Whenever I prepare my students for the AP Literature exam, I don’t really want it to feel like test prep. I want to take the stress out of it all. I want the experience to build confidence. I want the process, starting around February, to have no stakes or very low stakes; it should be practice, not fear mongering. And I want there to be plenty opportunities for improvement.

So what does that look like?

Well, with essay writing we start small — on the sentence-level — at the beginning of the year, working to achieve mastery over thesis statements, evidence, and commentary. Multiple-choice practice is always completed in class, on paper and while scores are recorded, they never go in the grade book. When my students write full-length essays, they have the opportunity to rewrite as long as they conference with me because I learned long ago that a 15 minute conference with a student is far better than anything I could write in the margins.

But this week I was scratching my head trying to figure out how I could make rubric review NOT feel like test prep. My AP Lit classes were reviewing the Q1 essay, which is the poetry prompt. In my experience, rubrics can suck all the life out of a lesson. Students feel like the speaker in the Walt Whitman’s “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.”

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

The lesson I devised ended up being one of the more memorable ones of the quarter.

Day 1: Rubric Rhymes — I hand out copies of the Q1 rubric and toss highlighters to each student. They have to highlight the key descriptors for each category and point value on the rubric. Once that is done, students have to use their highlights and develop a poem in rhyming couplets that identifies what must be accomplished in order to score a six on this essay.

The poem had to be at least 10 lines long.

I will say, they loved this assignment and it I think its effect will endure.

Here are some samples:

Student I

You wants to make a good poetry essay creation? 

That thesis best be full of top notch interpretation 

Don’t just restate or rephrase information 

But rather provide a good explanation 

How many literary elements should you choose? 

Multiple is what you should use

And sprinkle on some good seasoning 

The one that tastes like strong reasoning

The last criterion to make you do well on your examination 

Is make sure the essay demonstrates that advanced type of sophistication

Student II

I be writing a thesis 

Just like I be eating reese’s, in pieces 

If you don’t want evidence that’s horrific 

Then you gotta be specific 

I could ask Stabz for assistance 

Or I could remember one word: consistence -y 

Unlike my ex, 

You gotta be complex 

If you tryna get to the graduation 

Then you gotta understand sophistication

Student III

You aint got time to waste

But that doesn’t mean that your essay should be written in haste

40 minutes to read and write

And develop ideas with sophistication and insight

First, make sure your thesis isn’t a bore

To develop a sophisticated interpretation really is a chore.

Answer the prompt, be clear and concise,

Throw in poetic elements and a device

That central idea must be developed

Once stated, evidenced and commentary need to envelop

By not just saying what is true, but how and why

With brilliance so bright it would make an AP Reader cry.

Summarize and your grade will surely suffer

Articulate the complexity is much tougher

But do it over and over again

Establishing a line of reason, then

Polish your thoughts like gems

Make those sentences sweet like M&Ms

And never forget to discuss what is complex

All these boxes you must check

And a six on this essay will be yours

And you will have the wisdom of a thousand Dumbledors.

Day Two: Performances/The whole-class essay — Class started with an opportunity for students to read their rap/poem in front of the class for extra credit. Some of the performances were epic.

Then I passed out a previous AP prompt and students had seven minutes to complete my four-step pre-writing organizer. Once those seven minutes were up, the fastest typer in class (we had a contest earlier in the year) came to the class computer and we worked together to develop a whole-class essay. This allowed students to think aloud together, wordsmith key phrases, and discuss their insights in a collaborative and non-threatening environment.

Throughout the process, we kept going back to the rubric to check if we were meeting the requirements.

Here are the intros from each class:

Period 1 — In Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s poem “The Mystery”, the speaker discusses navigating through life by himself. Throughout the poem, the speaker exists in a figurative darkness in which he experiences loneliness and questions the benevolence of a higher power; in this frustrated search for meaning and understanding, he illustrates through personification and imagery that whether or not there is a higher power. His conclusion is that he cannot wallow in his dependency and that he must be self reliant.

Period 6 — In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem “The Mystery,” the speaker reflects on life. In a state of existential dread, he feels a sense of purposelessness and seeks navigation from a higher being. Paradoxically, in being given no direction, the speaker achieves solace in the inevitability of death and accepts the power of the present. 

Period 8 — In Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poem, “The Mystery”, the speaker is in a lonely place of uncertainty. While reflecting on the inevitability of death and appealing to a higher power, the speaker gains an awareness, not only of his own solitude, but also his powerlessness in the face of destiny. Through the use of personification, juxtaposition, and imagery, an epiphany is achieved in which he accepts the absurdity of life, thus gaining his autonomy.

Day 3: Essay test day — At this point students know the rubric, they did a practice essay the day before as a class, and now they are ready to do it all on their own.

In the comments section below, please share how you prepare students for the poetry essay on the AP exam.