Good Writing is Good Writing, Even AP Style Writing

Teaching AP English, whether it’s Language or Literature, is an intimidating experience. The texts are more challenging, there is a high-stakes exam to prepare for, the students are (theoretically) highly motivated and advanced readers and writers, and the grading . . . oh, the grading. Don’t get us wrong, there are a lot of rewards to teaching the class, and we quickly found that we did, in fact, have something to teach these high-performing students, but it can feel, especially at the beginning, as if what you do in your “regular” classes isn’t good enough in an AP class.

This, however, couldn’t be further from the truth, and we learned (far more slowly than we’d like to admit!) that when we stopped overcomplicating AP style writing and got back to the same basics we used in our other classes, our students wrote better. It turns out that good writing is good writing, no matter what level of student you are.

On the AP English Literature & Composition exam, students write three essays in 120 minutes: one in which they perform a close reading of a poem (or two poems), one in which they perform a close reading of a piece of prose, and one in which they analyze the way the author conveys theme in a novel or play of their choosing. While it took us years to realize this, students are essentially writing the same essay style three times; it’s the text, not the writing, that varies.

Because, especially for the close reading prompts, students are expected to discuss how the author uses specific literary devices to convey meaning, the temptation for both AP students and AP teachers is to focus on literary devices: learning them, highlighting examples of them, organizing the essay around them. Unfortunately, however, this approach often leads to low-scoring essays because students:

• don’t fully understand the literary devices they’ve selected.
• look for literary devices they recognize and end up focusing on something trivial that does not significantly contribute to the text’s theme or purpose.
• struggle to build what the College Board refers to as “a line of reasoning” because it’s hard to see how their three random examples are connected.
• write about only part of the passage, leaving out sections that are crucial to understanding its main idea.

Writing becomes an exercise in frustration for all of us.

It’s hard to recall our exact “aha” moment, but we finally realized that identifying an argument and supporting it with evidence was a much more effective starting point for our students (groundbreaking, right?). After years of reading sample AP essays, we also realized that if that’s as far as they got, they could do okay on the AP exam without mentioning a single literary device. Would they get a 5? Probably not, but they could write a competent essay.

For the poetry and prose analysis essays, we had students begin by determining the author’s purpose and finding evidence to support that purpose. We encouraged students to find a quotation from the beginning, middle, and end of the text to support the purpose they identified. Instead of a handful of miscellaneous literary devices, our students were starting with the foundation of an argument: a clear interpretation with quotations they knew how to connect to it. Students identified more reasonable purposes, provided stronger evidence, and found it easier to write meaningful commentary. Their body paragraphs built on one another to make an overarching argument instead of giving the reader whiplash by jumping from the end of the passage to the beginning to the middle to the beginning and back to the end again.

Only after students had this foundation did we encourage them to reference literary devices, but now we were asking them to label the quotations they had already selected instead of forcing devices they recognized to fit a thesis statement. Because they had already selected quotations that clearly supported the text’s purpose, students usually had meaningful quotations that exemplified some literary technique, and now students could reference the device as part of their commentary rather than awkwardly writing an essay about that device.

Shifting our understanding of the close reading prompts helped us better prepare students to write about a novel of their choice as well. Because of the focus on literary devices in the other two prompts, students often thought they had to do this for their novel, but the prompt gives them the “how” they are supposed to connect to the theme, and calling out additional literary techniques is an ineffective strategy. For example, the prompt might ask them how a symbol, the use of foil characters, or even a scene of violence helps to convey a novel’s theme; there is no need, then, for them to also recall miscellaneous examples of metaphors from their reading. When we shifted our focus back to the basics of making and supporting claims, we were better able to help students write essays that supported all parts of a theme statement (again, with evidence from the beginning, middle, and end) instead of disconnected ramblings about often inessential parts of a novel (I mean, how do you write about Pride and Prejudice without mentioning either Elizabeth Bennet or Mr. Darcy?

The College Board updated their rubrics in Fall 2019 to 6-point rubrics in which students earn 1 point for a clear thesis, 0–4 points for evidence that supports all parts of the thesis and commentary that clearly connects all evidence to that thesis, and 1 point for sophistication. This scoring rubric is remarkably similar to the writing structures we’ve taught all along: claim ? evidence ? commentary. Students who have mastered these basics can earn 5 out of the 6 points available on the rubric, and if we can nail these down early in the year, we can do the hard work of pushing them toward the more complex ideas and mature writing that will help them earn that coveted 6th point.

So, if you’ve been struggling with “AP style writing” in your classes, consider peeling things back and simplifying; ignoring your natural tendency to overcomplicate things because they’re AP students and ourselves because we’re AP teachers (it’s got to be hard, right?). Good writing is, at its core, the same in remedial English as it is in AP English, and when we help our students to see this, they are far more capable of expressing sophisticated ideas than when they think they have to learn a whole new style of writing.

What has been your experience with AP style writing? Have you, also, overcomplicated it and been frustrated by the results? How have you helped your students get back to the basics? We haven’t taught AP English Language and Composition, but we have a hunch our realization applies there, too, but we’d love to hear from the experts! Reach out at hello@threeheads.works or on Instagram @threeheads.works and tell us about your experience!