Freebie: Poetry with Odd Man Out

I was looking through my notebook where I scrabble out ideas so I won't forget them and I discovered two things of interest.

The first was the words UNSEEN POEM written at the top of the page, but there was nothing else on the entire page, so I guess that poem will remain unseen.  :)   I have no idea why I wrote that in my notebook.  I am sure it was a genius idea that, alas, is gone forever.

The second was this idea for Odd Man Out.  Full disclosure, I don't remember if I thought this up and wrote it down or if I heard the idea from somewhere and wrote it down.  So here is the activity - give the students four poems with three of them being from the same author and one from a different author.  Let them get into groups and analyze the poems and see if they can figure out which poem was written by a different poet.    I figure I will start with this gem from the past:

Then I will give the group the first page of this handout: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bOSbo7rGxUW7bWnbBzATffoHzAQTN8SPcRnuxr_LSKo/edit?tab=t.0

The first page has three poems from Cavalier poet Sir John Suckling and the poem in the bottom right hand corner is from Cavalier poet Thomas Carew.

I can do it again later or int he same day with the second page which has three sonnets by Elizabeth Barret Browning and one from Christina Rossetti (the one in the upper right hand corner).

Feel free to borrow the handout and try it in your own class.  Even if the kids are wrong, the practice at analyzing the poems will be worth it.

Multiple Choice Monday - 3 Chances

 Here's another fun, easy way to practice multiple choice, whether it be for AP Lit, AP Lang, or just practicing for the state test.

What you will need:

• Multiple choice practice sheets/passages (I just pick up prep books for AP Lit to get the practice questions in the back - the bonus on that is they also provide reasons why an answer is right and why the others are incorrect).
• A way to scan answers (I use ZipGrade)  Zip Grade allows me a scan a test on my phone and get the correct answers quickly.  You can just use it cold, or you can take the time to input your students and give them a code number.  If you do, it will provide tracking data on how well they are doing.  The best part is, you can use it for free if you are just doing a few tests here and there, but if you want to use it more, the cost is just around $6 to $7 a year.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It works on both Android and Apple devices.  No, I am not getting paid to endorse these guys.

OK, so next up I give them their passages (I like giving two passages at a time for my AP Lit students, which is about 25 questions a pop).  I encourage them to mark up their passage sheet with how confident they are in their answers and what may be a close second choice for them.  Then, the fun begins.  They have an answer sheet with two sections on the front and one on the back.   

Once they have filled out the first section, I scan it and tell them the number incorrect.  Because I am devious and enjoy the pain and suffering of my students, I do not tell them which ones they got incorrect.  They then can decide if that grade is good enough, or go back and make changes and bring it up to me to scan for #2, which I will once again tell them how many are incorrect.  If time allows before the end of class (we have a 90 minute period), they can go for scan #3.   I am a jerk, but not a total jerk, so I will take their best of the three. 

Why do this?  For one, it breaks up the monotony of multiple choice practice.  It also gives them a chance to really consider their process of elimination.  They go back and look at the ones they were not sure about and give them extra scrutiny that they otherwise would not have done.

I also printed out the question/answer explanations so that once a student is finished, he or she may check their answers.

If you have alternative ways of practicing your multiple choice, let me know in the comments or shoot me an email!

Want more multiple choice activities?  Try:

• Group Style
• Reverse Process of Elimination
• Speed Training
• Race Horse Style (borrowed from some other extreme teacher out there!)

Two Annotation Practices: Porphyria's Lover and Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu

 Here are two annotation practices you are welcome to make use of in your classroom.  If you would like to share a practice of yours with me, I would be delighted to see it and potentially use it in my class.  Just send it to me in an email.  

The first one is the first poem I use with my AP Lit students when we start our poetry unit (they've gotten other poems, but this officially starts our poetry section.  It is "Porphyria's Lover" by Robert Browning, one of my favorite poems of all time.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14q5wdaJYzZTZvA3f5BKqHqlGGpcbpObfdd_6-fF4e_4/edit?tab=t.0

The directions are on the back and guides them for what to look for.

The other practice is one I am trying with my English II Honors students to step up their game a bit.  It is, for most of them, their first go at real annotation, so I built it up as a big deal.  It is with the short story "Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu" by Abioseh Nicol.  It was fun to see that some of the students got excited and whipped out a pouch full of highlighters or color markers.  

