Review
Guided Readings
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9th /10th grade? –”Century Quilt” – P. 81
11th grade – “Evening Hawk” – p. 82-83
12th grade –”Farewell” –pp. 84-86
More prose: From The Street, pp. 131-133
Go to APCentral
Locate a high student essay for each passage and
read the Commentary:
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2010: Century Quilt” – P. 81
2006: “Evening Hawk” – p. 82-83
2009: ”Farewell” –pp. 84-86
2009: From The Street, pp. 131-133
Survey more questions and do the chart on p. 12 handouts
Topic 9: Taking Your Students to the Top
Coaching to the Nines
• Review descriptions of best AP writing (Notebook, p. 194
and pp. 195-96)
• How can students learn to recognize and demonstrate
diction, syntax, rhetoric of proof, essentials of
communication?
• How can teachers help students learn from the best
qualities of “high” essays?
Coaching to the Nines
• Turn to “The Great Scarf of Birds” p. 22.
• Review the poem and the prompt—noticing the
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“How,” organization, diction, imagery.
Every AP question requires recognition and
discussion of complexity, the “tension of
opposites.”
This writer connects tone of essay to attitude of
poem’s speaker.
“The Great Scarf of Birds” Essay,
pp. 23-24
This writer builds on the tension of opposites:
Recognizes Thematic Opposites (Paragraph 1)
– “Leisurely, civilized”/ “tiresome and affected”
– “overly civilized”/ “affected and weary”
– “not worth remembering”/”something to remember”
Builds Controlling Idea (Paragraphs 4 and 6)
– “Such profundities in the speaker’s own boredom and affected
nature simply allow for the birds to become more powerful…” (P 4)
– “It takes a spectacular event to make the speaker find ‘something
to remember’…” (P 6)
Connects to Literary Tension
– Wordsworthian Nature vs. Modern Realism (Last paragraph)
“The Great Scarf of Birds”
(pp, 23-24)
The writer use Organization to reinforce main idea?
• Attends to Linear Organization (Narrative Sequence)
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“begins” (Paragraph 1)
“first centered on” (Paragraph 2)
“As soon as” (Paragraph 3)
“as the birds move nearer” (Paragraph 4)
• Uses Spatial Composition to Build Opposites
– “…objects near to the earth” vs. ”raised to the sky” (P 2)
– ”golfing environment” (P3 ) vs. “sky” (Bible/science fiction) (P 2)
– “man-made, industrial objects” vs. “the great scarf” (P5)
“The Great Scarf of Birds”
(pp. 23-24)
What effect is created by the writer’s fluid integration of
diction and imagery?
• Diction and Tone: Opposites
“It’s quite interesting . . ./ “playing golf at Cape Anne” (P 1)
– “I lazily looked around” (P 4) vs. “something to remember” (P 6)
– Attitudes toward Nature: Romanticism vs. Realism (last paragraph)
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• Figurative Language: Opposites
– From “apples and maples,” to “elms/sky” vases, then “flying birds”
(P 2)
– Allusions to Bible and science fiction—”lofty and ethereal” (P 4)
– From “iron filings” to “ink-stains” to “lady’s scarf”—from earthly to
ethereal, though still man-made image (P 5)
Activities Based on 8-9 Essays
• “The Great Scarf of Birds”
– Look at questions on p. 24, bottom.
– What could your students learn from studying this
student essay?
• “I Stand Here Ironing”
– Look at Sample NN, “I Stand Here Ironing,” pp. 128129. Does this writer address the complexity of the
“what”—the mother’s character and attitude toward
her daughter.
– What did you learn by analyzing Sample NN?
Does the writer address techniques?
(“How”)
• Resources of Language
– Metaphor, especially the iron
– Rhetorical questions/a questioning tone
– Short, clipped sentences
– Parallel structure
– Repetition
Does the writer address techniques?
(“How”)
• Narrative Techniques
– Interior monologue/stream-ofconsciousness
– First-person point of view
– Dialogue
– Flashbacks and time shifts
Does this writer see tension of
opposites? (“What”)
• Examples that show mother’s character
– Complexity
– Ambivalence
• Examples that show mother’s attitude
toward daughter
– Complexity
– Ambivalence
What are the Qualities of Best Essays?
“The last Night the She lived,” p. 197-200
• Paragraph 1—A throw away
• Paragraph 2—Moves from awkwardness of
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“pathetic fallacy” to authenticity of “Italicized.”
Paragraph 3–Notes metaphor: “Rooms”—the
boundary between living and dead
Paragraph 4–Emphasizes feelings of speaker
(empathy), not feelings of dying woman
Paragraph 4 –Interprets difficult line correctly,
“jealous on her behalf”
Qualities of Best Essays
“The last Night the She lived,” p. 197-200
• Paragraph 5—Diction: “a narrow time”; “jostled”
• Paragraph 6—Imagery: the “Reed,” pictorial
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account of her dying
Paragraph 6—Interpretation of difficult line:
“awful leisure” of life after loss; “Belief” must
“regulate” grief
Paragraph 7–Summarizes by focusing on
speaker’s sequential stages of experience:
empathy, understanding, acceptance
Qualities of Best Essays
“Captain MacWhirr” (Conrad, p. 201-203)
Focus on opposites in a complex and ambiguous text:
Focus of Question
– What?: “attitude of speaker toward MacWhirr”
– How?: “techniques used to define MacWhirr’s character”
• Challenging Reading Task
– MacWhirr’s characterization, p. 201, paragraphs 1 and 2.
