Rehashing: How to Use it in the AP Lit Classroom

When I was a new 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 recently spent a whole writing rehash working on that skill.

After seeing our puzzled faces, she explained. A rehash was a name she gave for the instructional period after an on-demand writing activity, wherein the instructor and the students went over what worked, what didn’t, and what they could do to improve. She showed our class an example, and we were hooked.

Almost a decade later, I’m still rehashing after each timed writing. I wish I could remember my instructor’s name so I could thank her (and credit her!) for this valuable instructional method. But since she was kind enough to teach it to all of us, I thought I’d pay it forward and share the idea with you.

In short, a rehash is a focused writer’s workshop.

The way you format and prepare a rehash varies as much as your teaching methods. I sometimes do them on the fly, and sometimes I spend up to an hour preparing my materials. It all depends on what I need to say and how time I want to devote to it. Here are a few tips to help you implement writing rehashes in your own AP class.

Focus on no more than 3 skills to teach

Picking just a few gives you time to go in depth and makes the lessons more memorable. I’ve given rehashes on the following skills:

• Avoiding plot summary
• The difference between a line of reasoning and a claim
• Using precise diction/avoiding dead or meaningless words
• Making bold claims
• Textual support versus commentary
• Using literary terms
• Writing voice & sophistication
• Concise wording
• Organizing the essay
• Form – when to analyze it and when to ignore it
• Complexity (small detail question vs. big picture question)

Sometimes I have to rehash the same skill more than once in a year, but often it is reflecting a different question type or building onto an established skill that still needs work. I save these mini lessons and tweak them for future use.

Try to make it hands-on

For a long time, I gave rehashes quickly through PowerPoints. I learned quickly, however, that these lessons were easily forgotten, and students were making the same mistakes over and over again. Once I gave them highlighters or got them moving around, the lessons began to sink in more.

Here are some of the activities I’ve done during rehashing:

• Highlight – In one recent rehash, I asked students to highlight all portions of textual support, which included any mentions of character names, places, actions, summary, quotes, or references. After that, students used a different color to highlight any time they analyzed the text, meaning they explained how or why something mattered. Most students realized that their textual support resembled summary and that it far outweighed their analysis. This visual example helped them see how much they were summarizing for a Q3 essay, more than any of my spoken advice had until that point.
• List – In another writing rehash, we looked at an extensive list of literary terms. I asked them to write down any literary term that could vaguely relate to their most recent timed essay. Most ended up with a list of 10-15 words. After that, I asked them to pick 1-3 that they could legitimately use in their essay. After this activity, one student said, “I spent an entire paragraph talking about foreshadowing, but I just never called it that!” We used this activity to emphasize how using just a few specific literary terms help build sophistication and accuracy.
• Group work/Jigsaw – After one of our independent reading timed essays, where students responded to a choice between several different prompts, I organized students into groups. The first round of grouping was based on score. For example, all those who earned a low level score (1-2 on the new rubric, 1-3 on the old) sat together, then midlevel (New: 3-4/Old: 4-6), then high (New: 5-6/Old: 7-9). They read each other’s’ essays and compared how a similar score looked different for each prompt and novel. They also discussed common mistakes they made, as well as the different skills they demonstrated. After this grouping, I placed them in new groups, these ones based on the prompt they were given. Once again, they read each other’s’ essays and compared how the strengths and weaknesses of each. I worried that this activity would lead to competition, but it actually helped students form relationships with each other. Some of these groupings even continued throughout the year and turned into writing partnerships.
• Gallery Walk – One of my new favorite activities is a gallery walk. I recently incorporated one in a rehash by focusing on thesis statements. I selected several introduction paragraphs from a recent timed writing, as well as several scored essays from the online database (on College Board). Students circulated the room reading the introductions and scoring them with their rubrics. They even commented on what each did well and where they could improve. When we finished, we discussed the scores that each sample introduction went on to earn. This activity helped reinforce the importance of a strong claim and introduction paragraph, plus it got them up and moving around.

Not every rehash needs to be interactive or full or prep, but these are some suggestions to add movement, interaction, and variety to what could turn into a routine activity.

Make it a safe space

Before we begin our first writing rehash, I explain the purpose of the activity. Not only are they designed to improve their writing, but they establish a culture of a writer’s workshop. In a writer’s workshop, we work together to improve our writing by sharing, comparing, and criticizing. One requirement for a successful writer’s workshop is for students to be comfortable with sharing their work.

I pick examples for our lessons from their actual essays, both strong and weak. Whenever I use a student’s own writing as an example, I refrain from using their name or identifying them in the lesson. I also make sure to pick strong examples from mid-level and low-level writers, not just the strongest students. It’s a wonderful experience to see a kid light up when they see their sentence used as a strong example and everyone should get to experience that. Likewise, we all need improvement, so I make sure to use examples for improvement from all levels of students too.

Use rehashes in other classes too!

In recent years, I’ve moved rehashes beyond my AP courses into other classes as well. I use them with my sophomores when we’re mastering APE paragraphs (assert, prove, explain). I use them in my Journalism class with writing leads and articles. My co-worker has also used them in creative writing with poetry and vignettes.

Examples

If you find yourself teaching and re-teaching the same writing skills to your AP students, writer’s workshop-based rehashes can increase students’ engagement and effectively improve their writing. I’ve included one of my rehashes as an example, as well as some pictures of my students during a writing rehash.

The files below are some examples of rehashes I’ve used in my classes. The first one, one Anita Desai’s “Fasting, Feasting” prompt, is my most recent rehash. My AP Lit student wrote their first full length prose essay and we used the rehash to thoroughly discuss the difference between a claim and a line of reasoning.

I used the second file in my Journalism class after we wrote our second or third article. You can see how I always include things they do well (and list it FIRST), followed by things that need improvement.

The third file is from AP Lit as well, responding to a prompt from AP Classroom.