This June I served on the AP® Standard Setting Panel. I know that many of you have questions about the increased pass rate, and I know that I would have been firmly among the group of cynics myself if I had not been involved in the process. (Something about teaching the last two years has … Continue Reading
This post written by Gina Kortuem in the fall of 2019 originally appeared on APLitHelp.com. When I was a newer AP Lit teacher I attended a one-day AP training, as many teachers do. During one of my trainings a brilliant veteran AP teacher was going over a writing skill, then mentioned offhand that she had … Continue Reading
Thanks for Megan Neville and Sarah Soper for their thoughts on the open ended question this year. Here’s a link to the prompts and also Sarah’s list of titles she encountered while reading. AP® Literature Free Response Questions 2022 What did you notice in upper-half essays? MN: First of all, these students clearly understood the … Continue Reading
Reflection 1 by Melissa Tucker What did you notice in upper-half essays? The “upper-half” were those student writers who were able to demonstrate a nuanced understanding of the passage. Those writers easily earned the thesis point and began at a 3 in row B (evidence and commentary). Often, those essays also earned the sophistication point. … Continue Reading
Here’s the first of 3 posts from this year’s reading. I asked two readers for each question to answer a few questions and share their thoughts. Thanks to David Choate and Gina Kortuem for today’s post. You can read more about them following their reflections. AP® Literature Free Response Questions 2022
This is a link to the AP Literature Professional Night which featured teachers (hooray for teachers being trusted to do professional development) sharing ideas about teaching poetry. The panel was made up of Melissa Smith the moderator, Adrian Nester, Adekine Davidson, and me (Susan Barber) sharing some out our favorite poems and lesson ideas. Here’s … Continue Reading
This post originally appeared on APLitHelp.com (#RIP). Many of us in education have been talking about how disconnected our students seem in the 20-21 school year. Sadly, the overwhelming nature of external stressors has become system wide. Even our top students are feeling trauma start to take their motivation from them. But for years, as … Continue Reading
On a whim this week, I posed this question on Twitter. At the time of this post, I’ve received 121 answers. Here are some of my favorites: “You forget the things you want to remember and remember the things you want to forget. “ – Cormac McCarthy, The Road “And so we beat on, boats … Continue Reading
May 1st. How in the world are we here? I had a hard time imaging making it to this point of the year in the late fall and early winter, but now that we’re here, I have no idea what kind of time machine I have been in for the last three months. My seniors … Continue Reading
Small tweaks often yield big gains. Here are five writing activities that put the work in students’ hands and help them improve their writing. 1 – Strong Verbs At some point during the second semester, I will ask students to take an essay and highlight every verb in the essay. Every. Single. Verb. This is … Continue Reading