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1krB0CmLVjGv-UaySLzLDNW4ah2LAH6dT3twRAcn1j_g/edit?tab=t.0

We had just finished our archetype notes, which is why I specifically go out of my way to mention that in the directions.  If you have students struggling to discern deeper meaning in texts, then I suggest teaching archetypes.  It is a game changer.

Shameless Plug

Teaching ACES step-by-step

Do you have a solid plan for getting your students to answer the constructed response section of state tests or to just be able to form the basic elements of a short answer question?  If not, consider below:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-Teaching-ACES-for-Constructed-Responses-12163122

ACES provides a formula for students to think about when formatting a constructed response or short answer question. It is the basic structure for organized writing and is often used to set students up for larger works that will require thesis statements and paragraphs. It is also often used on state testing.

The poem "Ozymandias" is used to break down each component in each lesson.

Teaching this basic structure can be time consuming and irritating for both student and teacher. This pack aims to alleviate some of that stress on both by scaffolding the process and having students practice one element at a time, building upon previous lessons until all elements are mastered.  It can be done in a series of four days or less, if needed, but I prefer to teach this one day a week over four weeks.

After going through the example, students get a chance to practice each part ( lesson one is only A, lesson two is A and C, lesson three is A, C, and E, and the final lesson is A, C, E, and S.

The primary text is "Ozymandias" by Shelley and students will practice on each section using passages from "Fire and Ice" by Frost, The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis, Dune by Herbert, and Invisible Man by Ellison.

Each lesson has a student worksheet to let them practice with a small reading passage.

I created this last year for use with my inclusion class and it worked wonders.  It made it where they could grasp what we were asking for and by breaking it down into chunks, they were not overwhelmed.  I have an honors class this semester and will be using it with them as well.

Multiple Choice Monday - Group Style

 This was designed for AP Lit, but the frame works for any multiple choice activity.

I get tired of just plain old individualized reading passages with multiple choice questions (though there is a place for that). Since my class is already in teams for a class game of Survivor, I decided to let them complete this in their teams (though you can just put them into groups).

Group work for multiple choice is a great idea as long as your groups with talk amongst themselves.  This way they explain why they thought it was A or C or whatever and bounce their ideas off one another.  This sharing of why they think one answer is better than another helps them to develop strategies to better break down these answer choices.  Each person in the group notices different things about the passage, questions, and answer choices.

I had two passages with a total of 23 questions that I got from a test prep workbook.  I chose one poem and one prose.  I drew this expertly I-could-have-been-an-art-teacher grid on the board:

 I then printed out letter choices for each team.  The template I made gave me 5 of each letter A-E (I know AP Lit doesn't use E anymore, but my older passages were made before this change).  Just to be mean, once they were in their groups and got their bag of 25 letter choices, I made them pick any two to discard (they only need 23 answers, after all).  I know this could result in them not being able to answer a question correctly, but they will know what they wanted the answer to be.  I did make sure that to start with, each group had enough letter choices to get all the questions correct.  It then depended on which two they discarded.  No need for you to redesign the wheel if you want to do something similar - here are the letters ready to be printed.

Once they had time to work out their best answers, they started taping the answers to the board.  They could have put their answers up at any moment, but none of them wanted to let the other groups know what they thought the answer could be.  So we ended up with this chaotic attack upon the board.

We went through the answers and circled the correct ones on the board.  For any the class had questions about, we took the time to break it down together.  All in all, the whole thing took about an hour and twenty minutes.  They did a lot of discussion and if they found that they did not have enough letter answer choices for what they thought was needed, they had to start weighing how much confidence they had in each to pick the ones worthy enough of the number of Bs they had.

How it ended:

For our game purposes, each group got 25 points for each correct answer.  Fun for MC Monday!  

If you have an alternative way of assessing multiple choice or you tried this and made alterations to it, let me know either in the comments or in an email.  

Want more?  Here are some other alternative ways to tackle Multiple Choice Mondays:

• Speed Training
• Reverse Process of Elimination
• Race Horse MC (borrowed this idea from elsewhere)

If you made it this far into the article, say hi in the comments!  :)

Tech Tuesday

 Short post today, but a handy dandy trick nonetheless!  Store your videos on a Google Slides presentation.  This does three things:

1. Makes it easy to find your favorite video clips from semester to semester.

2. Gets rid of annoying ads!  When you embed a video into a Slides presentation, it does not play the ad at the front nor does it interrupt the video with ads in the middle.

3. By using the video format tools, you can choose where to start and stop the video as is most befitting for your lesson.

