1. AP English Language and Composition Course
Don Stoll, Associate Professor
Writing Arts Department
Rowan University

2. Self Introduction…
Prepare a 2-minute self introduction for a specific audience – the participants in this workshop
Purpose– to make audience want you on their team –
Include relevant personal information, professional information, reason(s) for taking the workshop, etc.

3. The AP English Language & Composition Course
Course Requirements
Teacher
Curriculum
Learning Outcomes
The Test

4. Teacher
Teacher has read the most recent AP English Course Description available on the AP English Language and Composition Course Home Page
Course teaches and requires students to write in several forms about a variety of subjects

5. Course requires students to…
write essays that proceed through several stages/drafts with revision aided by teachers and peers
Write in informal contexts designed to help them become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the writers they read

6. Course requires…
Expository, analytical, and argumentative writing assignments based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres
Nonfiction readings selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques.

7. Course teaches…
students to analyze how graphics and visual images both relate to written texts and serve as alternate forms of texts themselves
research skills, in particular the ability to evaluate, use and cite primary and secondary sources by assigning projects that ask students to present an argument of their own that includes the analysis and synthesis of ideas from an array of sources

8. AP Teacher provides instruction and feedback that help students develop…
A wide-ranging vocabulary
A variety of sentence structure
Logical organization
A balance of generalization and specific illustrative detail
An effective use of rhetoric including controlling tone, clear voice, and appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure

9. AP English Language Course Outcomes
A description of the learning outcomes and the means to achieve & assess these outcomes

10. We want our students to… Read Well
Learning Goals:
Denotation & Connotation
Inference & Implication
Read a variety of texts from a variety of genres and historical periods
Understand the conventions of the genres and their relationship to rhetorical situations
Denotation - The explicit or direct meaning or set of meanings of a word or expression, as distinguished from the ideas or meanings associated with it or suggested by it; the association or set of associations that a word usually elicits for most speakers of a language, as distinguished from those elicited for any individual speaker because of personal experience.
Connotation - the associated or secondary meaning of a word or expression in addition to its explicit or primary meaning: A possible connotation of “home” is “a place of warmth, comfort, and affection.”
Inference - reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence
Implication - a meaning that is not expressly stated but can be inferred

11. We want our students to… Understand and Follow Directions
Read essay prompts accurately
Recognize there is a pattern to the prompts -
Read the selection
Write an essay in which you…
Pay close attention to the word following “you”
Analyze
Develop
Support, refute, qualify
Characterize
Take a position on

12. We want our students to… Think Critically
Thinking should not be programmatic nor simplistic
What Constitutes Critical Thinking Skills
Finding analogies and other kinds of relationships between pieces of information

Determining the relevance and validity of information that could be used for structuring and solving problems
Finding and evaluating solutions or alternative ways of treating problems

13. Critical Thinking #2-Getting below the Surface
Understanding the meaning of a text before identifying writer’s strategies and techniques
To begin by identifying the techniques often leads to a list of parts that may only tangentially relate to the meaning of the text

14. We want our students to… Have Persuasion Skills
The responsibility of a writer is to convince the reader the writers’ POV is viable
We teach persuasion techniques and devices and we want our students to…
Incorporate these skills into their own persuasive, descriptive, and analytical writing

15. We want our students to… Select Evidence Effectively
Teach students to use evidence for which they can provide a clear rationale
Eschew novels or other literary texts to gain false credence for an argument
Evidence fails to convince if the reader cannot fully grasp its relevance

16. We want our students to… Effectively Select Details
Students must understand the difference between “telling” details and details that merely “pad”
More details are not necessarily better
Three examples may or may not be better than two

17. We want our students to… Effectively Decipher Text
The trinity of stylistic analysis - imagery, diction, and syntax - is a useful tool to understand how a writer has accomplished the effect.
But…tools are only as good as what they accomplish - they have minimal intrinsic value. Maintain balance.

18. We want our students to… Develop Ethos
Personal essays have value
Students need to learn the value of establishing ethos as a tool in convincing the reader the writer’s POV is viable.
Students need to learn how to present personal experience as relevant and appropriate evidence.

19. We want our students to… Go Beyond the 5-Paragraph Essay
5-paragraph essay and other formulistic methods cause more problems than they solve….
Lack of individual voice
Limitation of Invention to three points
Ignoring salient issues and belaboring the obvious
Can annoy reader…

20. We want our students to… Develope Personal Voice
Urge students to risk making their own perceptive claims
Urge students to create their own organic structures
Encourage risk taking
Flawed “something” is almost always preferable to the well-wrought “nothing”

21. Course teaches…
students how to cite sources using a recognized editorial style
MLA
APA
Chicago Manual of Style

22. Overview I. Preparation for the Exam II. The Exam III. The Prompts
IV. Scoring

23. II. The AP English Exam Date - Wednesday, May 12, 2010 8am
Website - apcentral.collegeboard.com/apc
The fee for each AP Exam is $86.
Fee Reduction - The College Board provides a $22 fee reduction per exam for qualified students with acute financial need. For each eligible student, schools should also forgo their $8 rebate. Thus, eligible students pay $56 per exam.

