Did you get your teaching assignment for the year and discover your teaching AP® Lang? First of all, congrats! Second, I know your brain is probably swirling with ideas and questions about how to teach AP® English.
Whether it’s your first year teaching AP® Lang or you are a veteran teacher, I have some helpful tips for teaching AP® English Language and Composition.
Tip #1: Find a Community
Sometimes being an AP® teacher feels like living on an island, especially if you are the only AP® Lang teacher at your school. Having a community is great for asking your burning questions and sharing a few laughs with teachers who get it.
Looking to connect? I’d love for you to join my community via my AP Lang teacher email newsletter. I send out weekly tips and ideas that you can use in your classroom. I will also update you on my unofficial AP® Lang teacher chats. We meet monthly to talk about everything AP® Lang.
Tip #2: Start with the Basics
When your students come in on the first day, there is often a disparity between what they should know and what they do know. We can especially thank COVID and summer learning loss for that. For that reason, I caution you against jumping head first into content. I recommend starting every year with the basics. This will help you understand the level of knowledge your students have and serve as a review.
I recommend reviewing claims, embedded evidence, rhetorical choices, author’s purpose, rhetorical situation, and commentary to start. Add in any other topics you find students struggling with along the way.
Tip #3: Use Sentence Frames
If you’ve ever taught writing, you know that students often get writer’s block when it comes to how to express their ideas. Sentence frames are a great tool to help students get their complex ideas down on paper and serve as a guide for writing complex syntax.
Some teachers may feel that sentence frames can be a crutch for students, but I’ve seen the opposite. They help students gain confidence and move from the “stuck” phase of brainstorming into productive writing. Overtime, they will not need the sentence frames!
If you signed up for my email list and received the 5 Tips for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis, you’ll get an email with more information about why sentence frames are so helpful.
Looking for more tips about using sentence frames in your instruction? Check out this post!
Tip #4: Give Short Writing Assignments
Essays take a long time to grade – that’s not a surprise to any English teacher. One of my best tips for teaching AP® English is to give short writing assignments. Your students don’t need to write an essay in order to practice body paragraphs and thesis statements.
You can assign short answer and paragraph response assignments. This benefits you and your students. You can grade less and give timely feedback. Your students have the opportunity to practice certain skills more frequently, making them better writers.
Tip #5: Use The College Board’s Released Prompts and Essays
The AP® Lang exam was recently updated in 2021. Luckily, College Board provides writing samples and prompts that are calibrated to the new six-point rubric. They even recalibrated older prompts to the new rubric. While you can use any sample from College Board’s website, I suggest sticking to the more recent years as they better demonstrate the modern AP® Lang exam.
I find that showing my students examples and allowing them to really explore the rubric puts their mind at ease. Test anxiety is real, and helping uncover the “mystery” of grading or what an essay should look like helps them relax.
Tip #6: Don’t Grade Everything
As teachers, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to grade everything and offer feedback on every assignment. But if you are new to teaching AP® Lang or are feeling overwhelmed with grading, I encourage you to give completion grades and focus on the assignments that will benefit your students the most.
One of the best grading tips I’ve heard is not grading every part of an assignment. When looking at an essay or even a paragraph, you don’t need to grade and comment on every aspect. Focus on the skill you were hoping to see students show growth on or recently taught in class, such as evidence or topic sentences.
Tip #7: Allow Collaboration
When a concept isn’t sinking in for a student, collaboration can be the answer. At times, students are able to better explain a concept to a student than the teacher is. This doesn’t mean you’re a bad teacher, but the way you are explaining it may not be clicking for some students. Let them learn from each other! It’s really refreshing to see.
Collaboration is also an opportunity to sit back and observe. You can see which concepts students are mastering and those they are struggling with. For some, calling over their teacher during a small group feels less intimidating than speaking out in front of the class.
Tip #8: Embed Grammar Instruction
Understanding grammar is more important than we sometimes realize. While the AP® Lang exam isn’t grading grammar, they are grading clarity and fluidity – which is impacted by grammar. You can easily bring grammar into your daily lessons through bell-work and reinforce the grammar skills when writing. I like to use No Red Ink or Google Forms for quick and easy grammar practice.
When you assign a writing prompt, add in a grammar rule you want students to focus on, such as using semicolons. You can then check for this grammar skill when grading.
I hope these tips for teaching AP® English Language and Composition help you have a successful year. At the end of the day, the best tip is to have grace – for yourself and your students! You won’t be a perfect teacher, and that is certainly okay. However, you will help students grow and succeed in various ways.
If you want more AP® Lang teaching tips, check out my YouTube channel.