I usually try to put notes in the speaker notes section to remind me when to use the video (I forget what I was thinking sometimes!) and information to help me find it again should the link no longer work or it was taken down by YouTube.  

Mind boggling?  No, but if you aren't using this technique, try it!  It makes things so much easier.

Anglo-Saxon Riddles, Cheating, and The Hobbit

I love taking on Anglo-Saxon riddles in class.  I'm sure you already know these and what these are, but I have a tiny bit of a twist in mine.  

I like to use them as our first competition.  We break into teams and play a game through the first quarter.  Teams win and lose points for various things along the way.  The first competition is this presentation:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1vciEzmHmeE9yOCbAijSymo4M_PaqFmXzz2zYxcgRGEU/copy

I have seven Anglo-Saxon riddles on the slides presentation.  At this point, we have already talked about Beowulf and so I explain to them that we have very little from the Anglo-Saxon period since most works were written and stored in monasteries, which were often burned by raiding Norsemen and those that survived had a difficult time making it past King Henry VIII's monastery burning phase.  We have some poems (which I just cannot subject my students to - if you like those poems, more power to you!), one surviving copy of Beowulf, and riddles.

The problem I ran into was that when competing, students would often quickly type the first few words into their phone and find the answer.  So I have altered these.  Wasn't sure that would do it at first, but there you go.  For all intents and purposes, they are pretty much the same as you would find on any web site, but the slight alterations seems to have squashed the kids looking for the quick answer.

If I have time, I often try to work in the "Riddles in the Dark" passage from The Hobbit, which is taken from this idea.  Watching the scene from the movie works well, or the cartoon if you are mean.  I also give those who are into it a chance to see the original chapter.

If you ever read the book, unless you have one of the first printings, you have a revised edition.  Maybe you read the introduction where Tolkien says that he didn't write the book, just found the works and translated it.  He goes on to say that he had to make changes because he discovered that Bilbo had lied about his initial encounter with the ring.

What happened was that the original had Bilbo having just as much as a happy-go-lucky time in the cave as pretty much everywhere else in the adventure.  When he went to write The Lord of the Rings, he needed to make the ring a bit more dark, so he changed this chapter.

And, if you want it, here is an Instant Old English page created by Catherine N. Ball for you to use.  It is not mine and the original page I found it on is no longer up and running.

What about you?  Feel free to share anything that you use when teaching the Anglo-Saxon time period and since we are creating a old-timey Dungeons and Dragons vibe here, check out my Literature and Lairs Character Analysis activity.

Dahlesque and Other Author Words to Use

As you may have heard, we have a new word added to the English dictionary: Dahlesque

Here is the Oxford English Dictionary's definition:

Dahlesque:

Resembling or characteristic of the works of Roald Dahl - Dahl's writing, particularly his children's fiction, is typically characterized by eccentric plots, villainous or loathsome adult characters, and gruesome or black humor.

The word had been around since 1983, but been recognized as an official word just the past several years.


So your homework is to use the word today.  Just drop in conversation like it is a word that you always use.

Can't get enough Roald Dahl?  There were other chapters that never made it to print along with children who never made it into the final bookTry this chapter that was removed from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  It is from an earlier draft where there were at least ten, maybe fifteen children taking the tour through the factory: The Warming Candy Room.  Plus, if you just want more odd tid bits, like the name of the third Charlie book

Of course, Dahl isn't the only author who has a word named after him:

Orwellian - named after George Orwell to describe over bearing government censorship and surveillance as in 1984.

Kafkaesque - named after Franz Kafka to mean something that is nightmarish

Dickensian - named after Charles Dickens to describe poverty like those featured in any of his novels.

Byronic - named after George Gordon, Lord Byron and is used to describe a hero that is brooding, lonely, and romantic.

Did I miss any?  I must have!  Let me know in the comments section.

EXTRA CREDIT! O.K., teachers love this as much as students so extra credit goes to whomever can tell me what is the title of the third Charlie book that Dahl never completed?  Just put it in the replies below!

Shameless Plug: Literature and Lairs - Character Analysis

Character Analysis D&D style!

 

The idea came to me when printing off some character sheets for my daughter's D&D group - this is the perfect platform for dissecting character!  So I started tweaking and realized that while the idea is sound, just modifying the existing D&D character sheet is not going to work for my purposes.  So I started just making one from scratch.  Here are a few partial screen shots - I think it came out pretty good!