• Connection of Essay Writing and Close Reading
Sample CCC, p. 203
• Paragraph 1
– “…the author’s attitude...at first glance…does not
seem very favorable.”
– “However, one sentence of the author’s, in lines 1719, turns the reader’s whole viewpoint around.”
• Paragraph 2: Quotation is the Crucial Point
“uninteresting” “actuality of bare existence”
vs.
“their mysterious side”
Sample CCC, p. 203
Paragraph 3—Shows Opposites/Complexity
• Character of MacWhirr
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– In his “ordinariness lies his unusualness”
– “son of a petty grocer”/”ran away to sea”
– “irresponsive man”/”an act of God or Fate”
– “anti-romantic”/”exalted and slightly exotic”
Attitude of Speaker
– “respectful”/ ”faintly amused”
Sample CCC, p. 203
Paragraph 4—Develops Opposites
• Character of MacWhirr = Paradox
– “ordinary, irresponsive” / humor of watchmaker with
hammer and whipsaw
– Seems shallow vs. “mysterious side”
– no flights of fancy but “enough imagination to go to
sea”
• Implications of His Connections
– What was parents’ role in his running away?
– Humanized/made normal by reference to wife
Qualities of Best Essays
From “Henry IV, Part 2,” p. 204
Scoring Guideline, p. 205
• What: “King’s thoughts,” esp. contrast
• How: How are diction, imagery, and
syntax used to convey King’s “state of
mind.”
Qualities of Best Essays
Strong first sentence . . . P. 206
Defines/qualifies how of prompt:
• “high level of diction”
• “formal syntax”
• “turbulent imagery”
Defines/qualifies what of prompt:
• “distraught emotional state”
Qualities of Best Essays
Paragraph 1, p. 206
• King’s state of mind: “driven to distraction” “insomnia”
“begs for sleep”
• Diction and Syntax: Skillful integration of terms/text
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“addresses sleep formally,” “apostrophe and rhetorical question”
“uses diction” showing “desperation” and “respect”
“syntax” is “complex”; reflects “mounting hysteria”
“breathless periodic sentence” heightens tension
“King loses control,” “adopts “accusatory tone” and
diction/syntax convey this attitude with “partial,” “rude” and
“low”
– colloquial use of “to boot”
• Figurative Language:
– synechoche: ”Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”
Qualities of Best Essays
Paragraph 2, p. 206
Imagery: “mirrors King’s increasing turmoil”
• King “wistfully” wishes for sleep: “steeping”
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suggests herbs, drugs
Comparison heightens sense of desire for sleep:
King’s “perfum’d chambers” vs. poor subjects’
“lowly pallets”
Qualities of Best Essays
Paragraph 2: Most effective image
Imagery: “mirrors King’s increasing turmoil”
• “sea-boy” in storm—Henry’s “emotions begin to
rise out of control”
• King “demands why” boy sleeps “in an hour so
rude” while he cannot “in the calmest most
stillest night” (irony, of course)
• Last paragraph—effective conclusion??
Qualities of Best Essays
Keats and Frost, “star” poems, p. 207ff
• Classroom use: Intimidation? Challenge?
Corrective?
• College Board Comment, p. 210
Sharing Writing
• Find a partner in the room with whom you wish
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to share your writing. (Your 2011 Exam Study
Guide and/or your essay on Question 1, 2, or 3.)
Share and read each other’s writing.
Make only positive statements about a peer’s
writing. (Silence also communicates.)
Evaluate Your Work
Does the Study Guide . . .
1. Give attention to the HOW, WHAT, WHY of the prompt?
2. Ask students to read closely, analyze, make notes, and underline key
examples?
3. Ask students to identify devices, apply their definitions to the text, and
interpret their effect?
4. Ask students to identify and state the main ideas and themes?
5. Lead the student through logical steps of analysis toward a response to
the prompt?
6. Prepare students for writing the prompt on the Question you chose?
Go online for Scoring Guides for 2011 Exam. Evaluate essays.
How will you help students improve
their writing?
• What have you learned with partners?
• What have you learned from student
essays?
• What are your questions? Best insights?
Building Connections
Making Connections
• Your Unit Themes and Curricular
Overviews
• Your responses to textbook themes:
Literature and Composition
Building Connections
Making Connections
• Elaboration on Enloe Themes (p.8)
• Connecting Unit Themes & AP Tasks (p. 211)
• Integrating creative writing: Jago, p.605 and
Notebook, p. 212
Duke University TIP AP* Manual
• Write or call for information
(Identify yourself as my Institute participant; ask for
discount.)
• Two Syllabi Models
– Genre Approach
– British Lit: Texts and Traditions
(4 Codes)
• Study Guides
Beowulf, R & G Are Dead, Henry IV, part 1, Saint Joan,
Canterbury Tales: Prologue, Links, Selected Tales,
Jane Eyre, King Lear, Dubliners, A Portrait of the
Artist as a Young Man
Building Connections
Group Collaboration: Instruction and Curriculum
• Your new ideas, insights, and understandings
about how to help students build skills
• A new instructional plan you will implement
• Revisions to your instructional plan
• Themes you will integrate into course
Good Luck and Thanks!
Contact me at
shumble@nc.rr.com
Event Code: 3031106062
Session Code: 04
Consultant Code: 2265