THE BASICS

• Students are presented with a passage of prose fiction that is not commonly taught (no excepts from The Great Gatsby, Frankenstein, etc.) of approximately 600 to 800 words. The obscurity of the passage is designed to level the playing field so that one student is not advantaged over the other.
• The passage can be from any time period (pre-20th century to contemporary literature).
• The suggested time is 40 minutes to read the passage and write the essay.
• Students are scored according to a six-point rubric (one point for the thesis, up to four points for evidence and commentary, one point for sophistication).
• The passage and essay does not assess a student’s ability to know a literary time period or author’s background. It measures a student’s ability to apply the skills of close reading, literary analysis, and effective composition to a passage they are seeing for the first time.
• There is no point on the rubric for a conclusion. They are optional.

CHALLENGES

I spent six years on the AP Literature and Composition Test Development Committee writing the exam and Q2 was always the most challenging question to develop. Here are its particular difficulties:

• Students are reading an excerpt of 600-800 words. It typically is the only question that does not address a work in its entirety. Q1, the poetry essay, often presents a complete poem. Q3, the literary argument, asks students to address the meaning of the work as a whole. Q2 is the excerpt.
• Students are dropped in the middle of a text, not knowing what happened in the pages before, nor do they know what will happen after. Students have to make sense of a lot in a short amount of time — characters, setting, tension, etc.
• As students read to make sense of what is happening in the passage, they also have to read for complexity.
• Students have to read, think, and write quickly. 40 minutes is not a lot of time, especially considering this is the first time students are seeing the passage.

A FOUR-DAY PLAN TO PREPARE FOR THE Q2 ESSAY

I use a four-day progression to review the prose fiction essay on the exam. Through this process, students are exposed to a new prompt and passage each day, allowing them to see a variety of excerpts. Each day builds upon the day before, but adds something new. Students only write a full essay on the final day. to

DAY 1 (40 minutes)

• Use the 2024 prompt and passage from Jane Urquhart’s novel, The Night Stages, published in 2015..
• Introduce the pre and post-reading strategies.
• Apply these strategies to the 2024 prompt.
• Have students develop a rock-solid thesis.

PRE-READING STRATEGY

Each year the Q2 prompt gives students context clues about the passage. These clues are meant to inform their reading since they are presented with an excerpt. Often, students will learn background information about the character(s) and their situation. Students should make informed predictions about what they will encounter in the passage. Some predicitons will be confirmed, others overturned.

In 2024, students learn that “an artist named Kenneth is finishing a mural for a new airline terminal using the long-established medium of egg tempera, a paint made of egg yolk, pigment, and water. He thinks about the influences on his work and how his mural may be received.”

AN ARTIST MIGHT:

• Feel relief that the work is finally complete.
• Take great pride in the accomplishment.
• Crave praise and recognition.
• Worry that other will misinterpret the work.
• Fear public scrutiny.
• See the work as unoriginal, based too closely off its influences.

Now, students have a frame of reference for their reading.

POST-READING STRATEGIES

• If students are struggling to understand the passage, focusing on the strong verbs can aid their comprehension. Verbs are words of action. If you focus on the strong verbs, you recognize what the character(s) are doing.
• In order for the passage to contain complexity (which it will), something has to change. It won’t be static. If students reflect on what has changed, they will have something to write about.

THESIS FORMULA

• Small = 2-3 literary elements, each with descriptors/ qualifiers
• Medium = an insight about the complex part of the prompt
• Large = A universal human idea
  

DAY 2 (40 minutes)

• Review thesis statements from the day before and score them according to the rubric.
• Repeat all the steps from Day 1, using the 2016 prompt from The Mayor of Casterbridge.
• Introduce the three organizing principles for body paragraphs.
• Students will write an introduction and one body paragraph for the 2016 Q2.

DAY 3 (40 minutes)

• Review three, student-submitted body paragraphs from the day before and score each according to the rubric.
• Repeat the same steps of Day 1 and 2 using the 2023 Q2 prompt for “The Rock Eaters.”
• Students will write an introduction and two body paragraphs for the 2023 Q2.

Students often make the mistake in Q2 body paragraphs of proving that a literary device exists in the passage. For example, in a paragraph they will identify the tone, provide quotes to support the tone, and reinforce what the tone is in their commentary. This is a shortcoming. It is mere identification, not analysis. Analysis is understanding how the part contributes to the whole.

Day 3 is all about teaching students to make a compelling argument in each body paragraph. A student will earn greater credit (and a chance at the sophistication point) if they convince the reader of the effect and consequence of an author’s use of tone. They need to answer the all-important “so what?” question that drives at purpose and result.

DAY 4 (40 minutes)

• Students will write a complete essay for the 2017 Q2, The Adventures of Perrigrine Pickle.
• After working through the strategies of the past three days, students decide which ones best suit their needs. They are not expected to use them all.
• Student essays will be scored according to the rubric on a 1-6 scale.

If you liked the slides (there are 22 in total) in this post, I made them available here.