So the whole thing is a page front and back, along with a detailed walk-through student instruction sheet.  I plan on having my students roll the die to get the attributes and then finding a character that matches closely (allowing for some tweaks here and there).  I made this for my AP Lit students, but the first practice run-through was on a group of middle schoolers at a Pre-College camp - they loved it!  My objective was to create a platform for character analysis, but the middle schoolers used it to create detailed characters for a creative writing campaign, so I was happy to see that it is quite versatile!

It took way longer to get this sized and laid out than I thought it would take when I first embarked on this idea, but in the end, I think it will become a mainstay in my classes.

Get it here: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/XET-Literature-Lairs-Character-Analysis-11913326?st=fb14def15bd606f53d6adaa1318e8e4c 

If you try it out, I would love to hear from you.  Drop a comment here or on the TPT site.  Every bit helps!

Friday Funnies with Prometheus

 Just a quick one for those of you who teach mythology - A guy by the name of Mark Weinstein created a whole comic strip of Prometheus getting his liver eaten each day by the Vulture.   Here is an example:

Had to share!

You can read all of them online at The Whole Enchilada

Practice Annotation with "The Story of an Hour"

When starting students off with annotating, they often struggle for what is important enough to write down or how to probe the text for deeper meaning.

An easy text to start with is "The Story of an Hour" by Kate Chopin.  Specifically, use this online text by Anne Woodlief: https://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/webtexts/hour/storyofhour.html

Woodlief has gone through and linked certain words and phrases that have more meaning than others.  She doesn't just give the meaning away, she posits a question to the reader to help them focus on why this may be important to the meaning of the story.

How I Use It

I give my students this handout: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M2ZrrKOaCqdicGwzHPOW2GnntlE-t8tOH9iZjMfQqE8/edit

Students should read the story with no clicking of links and just write their first impressions.  Then, they will go back through the story, click each link and write their response on the handout.  There are so many links that I give them up to eight that they can leave blank.  Makes them feel like they are getting away with something.

Why It Works

It is a short text, so students do not get lost in it. By doing this early, students will start to see how little things - words, phrases, placement - all have a greater impact on the analysis of the story.  Often students don't know what is important enough to write about.  This gives them some guidance.

All in all, it takes most of a class period to do.  It is easy set up on my part and serves as a great introduction to literary analysis for AP Lit (though can be done with other classes).  It is the third thing I do to get students ready for AP Lit analysis.  The first is the break down "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" using different literary critical theories, followed by archetype notes (probably the best thing to give students confidence that they can break down a text).  After this activity, we are ready to go full force into the class.

For Honor and Glory!

Something you to think about trying that I stumbled upon that turned out to be a major motivating factor in my class is giving the option to live forever (or at least until I retire) on the Wall of Glory.

The names on the wall go back to 2015, but only because one year the humidity was so high over the summer that the names fell off and the custodian helpfully threw them away.  They have since travelled with me to my current school.  

I originally did it without thinking about long-term effects, but man has it paid off.  When a student wins Survivor (English IV) or the Pinnacle of Perfection (English II and IV) or becomes the Chosen One (Mythology) or is an Absolute Paragon (a 5 on AP Lit), I put their name on the wall for posterity.  These kids love the idea that students in years to come will be able to see their name on the wall.  

When I started doing this, it was for regular-level classes, but when I moved into some honors and AP, the competition for glory and honor exponentially increased.  It's lots of fun and if you have something that you could adapt this too, give it a shot!

By the way, that NASCAR autograph on my back wall was given to me by a student several years ago.  We were reading 1984 and he got the driver, Scotty Riggs, to sign "I love Big Brother!"  :)

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

 I am old enough to remember the excitement of not just the TV on the cart, but the reel projector on the cart day at school.  One of those gems that we watched was the film version of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce.  I'm sure you've heard of the story and you may even remember watching that film version in school.  

Now, finding a good copy of this film is a bit harder (or rather, finding a YouTube of it that doesn't get taken down for copyright infringement is a bit harder, to be more accurate).  However, I have the solution for you - Amazon Prime.

The film version we all know and love is a French version made in 1963 that later aired on The Twilight Zone in 1964 with the audio redubbed.  I am not sure if the "I Want to Be a Living Man" song was in the original or made for the Twilight Zone episode.  

Whatever the case, Amazon Prime has The Twilight Zone available for streaming and you will find our story as season 5 episode 23.  There is one small snag - you can't stream it in your classroom.