24. II. The AP English Exam Exam Structure How the exam is constructed
Committee of 8 (4/4)
Psychometricians & Specialists
Testing Questions

25. II. The AP English Exam Committee

26. II. The AP English Exam Section I - Multiple Choice Questions
45% of grade
questions on 6 readings
60 minutes allotted

27. II. The AP English Exam Advice on Multiple Choice Questions
First look at and then scan all the readings
Note the number of questions associated with each reading - pick readings with the largest number of questions
Answer the easy questions first - there are easy and hard questions on each reading

28. II. The AP English Exam Advice on Multiple Choice Questions
Of the five choices…4 are “distracters”
1 is clearly wrong
1 is partially wrong
1 is the opposite of the right answer
1 is nearly right
1 is right (key)
Guess… if you can reduce the possible answers to at least 3 - better 2
If the answer is obvious, it is usually right

29. II. The AP English Exam Advice on Multiple Choice Questions
New Question - At least one of the readings will include footnotes and there will be questions associated with that reading that refer to the footnotes

30. II. The AP English Exam Section II - Free Response Questions
55% of grade
3 Questions
135 minutes allotted of which 15 minutes is devoted to reading provided sources for the “synthesis” question

31. II. The AP English Exam Section II - Free Response Questions
Advice on Free Response Questions
Scan all the questions and pick the easiest for you - maybe start with the “synthesis” question
Plan before writing and identify examples you plan to use
Timing - give yourself time for all three essays
Relationship between short answer and essays

32. III. The Prompts Read the prompts carefully -
Recognize there is a pattern to the prompts -
Read the selection
Write an essay in which you……
Pay close attention to the word following “you”

33. III. The Prompts
The passage below is an excerpt from What are People For? By Wendell Berry. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you support, refute, or qualify Berry’s argument. Use appropriate evidence to develop your position.

34. III. The Prompts
“Below are excerpts from a crucial scene in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar…. Read the excepts carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetoric of both arguments and explain why you think the Caesar finds Decius’s argument more persuasive than Calphurnia’s. You may want to consider such elements as choice of detail, use of appeals, and understanding of audience.”

35. III. The Prompts
“The following passage concludes an essay by Edward Abbey about Aravaipa Canyon in New Mexico. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you characterize Abbey’s attitudes toward nature and analyze how Abbey conveys these views.”

36. III. The Prompts
“From talk radio to television shows, from popular magazines to Web blogs, ordinary citizens, political figures, and entertainers express their opinions on a wide range of topics. Are these opinions worthwhile? Does the expression of such opinions foster dramatic values?
Write an essay in which you take a position on the value of such public statements of opinion, supporting your view with appropriate evidence.”

37. III. The Prompts
“The passage below is an excerpt from “On Want of Money,” an essay written by nineteenth-century author William Hazlitt. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Hazlitt uses to develop his position about money.”

38. III. The Prompts
“The passage below is an excerpt from Jennifer Price’s recent essay “The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History.” The essay examines the popularity of the plastic pink flamingo in the 1950s. Read the passage carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze how Price crafts the text to reveal her view of United States culture.”

39. III. The Prompts
“The following prompt is based on the accompanying six sources. The question requires you to integrate a variety of sources into a coherent, well-written essay. Refer to the sources to support your position: avoid mere paraphrase or summary. Your argument should be central; the sources should support this argument.
Remember to attribute both the direct and indirect citations.
Television has been influential in United States presidential elections since the 1960’s. But just what is this influence and how has it affected who is elected? Has it made elections fairer and more accessible, or has it moved candidates from pursuing issues to pursuing image?
Read the following sources (including any introductory information) carefully. Then, in an essay that synthesizes at least three of the sources for support, take a position that defends, challenges, or qualifies the claim that television has had a positive impact on presidential elections.”

40. The Scoring The reading context The training The Rubric
The instructions to readers
Insider tips

41. The Scoring 2002 Free-response essay - rangefinders
“Carefully read the following passage from Testaments Betrayed, by the Czech writer Milan Kundera. Then write an essay in which you support, qualify, or dispute Kundera's claim. Support your argument with appropriate evidence.”