ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH 11



ADVANCED PLACEMENT ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION

WESTERN GUILFORD HIGH SCHOOL

CULCLASURE

Overview

Pre-requisite: Grade 10 English—Honors level strongly recommended

Class meeting times: 60-minute periods every day, full-year

Total instructional time: 180 hours

Program Content:

The purpose of Advanced Placement Language and Composition/English 11 is to prepare the student of high academic ability for post high school work. Designed to provide enrichment in the humanities, opportunities for independent study and growth in the areas of critical thinking and writing, the course is, in essence, a college Freshman Composition course. A major focus of the course is preparation for the Advanced Placement Exam in Language and Composition. The course overview and objectives for the course are taken from the AP® English Course Description published by the College Board.

With an awareness that all students are enrolled in United States History, reading selections and writing assignments are assigned to provide students with experiences which help to inform and support an awareness of the American experience. As a part of the course of study, a chronological examination of American literature will be enriched with the study of the following major works: The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Awakening, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, As I Lay Dying, Death of a Salesman, A Raisin in the Sun, Our Town, and A Glass Menagerie. Grammar, vocabulary, literature study and composition are integrated throughout the term. Activities are integrated in order to recognize that elements of reading and writing are interconnected, with activities in one area providing development in another area. The course is a year-long class with 180 sessions, each session lasting 60 minutes.

Annual Goals as Identified in the AP English Course Description:

To write in several forms (e.g., narrative, expository, analytical, and argumentative essays) about a variety of subjects (e.g., public policies, popular culture, personal experiences).

To write essays which proceed through several stages or drafts, with revision aided by teacher and peers.

To write in informal contexts (e.g., imitation exercises, journal keeping, collaborative writing, and in-class responses) designed to help them become increasingly aware of themselves as writers and of the techniques employed by the writers they read.

To engage in expository, analytical, and argumentative writing assignments that are based on readings representing a wide variety of prose styles and genres.

To read nonfiction readings (e.g., essays, journalism, political writing, science writing, nature writing, autobiographies/biographies, diaries, history, criticism) that are selected to give students opportunities to identify and explain an author's use of rhetorical strategies and techniques. If fiction and poetry are also assigned, their main purpose should be to help students understand how various effects are achieved by writers' linguistic and rhetorical choices. (Note: The College Board does not mandate any particular authors or reading list. To facilitate the integration with AP US History, selections are drawn from American writings.)

To analyze how graphics and visual images both relate to written texts and serve as alternative forms of text themselves. To develop research skills, and in particular, the ability to evaluate, use, and cite primary and secondary sources. The course assigns projects such as the researched argument paper, which goes beyond the parameters of a traditional research paper by asking students to present an argument of their own that includes the analysis and synthesis of ideas from an array of sources.

To cite sources using a recognized editorial style (e.g., Modern Language Association, The Chicago Manual of Style, etc.)

To revise student’s writing assignments as a result of teacher provided instruction and, both before and after the students revise their work, that help the students develop these skills:

-A wide-ranging vocabulary used appropriately and effectively

-A variety of sentence structures, including appropriate use of subordination and coordination

-Logical organization, enhanced by specific techniques to increase coherence, such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis

-A balance of generalization and specific, illustrative detail

-An effective use of rhetoric, including controlling tone, establishing and maintaining voice, and achieving appropriate emphasis through diction and sentence structure

Summer Reading/Response Activities—This Assignment May Change from Year to Year

Section I The Scarlet Letter

Keep a spiral notebook for the written portion of the assignment. Expect to turn in the annotated novel you use for evaluation. (Please use the Barnes and Noble edition of The Scarlet Letter—ISBN-13: 9781593082079 if possible for consistency of page numbers when referencing the text.)

I. Read and annotate The Scarlet Letter.

Engage in active reading. Read with a pen or pencil in hand. Make comments in the margins. Post-it notes to indicate key passages will also be helpful. Underline key words or lines, but remember that underlining should be frugal. If every line is underlined, nothing stands out as unique. Consider using different colors to indicate different threads: recurring themes, character dynamics, stylistic devices (syntax, tone, imagery, detail, diction), and authorial intent.