I know that under the Fair Use Act we can watch any film as long as it is relevant to the content and lesson; however, this only applies to watching it.  If you have an Amazon Prime account, one of the details you agreed to is that you can only stream for personal, non-commercial purposes and while showing it to a bunch of children is certainly non-commercial, it does not qualify as personal.  

But wait!  There is an easy fix.  Since this is on Amazon Prime, you can purchase one episode of a TV series.  You can get a copy of "Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" for either $1.99 or $2.99 depending on the quality of video you want and then you are not streaming it - you are watching a purchased copy.

Now, I am not a lawyer, and it is hard to find information about a streaming platform that does not talk specifically about streaming, but I do know that under Fair Use Act you can show a movie that you own or rent and I have seen nothing that excludes digital format from that.  All that said, you may wish to discuss this with your school librarian if you are worried about the stickier points.  

Now, if only I can get them to air "The Lottery"...

Learn more at: https://marymount.libguides.com/c.php?g=957363&p=6911055

Simple, but Helpful Tip

 I hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far!  We'll be back in the swing of things before anyone knows it!

Here's one little handy-dandy tip - when you are signing up for online programs that are not tied into your school's funding (like Kahoot, Common Lit, Socrative, Quizizz, etc.), do not use your school email address.  Why?  Because hopefully you will find your teaching career to be long and fulfilling.  As such, it is likely that you will need to switch schools at sometime in your career from any variety of reasons.  If you have it under your school email address, you lose everything or have to scramble to switch accounts over before you lose email service (they are usually pretty quick to turn that sucker off) and even if you do so, think about how many services you have!  

The Why I Teach File

My school is wrapping up this year, so I want to leave all of you with this annual reminder/advice:

As your year comes to a close, you will be getting a few messages from parents or kids about how you made an impact.  Some years you get more, some years you get less.  You need to get a file folder (or a box or whatever) and label it WHY I TEACH.  Put them in there.

Why?  Well, if you are a new teacher, the first five years are the hardest.  Sometimes you need a reminder.  Later on in your career, you will have moments when you need that reminder.  And then, as you get old (like me) it is nice to go back and look through some of those lost memories.  

Do this now and you will thank me later.  That's a promise.

Have a great summer in whatever you choose to do.  I'll see you in August!

Writing Crime Stories

If you are a creative writing teacher, a teacher who uses creative writing, a teacher who writes fiction, or just a person who loves information about crime, here is the resource for you!

https://www.suecoletta.com/crime-writers-resource/

This site is a link dump that has information on things like:

• FBI's information on serial killers
• How long it takes for bodies to decompose
• Homicide detective checklist
• Glass fracture patterns
• Analyzing ballistics
• Weapons details

And just so, so much more.  Crime doesn't pay, but writing about it might.  If nothing else, some of the information you find here may just inspire you or your students to write the next great crime novel.

What Time Is It? State Test Time!

Do you have a state mandated reading comprehension test for your course?  At this point you have done everything you can do to increase their ability to read, now it is time to supercharge their test taking ability!

There is no charge for this activity, just download it from the Extreme English Teacher Teachers-Pay-Teachers store.  If you like it, I would appreciate a positive review.  Those really do help!

Standardized reading tests have serious problems, if you ask me.  We are requiring students to spend an hour and a half to two hours focusing on boring reading passages. What this activity does well is to give students the ability to focus a little longer to get another passage in before their brain fries from your oh-so-wonderful state test.  The methods in there were honed in my classroom and I consistently had my non-motivated non-readers score higher than expected on the NC English II EOC and the NCFE for English IV (my scores were in the blue repeatedly, if you are a fellow NC teacher and knows what that means).  The method works! 

If you used it, let me know in the comments and again - positive reviews on Teachers-Pay-Teachers are ALWAYS APPRECIATED!

Tech Tuesday - Starting Google Slides in Slideshow Mode (using Lucha Libre Literature as a bonus)

A short and simple one today.  I have a slideshow review for my AP class that I want them to go through when I am not there.  I want to make sure that they go through it in Slideshow mode rather than the typical edit mode you see when you pull up a Google Slides Presentation.  Turns out, that is easy to do.  You just need to modify the link.  The example presentation given here in the links is not the one I am using (that belongs to someone else and I do not know if I have permission to share it), but is a different one that I am going to use for class discussion (Lucha Libre Literature) later.  Since it was handy, I figured I would just share that one.

