When 2 Passages Collide

For 1 & 3, we started off with finishing up our rhetorical analysis q & a to ascertain tips for hooks, picking out strategies, and overall preparedness for processing, close reading, and writing the prompt. Afterwards, you received your scoring sheet, an approximation of what you would score on the exam. Then, we looked at the argumentation essay, in which our leaders shared their examples from expected to surprising.

For 1, 3, & 7, we read 2 passages, one of an nineteenth century commentary on society and one a parody of said commentary, to look for authorial purposes and strategies that create such reasoning. For homework, you have a 3 paragraph mini-essay - intro, 2 body - to practice rhetorical analysis. If you were absent, you will need to see me before class as you will be working on this assignment during class time to catch up.

And, last call, for t-shirt money - I will be setting up the purchase orders for this shirts tomorrow during AP Lit testing.

Review Study Sessions Will Commence Tuesday

As with previous years, AP Lang will have study sessions available during specific lunch periods, during early release time, and after school. These study sessions give you the opportunity to read more passages, practice close reading skills, review terminology, and check out more prompts. In all honesty, the more that you see, practice, and ratiocinate will pay dividends in your confidence on the exam. Plus, you will have the opportunity to earn tally points, which will translate into the top 37 students receiving extra credit.

For the next week and a half, AP Lang & AP Lit will be sharing the time, so be aware that I will be rotating between the 2 classes.

I have a handout with all the details for you, but here are the highlights for your calendar:

Lunch sessions will center around the AP Lang flashcards and will occur during third lunch periods from now on (first lunch on May 1 due to a one-day switch).

Early release time study session will occur on May 3 & May 10. While I will be at a meeting, this will be student-led with prompt practices and lit cards.

After school sessions will have a MC passage, poetry prompt, prose prompt, free response prompt, lit term cards, and AP Lang cards.

AP Lang Cram will be May 15 from 2:30-5:30. You obviously don't have to stay for all 3 hours, but it will be an opportunity to have several rounds of MC, prompts, and lit card review. Technically, I can stay later if need be. This is a chance for a group study session before you go home.

******Every session will feature different passages and prompts, so you will not see the same passage twice. All passages (unless we run out) will be actual AP prompts.******

T-Shirt Orders

Due to the low number of t-shirt orders as of this moment, you may still pay for your t-shirt through Monday. All shirts are $12.50.

As for class today, fourth hour turned in all of passages 61a-6e work, analyzed the rhetorical analysis prompt, and found out their overall score on the exam.

Seventh hour, which will be meeting in about an hour, will be finishing their rhetorical analysis q & a session with their student leaders, finding out their overall score on the exam, and most likely analyzing the argument prompt and reviewing toolbox terms.

Student Writing Leaders Week

With inconsistent class scheduling this week, AP Lang has focused on reviewing close reading, rhetorical analysis, multiple choice, and prompt writing to wrap up all the skills in one lovely little package. The block scheduling has also been a time for analyzing the various parts of your practice exam with your classmates becoming the leaders & you picking their brains for all the tips of strategy, writing, and whatnot.

1, 3, 7: At this point, all of these classes have completed passages 6a-6e, including close reads, charts, and multiple choice passages. In addition, you completed a three paragraph (intro, 2 body) mini-essay on a random prompt. All of the above was turned in for a grade during Wednesday's class. As for the practice exam, we started with student-led meetings regarding the synthesis prompt, and student-led close readings of the rhetorical analysis prompt with follow-up questions from the audience.

4: As with the previous hours, we have finished passages 6a-6e with close readings, charts, and multiple choice passages. For homework, you have to complete a three paragraph mini-essay on a random prompt. All of this will be turned in tomorrow, so make sure you have all of your materials ready to go. In the middle of class, we had our student-led meetings regarding the synthesis prompt, and tomorrow we will have a variant of this plan for the rhetorical analysis. F.Y.I. At this point in the grading of the practice exam, there have been two 9 essays, one in rhetoric and one in argument, and both of these have come from your class.

