Introducing Interpretation: The AP Lit Olympics

This last week was my first week back at school. In my AP Lit class, I usually begin with a lesson I call “Literature is a Verb.” However, my class this year is kind of small and, frankly, I was in the mood for a change. I’ve been toying with the idea of a gentle competition to introduce the text types and analytical activities required for AP Lit. The result was the AP Lit Olympics

When to Teach It

I held the AP Lit Olympics as my first day activity, but it could be held anytime. This is a good activity to fill a full block or 2-3 days of 45-minute instruction.

You could also break these activities into single lessons and do them one at a time—or just pick your favorite and do that one!

What You’ll Need

• 2 poems
  • One poem copied several times and cut into sections.
• 1-2 prose excerpts
• A student handout (mine is included here if you’d like to use it)
• A slideshow with instructions (optional, but recommended)
• Medals (also optional, but oh so cute!)

Set Up

Put students into small groups of 2-3 people and ask groups to make a team name. Despite competing in teams, each student should get a handout to record answers and their score. The final event is individual and will help sort out a final winner.

Event 1 – 60 Second Close Read

Select a poem for this event, preferably one that is short and can be read several times. I chose William Carlos Williams’ “This is Just to Say.” Give students a few minutes to read and discuss the poem. Then, start a timer and tell them they have one minute to identify one interesting choice the writer makes. (The goal is to get them to identify literary elements without directly saying so.) After one minute passes by, put another timer for 90 seconds and tell them they need to identify why that choice matters.

Strong answers will link literary elements with something broader, such as theme, conflict, or meaning. Teams should go around the room and share their insights. Take notes on their answers as they do, giving each team a score based on the following parameters:

• Identifies a meaningful detail or literary device – 1​
• Explains its effect – 2​
• Connects it to meaning (“why does this matter?”) – 2​

Explain your score rationale for each team to end the event.

*** To make the AP Lit Olympics go faster, write feedback for each team and move them onto the next task. I chose to take the time to explain my thoughts on each answer, but it did make the lesson last longer.

Event 2 – Literary CSI

Pass out a prose excerpt, preferably one from a past exam. I chose “One Morning in June” from the 2024 exam. Select one paragraph from the excerpt for students to read and, this is important, white out one sentence from that paragraph. I chose only the first paragraph from this excerpt and I whited out the final sentence. (“It was rather like exposing someone to a case of measles and watching for spots to break out.”)

Instructions:

As students discuss, circulate to make sure they stay focused on the impact of the sentence, rather than the content. When teams are finished, show them the missing sentence. Then, allow each team to share their answers, justifying their prediction if they are able. My students had some interesting guesses, and many were able to connect the missing sentence with their answer through sheer persuasion.

I gave the following scoring for this event:

Event 3 – Paragraph Showdown

For this event, I changed up a normal paragraph task by indicating the claim for students. I made them choose one of the following prompts:

Once students selected a claim, I showed them their instructions:

Apply your chosen statement to a text (can’t be a movie) and agree, disagree, or find an answer somewhere in the middle. ​

Produce an APE (assert-prove-explain) paragraph that includes 1) your arguable claim; 2) a piece of evidence; 3) an explanation of why it matters. ​

I gave students 10 minutes for this task. When they finished, students brought their paragraphs to me and I read and scored them as they began reading the poem in the next event.

Scoring for this event was based on the following criteria:

Event 4 – Evidence Hunt

For this event, I chose the poem “Digging” by Seamus Heaney. Students were given a copy of the poem, not aware that the poem was also cut into strips and spread out around the room.*

When the groups have finished reading the poem and doing a cursory analysis, give the instructions:

I gave students a minute or so to brainstorm what lines they would seek, then said, “Go.”

One rule I established is that students weren’t allowed to hold more than three lines in their hands at one time. If they did, they were finished and had to use the lines they were holding. This kept them from hoarding all the lines they found.

Once each group had their lines selected, they put them in the order they would use them in a paragraph. I didn’t want students to write the paragraph, but instead focus on the order of evidence integration.

One by one, each team explained how they would introduce their evidence. I would limit each team to just 60-90 seconds for this explanation, otherwise they tend to ramble. For scoring, I used the following rationale:

Event 5 – One Strong Thesis

This final event is done individually. Pass out a full prose prompt (I chose the rest of “One Morning in June” from Event 2). Students have 10 minutes to read the prompt, excerpt, and create a thesis statement.

When the time is up, I asked students to write their thesis on our whiteboards. (Looking back now, I would have had them put it on a shared document to save time.) For this event, students handed out the scores instead of me. I gave each student a note card and asked them to read each other’s thesis statements. They were told to award the following categories:

I also told students they couldn’t award any of the points to themselves. When all were finished, they returned their note cards to me. This is ideally where the bell would ring, allowing  me to total the points after class.

The Medal Ceremony

Rather than naming a winner based purely on points, I created several awards to give to students. Votes from Event 5 factored into the medals, as did my observations from the entire Olympics.

Before we began the lesson, I printed off some cute homemade medals double-sided, laminated them, and put them on some string. The winner with the most points earned the distinction of “AP Lit Champion,” while three other students earned “The Defender,” “The Risk Taker,” and “The Analyzer.” Many wore their medals all day!

Post-Lesson Thoughts

Was this lesson complicated? A little. Did it require some thoughtful thinking and planning? Definitely. Would I do it again? Absolutely.

I intended for this lesson to last two days but it took almost three. To shorten it, I could do fewer teams of more people, but honestly, I think I’m happy with it just the way it is. My students had a blast doing the events and it was the perfect blend of competition, rigor, and fun.

• Tying literary elements to purpose (Event 1)
• Analyzing a single sentence for its impact or function (Event 2)
• Write a well-structured analytical paragraph (Event 3)
• Select and implement strong evidence (Event 4)
• Formulate a complex thesis (Event 5)

I can refer to these events all year long as the building blocks to the course. As I said earlier, this can be done as an series of events, as I did, or separated into five individual lessons without the competition or medals.

For anyone interested, an editable slideshow, handout, and the medals are included with this blog post for anyone interested in using them.