Teaching Line of Reasoning to AP English Lit

In 2019, the College Board released a new, itemized rubric. The new rubric differed from the previous nine-point holistic rubric by breaking the writing down into three sections: thesis, evidence and commentary, and sophistication. When I first saw the new six point rubric, I was so excited for the change. Giving scores holistically always felt uncomfortable, even after I served as an AP Reader. High school teachers usually have rubrics with various sections, so stamping on a number and moving onto the next essay felt very out of character for me.

Once I started teaching the new rubric, however, I encountered an issue that many other teachers have found. In order to get a 3 or higher on the new six-point rubric, students must establish a “line of reasoning” in their essay. But that phrase was new to us and not obvious in its meaning.

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So, what is a line of reasoning?

In the AP Lit CED, they say, “Students will then organize the various claim and-evidence paragraphs to follow a line of reasoning, enriching those paragraphs with commentary that consistently explains how each specific paragraph—and specific evidence within each paragraph—relates to the argument as a whole.” Therefore, we can summarize that the line of reasoning refers to commentary on the argument as a whole. How we communicate that to students, however, is a whole different ball game.

Why did we need a line of reasoning?

Before the CED overhaul, many students were writing essays that focused on literary elements rather than argumentation. If a prompt asked them to analyze a poem for a relationship, then suggested they used diction, point of view, and metaphor in their response, you’d often find an essay with this outline:

• Thesis: [Text] discusses relationships using diction, point of view, and metaphor.
• Paragraph 1: Look at the diction!
• Paragraph 2: Look at the point of view!
• Paragraph 3: Look at the metaphors!
• Conclusion: Therefore, you can see the relationships using diction, point of view, and metaphors.

Did you see what went missing? There was often little to no analysis on the main part of the prompt (analyzing relationships) because students got too carried away proving their knowledge of literary elements.

Resources to help you teach the line of reasoning

Here are some resources to help teach your students how to identify and write a line of reasoning for AP English Lit. Some of the ideas are mine and some are from other teachers, but hopefully you’ll find one method that makes sense to you and your students.

The Golden Thread

In 2021, I helped Susan Barber create mini skill videos for students in preparation for the AP Lit exam. I explained that the line of reasoning is a golden thread that unites your various claims together to be one cohesive argument, rather than 2-3 separate arguments. By the way, the golden thread analogy was not my creation, but I’m not sure who originated it.

Writing for a line of reasoning requires students to prove their knowledge of literary elements but uniting it under a common interpretation or argument. I call this argument the golden thread. You can talk about various literary elements or different claims, but each paragraph should return to proving this MAIN point, your line of reasoning (or golden thread). Check out this short video for a clearer explanation, where I used Gwendolyn Brooks’ “We Real Cool” as my example poem.

The Hand Turkey/Four Leaf Clover

In 2019, Roy Smith shared an idea with the AP Lit community that many students found useful. He called it the hand turkey. The idea helps students visually break down a prompt into 3-4 separate claims, then work to unite these claims under a strong thesis. The visual layout reminds students to branch ideas out from the thesis so that all of their arguments are united under that strong thesis. Check out Roy’s blog to read more and see a great example from a student.

Recently, Jennifer Stuckey did a similar activity using a four-leaf clover instead of a turkey (because, you know, March). The acitivty still works great! Here’s an example from her lesson:

Rainbow Drafting

Early in the year, I ask students to take a look at one of their first essays. I hand out different highlighters or markers and ask them to highlight different parts of their essays. In grades 9-10, I teach students to write APE paragraphs (assert, prove, explain). To keep this common language, I ask them to do the same, show me assertions, proof, and explanations in different colors. Eventually, we move towards the AP Lit rubric, where I explain how the explanation serves as both commentary and a line of reasoning.

Kelly Herrera does the same but calls it rainbow drafting and keeps the AP Lit verbiage. She tells her students to highlight the thesis or claim in one color, the evidence in another, the commentary in third color, and the line of reasoning in fourth. Once again, this is a great activity for visual learners. Many students think they’re doing all of these steps, but once they go back and highlight each section of their writing they may see where they got derailed or distracted.  

Annotating Sample Scored Essays

Sometimes I’ve found that the only way to teach writing is to show examples of what works and what doesn’t. For example, I’ve taken a bunch of the released essays from the 2019 open question on Idealism and annotated how the author did (or didn’t) establish a line of reasoning. These downloads are only found in my resources on line of reasoning on TpT, but I’m including them here for you to see.

What I do is take a finished essay and follow the author’s thoughts, breaking them down into claims or assertions, evidence or proof, and commentary and lines of reasoning. In the first essay, I can clearly see the line of reasoning established and returned to in each paragraph, where in the lower-scoring essays they are briefly mentioned and then abandoned (or not established at all). Seeing how this works can help even the most stubborn student see that it will benefit their AP Lit score to establish a strong line of reasoning.

Word Association

Here’s a new idea from Tia Miller. I’ll let Tia explain it in her own words:

“You give each of them a word to start with and they write down the first word to come to mind. Pass to the next person, repeat, etc. The last person then has to explain the line of reasoning from the first word to the last. It’s a fun activity. I think I first got it from Ashley Clark on the Seminar Facebook page, though I think she just gives them a list and has them explain it. I think it’s more fun to have the kids make it.”

The Bottom Line:

However you teach it, the line of reasoning is not an element that can be ignored in an AP Lit essay. It’s a thought that is established and grown in an essay, a point that is made THROUGHOUT an essay, not just at the beginning or the end. I hope these resources and strategies help give you some insight on what a line of reasoning is and how to teach it clearly.

Special thanks to Roy Smith, Tia Miller, and Kelly Herrera, and Jennifer Stuckey for the ideas used in this blog post. If you have a killer lesson on teaching line of reasoning, I’d love to hear about it! Drop me a line at gina.litandmore@gmail.com or comment here and I’ll add it to this blog post!