Mechanics

In all hours today, we finished up the review of mechanical rules in preparation for future prompts and the ACT exam. You do not have anything new to do for homework this weekend - just make sure to bring your passages 6a-6d and the related charts to class next time.  Fourth hour, since we did not finish the power point, I sent you the presentation via e-mail.

T-shirt pricing announcement: if you are interested in purchasing a t-shirt for your class, the cost will be $12.50, and you will need to bring the $ by next Friday - or sooner - so I can order the shirts.

A Little Bit of This & That

We reviewed in multiple ways today:

1. Completing passage 6c close read, rhetorical strategy chart, and mc portion.
2. Working together to organize the rhetorical toolbox terms and definitions.
3. Reviewing punctuation and mechanical rules to avoid distractions on the exam.

For homework, you are to complete the close read and chart for passage 6d. As a reminder, you will eventually need all of these close reads, charts, and multiple choices for a final assignment and to turn in. Hence, if absent, make sure that you pick up any materials.

Summing the MC

Sometimes you have MC passages that are straightforward, have familiar organizational patterns, bring in diction and syntax that helps create quick comprehension. Sometimes, however, you have MC passages that feature dense language and syntax that layer meaning beneath the surface, and you have to go on a hunt for the author's purpose. In order to practice understanding a passage (beyond all those strategies and tones), we worked on verbal summary of the "Imagination" and "Segregation" passages. Going line by line or sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph, you should be able to better comprehend the passage and, ergo, have greater accuracy with the questions. At this point, first, third, and seventh hours have finished going over the MC passages, and fourth hour will finish the last 2 passages on Thursday.

So what does the crystal ball see for the next few days in Lang? We will continue with more passages 6c-6e to practice close reading comprehension, rhetorical analysis, and MC. We will look at a review of common mechanical issues that you would like to improve for your writing. We will look at the synthesis, rhetorical analysis, and argumentative essays from the practice exam and then have an idea of what you would score on the exam.

Observations on the MC Exam

I just finished grading the MC exam, and all classes ran the gamut from complete comprehension of the passages to some struggles on identifying purposes, strategies, footnote information, tone, and other questions relating to the readings. As a result, we will have a comprehensive review of the MC passages starting tomorrow and, most likely, running into Tuesday's classes. This review will involve summarizing, looking for patterns, retaking portion of the exam, and identifying areas for improvement.

As with the writing prompts, there are goals for measuring success and scoring on the MC portion of the exam. This exam featured 52 questions. The stats below cover 80 out of 83 students as 3 students have yet to take the MC. The highest score was 47 out of 52, which was scored by me and one person from first hour.

Goal 1 is scoring 50% on the exam, or 26 questions correct, which 64 of you had or higher
Goal 2 is scoring 60% on the exam, or 31 questions correct, which 47 of you had or higher
Goal 3 is scoring 70% on the exam, or 37 questions correct, which 20 of you had or higher
Goal 4 is scoring a 2 on the exam before the writing portion, or 42 correct, which 7 of you had (LL, CO, CP, BA, JA, AJ, BH)

Many of you are on the cusp of the next goal and the next level of success on the exam, so do take our work with a focused intent. As with focus, it is imperative that you follow through with all those strategies that help you with any type of reading exam: close reading, process of elimination, always answering questions (several people skipped scores of questions that may have resulted in a higher level). And, this seems like something my mom tells me about teaching fourth grade, there were several of you that did not put your name on a MC exam. Now, I have, I think, figured out the hours of these no name papers, but this will have to be cleared up at some point tomorrow.

6a & 6b

1, 3, 7: Well, we've worked with passages 6a & 6b in two different manners, which means were are only halfway done with those texts. For today's class, you completed MC for those passages. Fortunately, you have close read the passages and completed rhetorical analysis for them, so many of you did very well with these review and practice MC.

4: We finished up the argument prompt today, which means we will be back to what the other hours did today on Monday.

