English Literature & Composition - PopulationMe.com

Chapter 2: General Teaching Strategies for an AP Course
phy. They do most of their research during the summer before their AP English Literature class
and submit their 8-12 page research paper at the end of first semester. This research assignment
can be coupled with a research presentation second semester.
TERM LIMITS
We teachers often wonder how many terms students must know in order to do well on the AP
exam and in college coursework. A list of terms for the analysis of both prose fiction and drama
would probably include the same 15-20 terms: settin~ symbol, theme, motif, rising action, climax,
falling action, denouement, foreshadowing, in medias res, conflict, character, imagery, deus ex
machina, tone, point of view, allusion, metaphor, simile, diction (including dialect), and syntax. Poetry
requires far more. This genre, chronologically the first, has its own technical language revolving
around various types of meter and rhyme. We expect students to learn about 50 terms peculiar
to poetry (see list below) and to use them accuratelywhen writing about or discussing poems. One
caveat here, though-and we will return to it in our tips for taking the exam in Chapter 3-is that
merely identifying or labeling a technique ("Here's a metaphor" or "Here's alliteration") has little
value. Students mustlearn to link the device to a central idea about the poem; they must show how
the device is working within the poem to generate meaning. That is, they must connect form to
function, device to purpose. That caveat applies to writing assignments about poems as well as to
the poetry questions, both multiple choice and essay, on the AP exam itself.
As for allusions, you can't teach them all in one year. As suggested earlier, a good English
program would focus on Greek and Roman mythology one year and selected biblical narratives
another year. By the AP course, though, even bright students may have forgotten these references.
Encourage students, then, to compile their own "Dictionary of Allusions" in which, for
each work they study, they note any references to mythology, to the Bible, or to history.
Handling the Paper Load
Our first piece of advice for reducing to manageable limits your out-of-class work may sound
callous, but here it is: Don't grade everything that students write. Itreally is not callous, though.
While students need the practice in writing, you probably don't need any more practice in grading.
Of course, you should give students feedback and suggestions for improvement, but you
need not feel obligated to comment on every piece they produce. And here is one important tactical
suggestion: Never count how many papers or tests or quizzes remain in that pile in front
of you. Ignorance is bliss, after all. One way to approach such a load is to simply tackle five (or
ten) essays at a time, then take a break. Small units of work go faster.
A way to achieve this goal of offering feedback while still having a life is via students' journals.
Have students respond regularly to what they read and to class discussions of the works
read. But when they submit those journals every month, have them star (*) their four or five
best (or most perplexed) entries for you to read, grade, and comment on. Especially if you have
copies of the scoring guides and sample essays used at the AP Reading, and if you are comfortable
with holistic scoring, consider using the AP's one through nine scoring scale when assessing
student writing. Split scores are fine. One scoring system, based on points or percentage,
might look like this:
9 = 100
8 = 95
7 = 90
6 = 85
9