Creating a Slideshow mode link

Sometimes, especially when you have animation on your slides, you want to make sure that students open it in Slideshow mode rather than edit mode.  There is an easy way to do this.  Normally you link would look like this:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bS2KWZHUocJlK1qqtTzwGbkXi3f32DhnNZsUlqh0NDI/edit

Put this link on your website or Canvas page and a student will pull it up in normal mode. Instead, change the EDIT to PRESENT.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1bS2KWZHUocJlK1qqtTzwGbkXi3f32DhnNZsUlqh0NDI/present

Now when a student clicks it, it will already be in Slideshow mode.  This also works by using the word PREVIEW.  By the way, if you are wanting to share your document with someone, you can change EDIT to COPY and it will take them straight to a COPY FILE page. 

Got any other tricks up your sleeve?  Share them in the comments!

Extreme English Teacher Store

Worst. Prompt. Ever.

 Had a thought the other day and quickly made it into a thing.  It worked!  (Those spur of the moment ideas do not always do that!)  I challenged my AP Lit kids to write the worst FRQ3 prompt ever - in keeping with the College Board style, that is! The idea is that if they saw this on test day, they would be justified in just laying their head down and crying. I didn't have a set up or anything, just an idea.  They delivered!

So, I put all their entries onto a slides presentation and the next day I made them find texts that would actually fit the prompt.  At first they thought it would be impossible, but once they put their minds to it, they knocked that out of the park and it turned into a great class discussion assignment.

I also had them vote.  Since I had two periods, I have two winners.

This one:

Eeyore from A.A. Milnes The Winnie the Pooh states: “They’re funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you’re having them.”

Either from your own reading or from the list below, choose a work of fiction in which an author did not intentionally write a book. Then in a well-written essay, analyze how the author's unintended oopsies contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole.

and this one:

Transcendentalism was a movement involving authors and artists during the early to mid 19th century that heavily influenced literary works produced at the time.

Select a novel, play, or epic poem written during the transcendentalist movement. Then write a well-developed essay analyzing how the elements of transcendentalism influence a central character and contribute to the meaning of the work as a whole.

If you want to see the others, feel free to check it out here.

I bet that whatever final exam/state test you have, you can probably find a way to tweak this idea into your own assignment.  Worst multiple choice questions or constructed responses.  Have fun!

The Masked Poet - Ozymandias

In 1817 and 1818, Rameses II was all the rage and topic of many a conversation.  Around Christmastime of 1817, Percy Shelley and his buddy Horace Smith were sitting around discussing ancient pharaohs, as one is wont to do, and decided to see who could write the best poem about Rameses II using the title "Ozymandias".  Both got published and experienced some acclaim, but Shelley's poem is the one remembered.  

That begs the question - is Shelley's poem remembered because it is greater or because he was the more popular poet?  The power of an author's name is nothing to dismiss.  Look at any Stephen King book published today and you will see his name in large letters and the title of the book small in comparison.  You also have the trend of writers loaning out their characters (Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler do this) and their name is still huge while the actual writer of the book gets the small print at the bottom of the cover.

In order to figure this out, we need a little blind taste test (so to speak) and what better way to do that than in the spirit of The Masked Singer?

I have a document made up and ready to print for your classroom needs.  You can get it here.  One one side, we have The Rook (Percy Shelley) and the other side we have The Bishop (Horace Smith).  I hand it out to students randomly so that they read different sides first since the order of reading may impact the judgement of the two poems.  

If you use it in your class, drop me an email or leave a comment.

A Little FRQ3 Speed Training for Your AP Lit Students

Here's a lesson you can use with no prep assuming that you are an AP Lit teacher and you have covered the How to Read Literature Like a Professor concepts.

The FRQ3 prompt requires students to think quickly to have a text ready to go.  A little speed work can help them get mentally prepared.  This presentation will have students see a slide that has two HTRLLAP concepts on it and they will endeavor to write down eight titles that could work with either of the two.  Why eight?  Because I'm octopus obsessed and why not?  I've also ramped up the pressure and anxiety by only giving they one minute.

When the slide comes up, there will be a pause of about five seconds and then the countdown video will automatically begin the countdown.  Once time runs out, have student give their best suggestions and let the class vote on who had the best one.

Good luck with your test prep!

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1KDZJdEVMdG0Beh_iFKT-xm0rAIY3I2ytBO6sqvK5vyw/edit#slide=id.g2c8fc5c0360_0_590

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Reverse Process of Elimination

The following was used in an AP Lit class, but can be used for any class that has a multiple choice test to prepare for.

We all know the best method of answering multiple choice tests is through process of elimination, but we also know that students often skip to trying to jump to the correct answer.    That's great if the correct answer is obvious to them, but not so good if they don't see it right away and often leads to poor decision making.