MC

1, 3, 7: MC practice exam took over 2/3 of the class. If you have completed all 4 portions of the exam, you are good to go. If for some reason, field trip, or random event has conspired against you from taking parts of the exam, you need to make these up by Friday so that you receive the same evaluation as the rest of your classmates. As for the other 1/3, our groups completed the team close read for passage 6b and worked on the corresponding chart. Both passages and charts should be completed for Friday's class - you definitely will want your close readings with you.

The Great Review Begins

Reminders shall commence this blog today: 1. Make sure you have completed all parts of the AP exam or have a plan to complete all parts of the AP exam by the end of the week. If you missed a prompt due to a field trip, it is up to you to make up the work. 2. The Kings & Queens prompt deadline is now Monday, April 16 at 3:30 p.m. While this may lead to further procrastination, as least you have a weekend involved.

1, 3, 7: We started the Great Review of close reading, rhetorical analysis, multiple choice, and prompt writing. To start, we completed a team close read on Passage 6a and filled out a rhetorical analysis chart for that passage. If absent, you will need to pick up the handouts and complete this on your own - these handouts will be imperative in our future activities.

4: Well, the plot for today was put on a hiatus. In place of our writing prompt, we finished up close reading Passage 6b and its chart. Make sure to have both 6a & 6b work complete for Friday's class. Don't forget that if you are missing class on Thursday to schedule a make-up time for the MC portion of the practice test.

Day III

First, third, and seventh hours have completed the three writing prompts associated with our practice AP Lang exam, which means Multiple Choice is waiting in the wings to complete the test. As you are aware, the MC portion will be on the block day as it takes an hour to complete. Fourth hour currently remains one prompt behind due to our detour last week into the review of close reading via team methods, rhetorical analysis charts, and the hints of multiple choice to follow. For those of you in the other hours, we will be doing that detour on Tuesday.

If for some reason or other you have missed any parts of the AP exam, you will need to make up those prompts by the end of the week so that I can evaluate and compute your AP score for this exam. Ideally, this would occur during a study hall or after school or, if all else fails, during class time. Be cognizant of the 4 parts of the exam and whether you have completed all parts by the end of this week.

P.S. Don't forget to shoe vote every day leading up to the AP exam. Each person may vote for 2 different pairs a day.

Day II

First, third, and seventh hours are half way through the practice exam with 2 prompts down and 1 prompt and MC remaining for next week. Fourth hour, you are one-fourth there, so you will be doing a more of the test next week.

Don't forget that your Kings & Queens essay is due all next week with the last chance to turn in on April 13 @ 3:30 p.m. 

Practice Test Day I

For first, third, and seventh hours, you completed the first prompt of the practice exam. If you missed the exam, you will reschedule a time to take this portion. Round two will be tomorrow.

For fourth hour, we completed a close read and a half of two government passages. We will be back to that activity on Tuesday, so make sure you keep your handouts to help you out with future assignments (hint, hint, hint). Tomorrow will be part one of the practice exam.

The Whole Test

To start off class, we reviewed the 4 parts of the test: multiple choice, rhetorical analysis, argument, and synthesis. As noted, many skills (close reading, purpose, strategies, exemplification, citing) overlap through each part. However, you have to be aware of the specific prompt and what it needs (synthesis with its 3 sources, for instance) to score high. Why did we review all of these elements? Well, it was not to encourage the use of rhetorical questions like the preceding one. The correct answer would be the full practice exam, which will begin tomorrow with one of the three prompts.

Beyond the exam, you now have been officially assigned the Kings & Queens prompt. In theory, you have already broken down the prompt, selected your sources, and outlined your essay. If so, you are prepping your essay and reviewing for the 3 prompts on the exam. The due date for this particular typed, hard copy assignment is between now and next Friday. The last day that this essay will be accepted will be Friday, April 13, at 3:30 p.m. This is your last take-home essay, so put in the time and craft an extraordinary one!

See all of you tomorrow for part of the practice test!