Record your commentary/annotations/responses in a reading journal (a single subject spiral notebook works best). Begin your responses on the back of the first page, indicating the word, line or passage you are addressing. On the opposite page, use the following guidelines for the annotations:

A. Analysis

• Identify the passage or line of text—chapter and page references are required.

• Record the what, how, why elements of the selected passage. How do these aspects of the storytelling contribute to the overall effect/purpose of the work.

• How do the characters evolve and reveal themselves? What do others say about that character? Do the character’s words and the words of others tell the same story? Try to understand why they do what they do and say what they say. Consider both the physical and psychological aspects of the character under consideration.

B. Reader Response

Respond to the passage. What did you think as you read? Do you have a response to the character, the situation? Do you have any questions as a result of your reading? Are you moved or repulsed by the situation in which the character finds himself? Converse with the author or characters. Enter the world of the novel and react/respond.

II. Create responses to 5 important passages/quotations from The Scarlet Letter. This portion should be typed.

Example:

The Great Gatsby 9: 180

Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled in to an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the first time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

Analysis:

In this final section from the novel, Fitzgerald is connecting the running theme of dreams and the past. In these lines told through the words of Nick Carraway, Gatsby’s confident and the novel’s narrator, Fitzgerald is able to reflect on the impossibility of Gatsby’s dream, but also the greatness of the man and “his capacity for wonder.” Fitzgerald’s motifs of light and darkness are also revisited as Nick reflects on the “lights” and the “shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat” juxtaposed with the rise of moonlight over the “inessential houses.” Fitzgerald is moving his audience to a consideration of the fleeting and transitory nature of “all human dreams.”

Nick’s reflection begins the reconsideration of Gatsby—a failure or a success. Nick has envisioned both experiences in Gatsby, but how can an individual fail and succeed? Nick helps the reader to sort out this apparent irony. Gatsby’s dream—“his capacity for wonder” and his attempt to achieve his dreams is what makes him “great.” But, as Nick suggests, dreams are “transitory” and always beyond man’s reach as suggested with the comparison of the Dutch sailors’ contemplation of the possibilities of the unexplored American continent.

Reader’s Response:

I am bothered by the continued insistence that an individual can experience failure and success out of the same set of events. I want to claim Gatsby’s greatness. I love the use of imagery in this paragraph. Fitzgerald’s word pictures create a romantic vision of the exploration of America, even when he does not address the darker exploitative side of America’s settlement by Europe. In the same way Gatsby’s world –East Egg/West Egg is beautiful, but geographically connected to Myrtle and George’s Land of Ashes.

III. Reader’s Dictionary—keep this portion in the spiral notebook being used for the reading journal.

As you are reading the novel keep a dictionary of new words you encounter. Many of the words in The Scarlet Letter appear in such place as the Critical Reading section of the SAT. To grow a vocabulary you must be an active and observant reader.

A. Record the word in the context of its sentence. Note the chapter and page where the sentence is located.

B. Look up the word and identify the correct definition for the contextual use of the word in the sentence.

C. Write an original sentence using the word.

D. The dictionary should include at least 50 words found from throughout the novel. Words should come from all 24 chapters.

Sample Dictionary

1. Most of the confidences were unsought—frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity when I realized by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon….

2. Feign –v. verb (used with object)

a. to represent factiously; put on an appearance of : to feign sickness.

b. to invent fictitiously or deceptively, as a story or an excuse

c. to imitate deceptively: to feign another’s voice verb (used without object)

d. to make believe; pretend: She's only feigning, she isn't really ill.

3. Although I really was not interested in knitting, I feigned interest when my best friend showed me her newest knitted creation.

Section II. Newspaper / Magazine Editorial Reading Assignment

The focus of the Grade 11 AP course is to understand, analyze, and write non-fiction prose. This assignment provides practice in reading and responding to essays and arguments.

Choose a journal (approx 5”x7” to 8”x11” in size—spiral bound might be best) to keep this assignment in. You will be submitting this journal in the first week of school.