In AP Lit, the multiple choice questions are quite the bear to get through.  Most prep guides say to shoot for 60% correct.  The kind of kid who is attracted to an AP course does not shoot for 60% and has a hard time dealing with that concept.  We do A LOT of multiple choice practice, so I am always thinking about how to do it differently.

Today I tried reverse process of elimination.  In order to do that, I needed the following items:

• A multiple choice practice passage (just one passage - not a whole slew of them because this will take too long) - the passage I choose was from the Princeton Review AP English Literature and Composition Prep Guide 2023.  I like this book because the multiple choice are, in my opinion, harder than the College Board ones.  Hopefully, they build up to these and when they see the actual test, they will feel a bit more confident.
• An answer document formatted to fit the activity.  I used Fireworks to make it.  You can take mine and alter it to fit your needs or make a new one.  I'll put the image below.  It's formatted oddly because you need the hole punch to reach the answer bubbles.
• Single hole punchers - a week ago, I offered a grammar pass for every hole punch that was donated to the cause.  I now have more than I'll probably ever need.
• Red and black markers

Here's the process.  I mark my answer sheet by coloring in all the wrong answers with my red marker and all the correct answers with my black marker.  Students get an answer sheet, practice passage, and hole punch and get to work.  After reading the passage, they punch out one answer bubble for each of the questions.  The goal here to to punch out a WRONG answer.  This is an answer they are eliminating.

Then it is brought up to me where I will lay it over my answer key.  When I see red, I make a red mark on that bubble (well, the paper surrounding the now vacant bubble).  When I see black, I mark it and then mark out all remaining answer choices in that question.   The students get the answer sheet back and get to try again for all questions that have not been blacked out.  This process is repeated up to four times (since there are only 5 answer choices).

When it is finished, for these ten questions, I chose to give them a 25 base grade and then 2 points for every red mark.  Top grade for that would be a 105.  It looks like this:

That's my key to the left (rather messy after two periods of marking answers) and a finished answer sheet to the right.  I just count the red marks, times by two, add 25 and voila!  

This takes about an hour to do, with some students finishing earlier than others (they had homework they could get started on).  For slow working students, this does increase the amount of time they use considerably, but not enough to cause any problems for me today.

Afterwards, they said it was much more stressful, but they felt it really drove home the process of elimination.  They also felt that the last two attempts were easier since they had less answer choices to choose from (which is the point of process of elimination anyway).

Do you have an interesting way to shake things up with multiple choice?  Let me know in the comments!

Indoctrinate Your Students! (With Brave New World and 1984 Propaganda)

 I like to make my classroom as literary immersive as possible.  When we read Brave New World, the seating chart changes by height.  My tall row are my Alphas, and so on down to Epsilons (though I make sure my Epsilon row can handle the joke).  I always praise whatever answer my Alphas give (even I have to do crazy maneuvering to bring them to the actual correct answer and I cut the corners off the papers handed out the Epsilons (so they don't hurt themselves, of course)).  When we read 1984, we paper the school with Big Brother Is Watching You posters and we have a secret police in the class to report on other students who aren't loving Big Brother as often as they want to (punishment, wipe down the desks or turn in other classmates).  

All the while this is going on, I have a slideshow of propaganda constantly flashing on the TV screen.  I'll share them with you. Some of the slides I created and some I just found online (more online for 1984 than Brave New World).  In order to play it automatically, I put the tab in its own window, hit SLIDESHOW and then in the bottom left corner, select AUTOPLAY then LOOP then 30 SECS then PLAY.  I cast it to the TV and go about my day.  

Here is the Brave New World one: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1c1Xd0Z0VF9w6BVA71WJsnyRBiO5aqnwQEbiSQ4_mIr0/edit#slide=id.g7f9262ee2f_0_26269

 Here is the 1984 one: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2196350756928860595/1634928911302079891

I haven't taught 1984 in a few years, so it could probably stand to be updated a bit.

What about you?  Do you have any cool immersive activities?  Leave a comment!

AP Lit (and probably a lot of AP Lang as well) - Multiple Choice

 In 2023, someone on the AP Lit Facebook page asked the question of more experienced teachers, what is their advice to students for answering the super hard multiple choice questions on the AP Exam.  The group responded.  I save them all and put them on a Google Doc that you can access here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GUzkI_W7xQYddTmVzdbg1NLaLR_4pdvMacuOkX5UNdA/edit

But, if you just want to pursue a bit, here they all are.  These do not come from me, but from the brains of other talented teachers across the country:

Facebook AP Teachers were asked: “What are your best strategies for teaching how to perform better on the multiple choice passages?”

