media to enhance the study of AP Lit.
How in the world do we start? There are so many ways to design an AP English Language course, that it’s hard to decide what to do the first week. For some schools, schedules are pretty fluid the first ten days or so, so you may be constantly dropping and gaining students. For others, students […]
I realized after posting yesterday that I had buried the most practical information in the middle of what became a much longer-than-intended meditation/diatribe, so I’m re-posting the key information here in condensed form. To sum up: since 2014, the AP English Language and Composition exam has NOT included questions directly testing knowledge of high-level rhetorical…
This is the second post I’ve done about how I keep my students engaged at the end of the year. I teach seniors, and after prom they’re pretty much checked out. However, I don’t just want to show movies when there are plenty of fun things to do that can be related back to what ... Read more
The team from The Literature Network, an online community of literature lovers, created a nice infographic that visualizes a timeline of literary periods and movements. Click on the image to see it…
Doug Savage's Savage Chickens "comics" are a single-frame comic drawn on a sticky note that illustrates the life of chickens whose experiences reveal the "savage" truths of the human existence. Teaching satire in secondary ELA is a high-interest and humorous way to engage studen
WHAT IS IT? ★ An anchor chart that can be blown up and posted in your room ★ A one-page quick reference for students to use all year when analyzing authors craft and rhetorical devices. WHAT’…
I've written about Teaching Channel before, and I'll be writing from time to time about a particular great idea I've found there. If you haven't already joined, remember that it's FREE, and signing up takes less than a minute! One of the many great Tch video clips shows middle school teacher Meagan Berkowitz teaching a poetry lesson using the SIFT Method - Symbol, Imagery, Figurative Language, and Tone or Theme. It's less than 5 minutes long, and well worth watching to see her interaction with her students, and the focus they have on the poems they are reading while using bookmark cue cards. Close analytic reading is an important feature of the Common Core; here's a tool for you to try out to see if it fits your needs! Besides the bookmark, you are given the lesson plan, a copy of the two poems used, and a transcript of the lesson. If you're a language arts teacher, you're all set to try this lesson yourself, or to adapt it to your grade level! And don't forget to "pin" the lesson by clicking "Save this in my Lesson Planner." (A note: there is a typo on the SIFT bookmark that you'll want to change before printing - "attitude and author" should be "attitude an author." I changed it in the image above. Since it's an open Word document, it's no problem!)
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By Room 213 Literary analysis is tough, there’s no question about that. Many kids struggle to “get it,” and even if they do, they see it as one of the more challenging tasks we give them. This is not something that you will fix by diving into analysis on your first day. Instead, you can get your kids primed and ready to analyze by spending some time making connections to their lives and showing your students that they already have what it takes to discuss author choices. Then, long before the first literary essay, you can scaffold the skills they need to be successful. Here's how I do it: 1. Make it Relevant: We humans speak in metaphors, similes and analogies all the time. Whether we're aware or not, most of us play with our words in order to get our ideas across. Show your students this with exercises that illustrate that it's not just writers who make deliberate choices about the way they say things. By doing this, you can begin to take the mystery that shrouds literary analysis away. It's important, too, that you don't just get students to identify these devices in their conversations, but to think about why they chose particular words and phrases. If they can understand why they do this, they will get closer to being able to understand why writers do it too - and they'll see it as normal, not just something hard we ask them to do in English class. (You can grab a free slideshow to guide these discussions here. If you'd prefer a paper copy, you can grab this). 2. Start a Graffiti Wall of Common Phrases: Show students how often they play with language by recording words or phrases, uttered by people in class, that illustrate deliberate use of language (That's so extra, If she doesn't turn on the AC, I'm gonna melt, This book is a snooze-fest). You can create something fancy or just write it on your board. The point is to show your students just how prevalent it is that they use a literary device to get an idea across, so when they use a metaphor or simile, or any other device, add it to the wall and ask them WHY they used it. After you spend some time illustrating how students regularly play with language, it's time to start scaffolding analytical skills. 3. Play Figurative Language Bingo: When you and your students are ready to start analyzing author choices, don't dive into formal analysis right away. Instead, have a little fun while your students begin the practice of identifying literary devices in their texts. As your students are reading, have them record examples of devices that they find in the text. You can create a bingo card by making a 5 x 6 table and filling it in with the different devices that you want your students to find. I repeat the most common ones - like metaphor, simile and personification - and throw in just one of the least common ones like synecdoche. Students can fill in their cards by recording quotations that match each device. I step my figurative language bingo up a notch, so the students also have to analyze the purpose of each device they discover. I provide them with folded-over cards where they record the quotation that illustrates the device, and then, on the inside, they write a brief statement about what they believe the author's purpose is. They check with me before they put it on the board, which builds in some formative assessment too. Once someone gets a row, I give them a little prize, so the competition is fierce! (You can check out my bingo board here). 4. Find Evidence As They read: In order to scaffold the skills students need to write an analytical essay, have them find examples of quotations that illustrate author choice in the texts they are reading. They can do this after a mini-lesson where you show them how word choice affects meaning, and then they can share their findings with a partner. This is an activity we use a lot in my classroom, especially with independent novels so my students can get used to noting author craft in the books they have chosen to read. I use this as a low-stakes activity, just for skill-building, so they don't feel the pressure of a grade hanging over them. Then, when we do full class novels and it's time to write a literary essay, they know what they are doing. You can read more about how I use this activity here. 5. Collaborate to Collect Evidence One way that I scaffold skills for literary analysis is to have students work together to collect evidence that illustrates the development of certain themes in their full class novels. I put topics, quotes, and statements about emerging themes on the walls and, as they read, students work together to collect evidence from the novel to support them. When they find a quotation or key fact from the text, they write it on a sticky and place it on the wall. After they've finished, students work together to sift through the evidence and choose the stickies that best support the theme. By working together, they end up finding a lot more evidence than they normally do alone, and the collaboration they do while sorting and organizing their findings is a highly valuable - and effective - exercise. You can read more about this activity here. 6. Teach the Process: I bet, like me, that you've ready many "analysis" essays that are just plot summary. I complained about this for years, and then I started doing something different. Now, I devote a lot more time to teaching my students the process of analysis. We start with activities like the ones above, and then I lead them toward their first literary essay with lessons and activities that model how to create one. We focus on the steps of the process of thinking, planning and writing, not just the end product. You can read more about this process here. Any time we study a novel or play together, we focus on the process, so students can see that analysis is not some magical ability that only a few of us are lucky enough to have. It takes work - but once you get used to the strategies and stages of analysis, it really isn't that much of a mystery. With these strategies, I've seen huge gains in my students' work. I have most definitely seen fewer plot summaries - which makes me very, very happy. I've got several items in my TpT store that can help you teach analysis to your kids. You can find them here: Activities for Independent Reading Literary Elements Mini-Lessons Teaching the Process of Literary Analysis Novel Study Stations for Any Text My friends at the coffee shop have materials that can help you as well. Check them out here: Stacey Lloyd: ELA Graphic Organizers Nouvelle ELA: Literary Quote Analysis Addie Education: Novel Study: Chapter Response Pages for Any Novel Presto Plans: Close Reading and Annotating Text The Daring English Teacher: Literary Analysis with Sticky Notes Tracee Orman: Literary Elements Print & Go for Any Text
