STR 3.A includes elements of pacing or structure in a plot, including any time the linear narrative is reorganized, sped up, slowed down, or otherwise rearranged. Helping students identify (and name!) these plot ordering elements can strengthen prose analysis and make them more active readers. ...
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AP Lit Skill Spotlight: Characterization in Prose
Studying characters is easy when it's a novel or full play. But asking students to study textual details for characterization, motive, and perspective can sometimes be difficult. This is especially true if the text is an excerpt or a short story. However, by practicing on short texts students learn ...
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AP Lit Skill Spotlight: Identifying Setting
AP* Lit Skill 2.A is a simple one, asking students to identify and describe the story's setting using details from the text. While it can be simple to identify the setting, it's a good opportunity to push students into identifying different aspects of the setting. The CED lists elements such as ...
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AP Lit Skill Spotlight: Literal and Figurative Meanings
This skill, AP* Lit FIG 5.A, asks students to distinguish between the figurative and literal meanings of words and phrases. Once again, this ties back to ambiguity and interpretation. While the author may use one word, darkness for example, the connotations of that word (night, evil, black) could ...
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AP Lit Skill Spotlight: Personification
Most students can identify personification, especially when an animal does something a human would do. However, that's not exactly what AP* Lit teachers are looking for in analyzing personification. The AP® Lit CED includes the skill question, "How does making a comparison between a nonhuman entity ...
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The Importance of Student Reflection: A Post-Essay Writing Lesson
In my past years of teaching AP®* English Lit, timed essays were usually given out right from the start. But now that I'm following the new CED closely, I postponed full essays and we focused on paragraphs for the first three months. Yesterday, at the culmination of our Frankenstein unit, my ...
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