The First Prompt!

Woohoo! It's the rhetorical analysis diagnostic prompt day!

So, why exactly am I so happy about having 111 prompts to evaluate over the next week or so? Could it be that we will have a starting point for all of you in class? Could it be that I will have ethos on your writing style, organization, rhetorical analysis background, and time management skills - all areas that can we focus on, have a purpose to center the world of AP Lang for the 2019-20 season? Could it be that I haven't evaluated a prompt since early May and feel lost without having a pile of essays on my dining room table? Through that anaphoric hypophora (yep, you can combine rhetorical strategies in analysis too), it is evident that there are multiple reasons why a diagnostic prompt is important to the state of our class.

And while some of you are in dread of a timed writing, you will have an ample amount of practice with prompts that by the end of the year you will walk in with a readiness to at least "get it over with." Prompt writing has its own toolbox of strategies - it takes practice and a dash of legerdemain to find your best work.

Since all of you are knew to my AP English classroom, I will be evaluating each essay, which means that you will receive an evaluation sheet with all of my notes - good, bad, and ugly - a measure of all the incidentals you will need for a writing prompt. We will then have one-on-one meetings for the essay to discuss any questions that you have. (There is also a lengthy presentation on all the tips for prompts too.) This first essays takes a while to evaluate since the feedback will cover, well, everything. So, please don't ask when the essays will be back. One hundred and eleven evaluations take time. Plus, I don't have Cora trained to evaluated them with me.

Thanks for being a part of AP Lang! It's a challenge, but you will end up with the skills of a collegiate writer and prepped for your AP exam!