AP Lang: Nov.14-18

First, an apology for no update last week! I’m sure you were all waiting breathlessly for my email :)

AP Lang has been incredibly busy; here is a quick overview of some important things.

Grades
Many students are feeling some stress right now over their “low” grades. I put “low” in quotation marks because it’s hard to really classify a B (or even a C!) as low at this point in the year. I love that they set such high standards for themselves, but I also want them to try to focus on improving their skills and raising their scores rather than simply fixating on a letter grade. Students with Bs and Cs have plenty of time to raise their scores to As before the end of the semester. 

How can they raise their scores?  

Step One: Revision!

Students have a full month to revise and resubmit their formal essays for a higher score. My goal with this practice is to help students learn to respond to feedback, experiment with new writing strategies, and embrace the role of revision in the writing process. Students who were unhappy with the scores on their first essays should read my comments, try to make some changes based on that feedback, and then come in to talk to me about the changes they’ve made. I am available before school Tuesday-Friday and we have writing workshop in class when they can conference with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Additionally, I’ve invited my former AP Lang students (current seniors) to come to AA next week to provide extra feedback and help with revision.

Step Two: Practice!
All of our work in class is geared toward circling back and revisiting skills after they’ve been introduced to help students practice. For example, as we began our argument essays this week, students were asked to also read critically and evaluate the rhetoric used in those arguments. On Monday, we’ll discuss the rhetoric they examined. This discussion is excellent practice for future rhetorical analysis and for reading assessments. Students need to engage fully in all this practice--even when it doesn’t “count” for their grade--in order to improve.

Big assignments coming up:  

1. Argument Essay: We started this this week and will work on it in class for the next three weeks. Students should be drafting and revising at home. By the end of next week, they should be able to show you a draft! If they can’t, they’re behind!!
2. Multiple Choice Reading Assessments:  We will start working on multiple choice skills to prepare for the reading portion of the AP test in May. This multiple choice work also proves to be extremely beneficial for students as they prepare for the ACT and SAT tests.  We will do several practice tests in class before a final one that counts toward their score.

Have a great weekend!

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