• Don’t think—find.
  
  

• Read the passage first with emotional engagement and curiosity. Some students feel like they should just skim the passage to work quickly, but reading with interest makes answering the questions easier. Use marginalia to record your emotional reaction as you read-- for example, put a smiley face next to a funny line, or !!! next to a line that is surprising. This may help you answer a question about tone or detail!
  
  

•  If an answer is partly wrong, it is wrong. Learn common types of wrong answers-- for example, some answers would be right for a different part of the passage, while others contain some words that are right but some that are wrong. Some have roughly the right content but the wrong tone.
  
  

• Right answers are often a little disappointing and limited. They won't say EVERYTHING you want them to say. This is because it's HARD to write an answer that is completely right, so right answers can't necessarily contain the kind of debatable claims that you might make and defend in a rhetorical analysis essay!
  
  

• Practice by analyzing your wrong answers and figuring out what made them wrong. Then, once you've practiced enough, TRUST YOUR GUT! Don't overthink questions
  
  

• Fill in an answer to every question. There's no penalty for guessing, which actually means you increase your score by guessing.
  
  

• POE strategy (Process of Elimination)
  
  

• If an option is partially wrong, it's completely wrong.
  
  

• Read ALL the response options before choosing one.
  
  

• Unless you are 100% sure you made an error, do not change your answer once you've selected it.
  
  

• Choose the “best” answer…one or two might look sort of correct, but which one is best?
  
  

• Usually extreme answers are wrong.
  
  

• Close reading means reading the passage AND the potential answers closely.
  
  

• Try to imagine a group of college board employees sitting around a conference table making up wrong answers and trying to trick you into thinking they are correct answers … try to understand those devious minds! This is what gives their existence meaning! Lol…don’t let them outsmart you!
  
  

• If it's hard for you, it's hard for someone else too.
  
  

• If you don't know, guess, move on, and don't change the answer- first guesses are more likely to be correct.
  
  

• Read the questions before the passage
  
  

• When in doubt, go with your gut
  

• If the questions refers to a part/line of the passage, go back to that part of the passage and reread it and a line or two before and after
  
  

• I tell my students to read vs skim- most questions are beyond surface level besides the vocab context in meaning ones.
  
  

• I recommend reading the question and seeing if an answer pops in your head and then finding which one matches, while being mindful of lead distractors.
  
  

• Answer line specific questions before reading the poem/passage.
  
  

• I tell them to think about getting as many points as they can. They don't need to worry about what they're getting wrong. Instead, they need to think about what they're getting right. So, on the first pass through, they just need to get to all the questions and not stop and think about any of them for too long. Then, on the second pass through they can go back to the ones that needed a little more thought. "Easy" questions are worth the same amount as "hard." It's all about the number of total points they can get. I also make sure they know that unless they are one of the very, VERY few who get a PERFECT score, they'll never know how many they missed or WHICH questions they missed, so it's different than taking it in a class.
  
  

• Answer broad/theme questions last--after reading the passage/poem.
  
  

• The idea I talk about the most when it comes to narrowing down the last to answers that are both correct, but one is MORE correct, is that if you have seen a theme or an idea in all of the other responses, that that one answer will also connect to that idea.

• B is the new C
  
  

• One time I asked my students who consistently scored well on MC if they had tips or strategies to share with others. One kid raised his hand and then responded, "Well, first of all, I choose the right answer." He was dead serious.
  
  

• There’s usually a good answer and a better answer. Look carefully at every word in each potential answer.
  
  

• Oftentimes kids don’t do well on MC tests because they don’t know all of the vocabulary in the questions. This is especially true when the answers are quotes from the passage.
  
  

• Read the questions CAREFULLY
  
  

• Other than practice, the MCQ section is difficult to prepare or improve upon.
  
  

• Use the process of elimination and then take a guess!
  
  

• Consider how you would phrase your answer to a question before looking at the possible answers— this helps you avoid trap answers
  
  

• Find the rightest answer.  These questions often rely on nuances and so there may be several answers that are potentially correct.  Don’t look for the “correct” answer.  Look for the one that is more correct than the others.
  
  

• Partially wrong answers are completely wrong answers.
  
  

• A simple answer doesn’t make it a wrong answer.