Advanced Placement Summer Institute 2024
Course Description:
Welcome! This AP English Language and Composition Summer Institute will offer teachers a strong foundation for setting up new AP courses, guidance for creating AP Units relevant to each participant’s students, invigorating ideas for energizing existing courses, and ample strategies for the pre-AP classroom. As a current AP English Language teacher, the workshop consultant will offer numerous strategies for improving students’ abilities to read critically and write purposefully. Additionally, participants will receive an overview of My AP Classroom (web-based resources and support from the College Board). Plus, as an AP Reader and Table Leader, the consultant will provide scoring experience on recent AP essays and practice with AP multiple choice passages. The workshop will be structured with many hands-on lessons to help teachers choose classroom strategies to strengthen student success on AP English skills.
Goals:
- Understand skills necessary for student success in the AP English Language course
- Plan/Update your AP Course by selecting instructional strategies for reading, writing, and viewing texts
- Practice assessing student progress with AP’s 6-point rubric and AP Classroom resources
- Develop an AP community for support
Daily Agenda
Day 1
Acquire an overview of AP English Language and Composition
Explore the Course & Exam Description (9 Key Units, Big Ideas, Skill Categories)
Understand the Rhetorical Situation
- Develop a Foundation for Rhetorical Analysis
- View a range of prompts and practice scoring sample essays
- Share teaching strategies for building student competence
Discuss the relationship between claims and evidence and line of reasoning
Day 2
Explore My AP Classroom
- Demonstrate features (Personal Progress Checks, Progress Dashboard,
Faculty and Skill-focused videos) - Discuss question types & styles
- Practice creating tests and analyzing data
Explore resources
Develop an AP Unit
Understand Argument
- View prompts and practice scoring sample essays
- Discuss how to teach skills with your favorite texts
- Develop an AP Unit
- Group activities
Day 3
Understand Synthesis – A Researched Argument
- View sample prompts and practice scoring sample essays
- Strategies for Instruction from Introduction to Essay Success
- Write Synthesis Essay
- Create engaging synthesis prompts
Discuss
- Diversity and Inclusion; Equity in Access to AP courses
- Grading vs. Scoring
- Managing the AP workload
Peruse Available Resources for AP English courses
Share & Explore Technological Resources
Day 4
Review Unit/Syllabus
Discuss Tips for Test Preparation for Students/Final Review
Participants’ Choice
(A deeper dive into the most intriguing new ideas. Former topics have included: Critical Reading Lesson; Differentiated Instruction in AP; Study Team Strategies; Essay scoring practice; TQE Discussions, etc.)
Participant Sharing of Best Practices
Materials:
Please bring your laptop or digital notebook as most materials will be provided in a digital format. Also, please bring access to any texts that you plan to include in your upcoming course as time will be provided to develop lessons, units and/or a pacing guide for your year.
