This week marked my second week of school with my sophomores. With my Honors students, I want to push them towards close reading and Socratic style discussions as early as possible. That’s why I do a graded discussion in the first week of school.Graded Discussion vs. Socratic SeminarA Socratic ...
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Excerpts: Why they’re overlooked and how to use them to raise your AP scores
When College Board redesigned the AP Lit course and exam in 2019, they introduced a new kind of unit to the course called Short Fiction. Most people assume that short fiction refers exclusively to short stories. However, you won’t find a short story on the AP English Lit exam. In addition to short ...
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Your Questions Answered – The Back to School Edition
Recently, I invited readers to a chance to submit questions about the upcoming school year. I told them I would answer the questions (as best as I could) and try to offer some advice as we all prepare to return back to school.I will admit, I got more questions than I expected! And while there were a ...
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Reflections on Last Year’s Lesson Planning Risks and Changes
I’m writing this mid-July, which means I have about 5-6 weeks of summer left. At this point, I usually start thinking about lesson planning for the upcoming school year with a little less fear and a bit of anticipation. One topic I wanted to talk about before I switch gears into the new school year ...
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Reflecting on the Reading: The 2024 Prose Prompt Review
The only other time I scored for the AP Lit prose question was the infamous Zenobia question of 2018 (taken from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance). Although many students misinterpreted the nature of that relationship, I remember really loving the Zenobia prompt. This year, I enjoyed ...
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Teaching AP English Literature for the First Time
As a first year AP Lit teacher, what do you wish someone had told you before teaching AP English Lit?It’s the second weekend in May and the AP English Lit exam just released the FRQ prompts from the test this week. Most teachers are winding down the school year and reflecting on its highs and lows. ...
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