English Language and Composition

Instructor: Dr. Elfie Israel
I welcome your comments, questions, suggestions. 
You may contact me at drisrael@bellsouth.net

Designed for the novice and the veteran AP English Language teacher, this interactive workshop will delve into the many facets of the AP Language Examination. Our primary goal is to enable students to become better thinkers, writers, and readers. We will explore teaching strategies, review the recent changes in the examination, write or refresh current programs, and review exam samples. Not only will you grow intellectually and professionally, but you will hopefully have fun doing so. The course is designed to be interactive with participants engaged in meaningful activities and sharing best practices and insights continuously. We will examine various ways of differentiating instruction while helping students strive for excellence.

Before the class begins, please read the following and bring them with you...

• Frank McCourt - Angela’s Ashes
• Tim O’Brien - The Things They Carried
• George Orwell - Politics and the English Language
  

Participants should also bring post-it notes, highlighters, pens, pencils, and paper, and a successful lesson they’ve taught in the 2007-2008 school year.

Monday

• Introductions
• AP English Language Exam – what, why, how, so what?
• Orwell “Politics and the English Language”
• Syllabus / What to teach in AP Language
• Teaching fiction and non-fiction in an AP class
• Effective reading practices: non-fiction & fiction
• Socratic seminars

Tuesday

• Textual analysis
  ° reading excerpts, essays, speeches, short stories, poetry
  ° developing & refining student writing
• Developing a unit : The Things They Carried
• Irony and satire
• Baby steps / deconstructing the prompt
• Grading past exams – analysis question
• Syllabus development / refinement

Wednesday

• Persuasive essays – reading, writing
• Graphic novels
• Civil discourse and controversial topics – oxymoronic?
• Grading past exams
• Research & argumentation
• Multiple choice
  ° Changes
  ° Test taking tips

Thursday

• The Synthesis Question – why / what / how
• Focus book
• Textual evidence and embedding quotations
• Memoirs
  
  ° Angela’s Ashes
  1. Grading past exam
  2. Wrap up and evaluation
     
     

     By the end of the week, teachers will practice strategies that will enable their students to write more elegantly, read with perspicacity, think more clearly and logically,  synthesize materials quickly and effectively, and have fun learning.
     
     Every day five participants will share a successful lesson with us.
     
     Please read Frank McCourt’s Angela’s Ashes and Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried before the institute begins.
     
     Please have the following materials with you: pen, paper, highlighter, jump drive.