AP Lang: March 28-April 1

We will spend this week tying up loose ends and making sure everyone gets a final one-on-one writing conference prior to our final in-class essay in this  unit. While I’m conferencing with students this week, the students will be working in small groups to plan and draft a synthesis essay about the unit texts we’ve been reading in the politics unit:  

“On Civil Disobedience” by Henry David Thoreau
“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift
“On Seeing England for the First Time” by Jamaica Kincaid
“Notes from an Air Raid Shelter” by Virginia Woolf.  

Students will use all of these texts to return to our unit question: What is the relationship between the citizen and the state?  After that practice and their conferences with me, they’ll write a synthesis essay on Friday.  Students who are going to be leaving early for break should schedule a time to write the essay prior to leaving.

The other focus this week will be continued multiple choice practice.  Students took a second multiple choice exam last week and, unfortunately, the class average did not improve as much as I hoped it would.  A quick check of the number of times my online practice materials have been viewed provides--I think--some of the answer.  Many students are not putting in the time necessary to see the growth they’d like to see in their critical reading.   I’m not asking students to put in hours and hours of studying every night for AP Language. Rather, I’d suggest a consistent 20 minutes dedicated to critical reading practice every night.  Please encourage your students to begin focusing on improving their critical reading scores by practicing more on their own! I’m assigning very little homework these days; I expect them to fill in that time with practice! I’m always happy to work with students one on one with their practice before school or during AA, but they need to put in the time first and then bring me their work so that we have something to discuss.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend! I’m off to go fill Easter baskets!

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