AP Lang: May 9-13

Test week!! Last week was pretty tough for many of the kids; by Friday many had taken at least one AP test, and they looked ready for a break.  Hopefully they got a little rest this weekend, finished their review portfolios, and we can do some final review on Monday and Tuesday to get them thinking about the AP Lang test on Wednesday.

Monday and Tuesday will be dedicated to in-class “games” to review quick thinking strategies for attacking argument prompts. As I’ve told the kids many times in the past few weeks, there isn’t much they can do to cram for the AP Language test. It’s a skills test, they’ve practiced hard all year, and they’re ready.

A few things you can do to help them prior to Wednesday:

• Make them get lots of rest!! Writing for two hours straight is exhausting and they can’t do well if they’re tired. Tuesday night especially they need to go to sleep at a reasonable time, but banking some extra sleep Monday night would be great, too.
  
• Talk about current events in the car/at the dinner table/etc. In class on Monday we’ll play a game where the students will associate current and historical events/figures with big thematic concepts (trust, peace, honor, guilt, etc).  Similar conversations at home will help them practice digging into their contextual pools of knowledge for examples for their essays.
  
• Help them keep perspective.  Ultimately, this is one test on one day.  Hopefully, all of them will have a great day and the test will go incredibly well.  If that’s not the case, though, it’s important for them to remember that one, timed, high-pressure test really isn’t the best measure of all the critical reading and writing growth they’ve shown this year.

On Thursday, we will debrief the test and talk about how it went, and on Friday I’ll share the final project that we’ll be working on for the rest of the semester. No spoilers yet, but it should give them a nice start on their college application essays.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!