Over the summer, read, clip and paste into your journal at least five editorials or commentaries / essays (not news articles or informational features) from reputable newspapers or issues-based magazines (you should mix-and-match, using at least two different sources). If you do not have access to a newspaper at home, the public library has papers which can be photocopied and the internet (again available at the public library) will also provide a link to newspapers.

Examples of suggested newspapers/magazines:

The Greensboro News and Record (newspaper)

The New York Times (newspaper) The Washington Post (newspaper)

The New Yorker (magazine) Atlantic Monthly (magazine) Harper’s (magazine) The Economist (magazine)

Mother Jones (magazine) (online magazine)

Examples of newspapers/magazines that are not recommended:

The Rhino Times (newspaper) The Enquirer (newspaper)

USA Today (newspaper) Seventeen (magazine)

Then, handwriting your responses in your journal, comment on the aspects of each of the editorials that made you think, and your thoughts about the editorial or the issues – one response per editorial. There is no guideline as to length, but your responses should be thoughtful and detailed.

Some questions you might want to think about/comment on:

Do you agree or disagree with the editorial’s viewpoints? Why?

• Did the editorial make you want to know more about the issue?

• What are some of the author’s best arguments? What makes them good?

• Which arguments or points made by the author do not make sense to you and why?

• How does this editorial connect with other knowledge that you have from other sources?

• Anything else this editorial makes you think about…

Methods and Procedures for Determining That Goals Have Been Met:

Through a wide variety of literature including novels, drama, poetry, and essays, students will be encouraged to read and think critically, recognizing the subtleties of language and form. The literature read will serve as models and areas of departure in composition, examining character, plot, theme, point of view, symbolism, and style. The study of writing will focus on rhetorical approaches outlined in Patterns for College Writing. Prose readings for analysis will be taken from the adopted state literature text and supplemental writings used in AP US History. Some of the assorted readings may be substituted with others depending on what becomes available, such as magazine articles and other supplemental readings already taught, or those that reflect important issues of the day.

As students become more aware of writers' style and language, similar focus on style and language will be directed on student writing. Through themes, tests, and discussions, students' development of skills in comprehension, interpretation, analysis, and synthesis will be monitored. The process of creating a researched argument will be a focus of the course. Focus on the origins of language will be the springboard for vocabulary study, providing students with tools for word study and analysis. Students keep a notebook that is organized as follows: class notes, handouts, exercises, vocabulary and an error list.

Most classes begin with bell-ringer activities during the first 15-20 minutes.

Voice Lessons—this activity includes brief rhetorical analysis for diction, detail, imagery, tone and syntax

OPTIC—this activity is the analysis of visual argument as presented through assorted editorial

cartoons, photographs, and advertisements. This experience also provides students with MLA

documentation for each visual used to expose them to the correct MLA style.

Limited timed writings: students are given a variety of topics for free writes to respond to so that they are exposed to a variety of different topics and situations. The student completes the introductory paragraph within the designated time.

Analysis of rhetorical strategies used in assorted readings are done through the use of several strategies, i.e., acronym (SOAPSTone), and rhetorical triangle

AP style multiple choice passages—students must justify responses by careful analysis of passage

Focused vocabulary study built from teacher selected words and student selected words from the individual’s readings.

Focused activities in syntax, addressing sentence combining and subordination.

Focused activities to recognize and improve coherence in writing through utilizing strategies such as repetition, transitions, and emphasis.

Each unit includes reading/discussion of chapters from Patterns for College Writing that correspond to unit mode of writing focus. Students will complete this reading outside class, and prepare for class discussion and/or group work based on the focus of each chapter assigned. Elements of Language is also used both as a reference text as well as being the basis for activities to address weaknesses in student structural writing.

Writing Experiences: Students have the opportunity to engage in a variety of writing experiences, formal and informal, un-timed and timed. Writing experiences that are formal, un-timed are created in a “writer’s workshop” that provides opportunities for review and revision. Writing takes place in process, with stages of development monitored through peer readings, student revisions, and teacher-student conferences. Students are led to understand that writing is a process and that all good writing includes a beginning, a middle and an end. Paragraphing is an organizational tool used by the writer to assist the reader in understanding by providing logical groupings of ideas. To further enhance the readers’ ability to comprehend the writer’s argument, a variety of writing strategies are employed to assure coherence through such techniques as repetition, transitions, and emphasis. Timed writing experiences take place under the structure of time and with a specific writing prompt or stimulus. These timed writings are assessed using AP rubrics.

Outside of class writing experiences focus on modes of writing (process, cause and effect, comparison, classification and division, definition, and argumentation) are expected to be accompanied with a detailed plan for writing, which is considered a part of the essay’s grade, along with other English conventions, such as use of the active voice and verbs in the present tense (unless otherwise stipulated), appropriate and precise diction, sentences that are complete and that incorporate a variety of sentence structures, and a command of the use of English conventions (other issues of mechanics) leading to a product which reflects the author’s rhetorical awareness of message, audience and purpose. All of the characteristics of effective writing are incorporated into every rubric which also includes the elements necessary for a well-organized and coherent essay that meets or exceeds the purpose of the assignment. Each stage/part of the essay is assessed—the introductory paragraph, the developmental paragraphs (with particular attention to specific development, evidence and analysis), and the conclusion (which may not be a summary paragraph).

In class timed writing experiences are AP prompts allowing students to approximate 40 minutes of the AP writing experience. Following the writing experience, the students receive sample AP scored responses and rubrics so that they can develop an understanding of how the essays are graded and can calibrate their visions of effective responses. Using the rubric and/or sample essays are available, they will complete another peer evaluation activity where they will read and evaluate an essay, then when called upon, give their assessment of the essay’s grade, including specific reasons for this assessment.

Students keep a portfolio in the classroom that is comprised of their essay writing. They have the option to revise/rewrite 2 essays a semester which have not gone through the revision process through peer editing and/or teacher-comment.

Individual and peer editing is a component of the writing experience. Students are guided by specific questions to identify and suggest revisions of writing assignments.

Reading Experiences: Taught in integration with AP United States History, reading selections and writing assignments are designed to provide students with experiences which help to inform and support an awareness of the American experience. As a part of the course of study, a chronological examination of American literature is enriched with the selection of fiction and non-fiction. Students are provided a variety of activities including graphic organizers, document analysis activities, note-taking strategies and active reading annotation to support the reading experience. Many of the writing assignments of the class grow out of student journal responses to the literature.

The works of literature which appear on the Advanced Placement Readings lists are challenging, college-level reading for mature, discerning students.  The purpose of literature is not to please, but to make the reader think.  The purpose of literature is not to affirm the reader’s beliefs, but, rather, to challenge them, so that they might be affirmed or rejected.  Each work of art is an expression of the human experience in all its richness—its diversity—its conflicting opinions. Some literature at this level may be seen by some as dark and depressing; however, a mature reader knows that light and dark, pleasure and pain, joy and sadness are inextricably intertwined as part of the human experience, each defining and making possible the alternative. The themes of these diverse works attempt to question life’s important issues: the nature of man, the purpose of life, the existence of a higher power, the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom, the moral dilemma of good and evil and more.  Students and/or parents who object to a particular work either on the in-class or out-of-class reading list may, after contacting the teacher, elect to substitute a work chosen by the teacher which is equally rigorous and which fulfills the objectives of the assignment.  However, no AP work will be removed from the in-class or out-of-class list.

Student Evaluation

Compositions, major tests, projects and pop quizzes 60%

Vocabulary quizzes 20%

Homework 20%

Textbooks

Elements of Literature. Fifth Course: Literature of the United States with Literature of the

Americas. Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 2000.

Elements of Language. Fifth Course. Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 2000.

Patterns for College Writing: A Rhetorical Reader and Guide. 9th Ed. Laurie G. Kirszner and

Stephen R. Mandell. Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2004.

Supplemental Texts:

Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby Wilder, Our Town

Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath Faulkner, As I Lay Dying

Chopin, The Awakening Miller, Death of a Salesman Williams, A Glass Menagerie

Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God Miller, The Crucible Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Online resources:

AAEC – Political Cartoons

Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonists Index

Electronic Texts for the Study of American Culture

NPR: This I Believe

The Onion

Silva Rhetoricae – The Forest of Rhetoric

Online newspapers and periodicals will be added as appropriate for topics of study.

Teacher Resources

Dean, Nancy. Discovering Voice: Voice Lessons for Middle and High School .Gainesville, FL: Maupin House,

2006.

Dean, Nancy. Voices Lessons: Classroom Activities to Teach Diction, Detail, Imagery, Syntax, and Tone.

Gainesville: Maupin House, 2000.

DiYanni, Robert and Pat C.Hoy,II. Frames of Mind: A Rhetorical Reader with Occasions for Writing. Boston:

Thomson Wadsworth, 2005.

Hacker, Diana. The Bedford Handbook. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2006.

Hacker, Diana. A Writer's Reference. 5th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2003.

Leonard, James S., Thomas A. Tenney, and Thadious M. Davis, eds. Satire or Evasion? Black Perspectives on

“Huckleberry Finn.” Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1992.

Lunsford, Andrea A. and John J. Ruszkiewicz. Everything’s an Argument: With Readings. 3rd ed. Boston:

Bedford/St. Martins, 2003.

Roskelly, Hephzibah, and David Jolliffe. Everyday Use: Rhetoric at Work in Reading and Writing. New York:

Pearson Longman, 2005.

Released AP Language and Composition exams and other exam material available on AP Central.

Sequence of Study

First Semester

The fall semester is dedicated to developing fluency in key aspects of argumentative writing, introducing critical thinking strategies, the canons of rhetoric, reviewing key style concepts, and exploring major themes in expository and argumentative writing. Students are provided with models of narrative, descriptive and argumentative writing. Students are moved away from the notion that all essays must be structured as 5 paragraphs. Rather all good writing contains a beginning, middle, and an end. The paragraphing divisions are determined by the form of the writing meeting the needs of the writing’s function.

The mid-term exam will be structured from an old AP English Language and Composition exam.

Quarter 1

Colonization: A Vision of a New World —William Bradford, John Smith, Mary Rowlandson, William Byrd, Olaudah Equiano, Anne Bradstreet, Edward Taylor, Benjamin Franklin and Jonathan Edwards

Writing Focus: Narrative

Composition Assignment: Personal Narrative

In Class Close Readings: Joan Didion, Richard Rodriguez

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

Revolution: Words as Weapons—Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Michel-Guillaume

Jean de Crevecoeur

Writing Focus: Definition, Personal Narrative, Argumentation

Composition Assignment: What is an American?

In Class Close Readings: Alexis De Tocqueville

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

Romanticism: The Emerging Identity of the American Hero—Washington Irving, William Cullen Bryant,

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, James Fennimore Cooper

Writing Focus: Description

Composition Assignment: My Querencia

In Class Close Readings: Joan Didion, Annie Dillard

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

Quarter 2

Transcendentalism and Dark Romanticism: A Challenged Vision—Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David

Thoreau, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edger Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson

Writing Focus: Definition, Comparision and Textual Citation

Composition Assignment: The Scarlet Letter: A Dark Lexicon of American Values

In Class Close Readings: Ellen Goodman, Judy Brady

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

Realism: A Nation Divided, Disillusioned and Disenfranchised—Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, Frederick Douglas, Mary Chesnutt, Chief Joseph, Mark Twain, Ambrose Bierce, Bret Hart, Kate Chopin

Writing Focus: Classification

Composition Assignment: The World of Huckleberry Finn

In Class Close Readings: Amy Tan, William Zinsser

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

Second Semester

Synthesis is a central focus of the second semester, culminating in a researched argument which is presented following the AP Exam in May. Students select a contemporary issue and follow it throughout the semester, collecting articles and engaging in a variety of activities leading to the final synthesis and analysis of a claim with supporting grounds and warrants. Students are engaged in activities which provide them with the opportunities to explore and to document their arguments. MLA, APA and Chicago Style of documentation are presented.

Exam preparation through tutoring sessions begins in the 4th Quarter of the 2nd semester. These sessions are optional. The activities include practice multiple-choice exercises as well as annotation/discussion of old AP English Language prompts.

Quarter 3

Naturalism: The Industrial Jungle and New Wealth—Jack London, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Paul

Laurence Dunbar, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Edgar Lee Masters, Robert Frost

Writing Focus: Cause and Effect and Synthesis

Composition Assignment: C/E of a Contemporary Issue

In Class Close Readings: Norman Cousins, Marie Winn

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

G. The Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps,

Zora Neale Hurston

Writing Focus: Comparison

Composition Assignment: The Fate of Woman: Life, Love and Marriage as Exposed in The Awakening and

Their Eyes Were Watching God

In Class Close Readings: Ian Frazier, Christopher B. Daly

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

H. The American Dream: Lost and Found—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, T. S. Elliot, John Steinbeck

Writing Focus: Exemplification

Composition Assignment: The American Dream

In Class Close Readings: David Birnbaum, David Sedaris

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

Quarter 4

Drama is a transition/focus to AP English Literature and Composition, and other times we study techniques in composing the college application essay. However, since the May and June administrations of the College Board’s SAT Reasoning Test™ come directly after the AP English Language and Composition Exam, time is used to help students prepare for the critical reading and writing sections of the SAT®. Resources such as The Official SAT Study Guide® and ScoreWrite™: A Guide to Preparing for the New SAT Essay are used to support this effort.

I. Appearance vs. Reality: Literature Reflects Life—Arthur Miller, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens,

ee cummings, Carl Sandburg, W. H. Auden

Writing Focus: Process

Composition Assignment: How to Survive AP English

In Class Close Readings: Joshua Piven, David Borgenicht, and Jennifer Worick; Jessica Mitford

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

J. The American Family: The Cause or the Cure of Tragedy—William Faulkner, Katherine Anne Porter, Eudora

Welty, Tennessee Williams, Thorton Wilder, Lorraine Hansberry

Writing Focus: The Researched Argument--Synthesis

Composition Assignment: Contemporary Issue

In Class Close Readings: William Saffir, Roger Rosenblat, Richard Rodriguez, William Rasberry, Leonard

Pitts

Ongoing Considerations: Timed writing experiences, vocabulary, grammar, and SAT/AP preparation.

Teaching Strategies

While students in an AP English Language and Composition course may be strong readers and writers, a variety of strategies is needed as they encounter challenging text. The most effective strategies are those that teach students how to infer and analyze.

Subject-Occasion-Audience-Purpose-Speaker-Tone (SOAPSTone)

This is a text analysis strategy as well as a method for initially teaching students how to craft a more thoughtful thesis. The SOAPSTone strategy is addressed in the College Board workshop and materials The AP Vertical Teams® Guide for English

Speaker: the individual or collective voice of the text

Occasion: the event or catalyst causing the writing of the text to occur

Audience: the group of readers to whom the piece is directed

Purpose: the reason behind the text

Subject: the general topic and/or main idea

Tone: the attitude of the author

Syntax Analysis Chart

A syntax analysis chart is an excellent strategy for style analysis as well as an effective revision technique for a student’s own writing. One of the key strategies mentioned in The AP Vertical Teams® Guide for English, published by the College Board, the syntax analysis chart involves creating a five-column table with the following headings: Sentence Number, First Four Words, Special Features, Verbs, and Number of Words per Sentence. This reflective tool not only helps students examine how style contributes to meaning and purpose but also helps students identify various writing problems (repetitiveness, possible run-ons or fragments, weak verbs, and lack of syntactical variety).

Overview-Parts-Title-Interrelationships-Conclusion (OPTIC)

O is for overview—write down a few notes on what the visual appears to be about.

P is for parts—zero in on the parts of the visual. Write down any elements or details that seem important.

T is for title—highlight the words of the title of the visual (if one is available).

I is for interrelationships—use the title as the theory and the parts of the visual as clues to detect and specify the interrelationships in the graphic.

C is for conclusion—draw a conclusion about the visual as a whole. What does the visual mean? Summarize the message of the visual in one or two sentences.

Document Analysis Organizers

Organizers are used to provide graphic tools to assist students in unlocking key elements in reading assignments.

Socratic Seminar/Paedeia

Seminars provide student’s the opportunity to engage in student and text directed discussions. During these student-centered activities, the teacher serves as facilitator to help manage the discussion time as opposed to directing the discussion’s direction.

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