Stable Wording for AP Lang Prompts Starting with the 2020 Exam | Coach Hall Writes
Summary
TLDRIn this informative video, Coach Hall discusses the stable wording for the AP Language and Composition exam prompts starting in 2020. The College Board has streamlined the phrasing to enhance continuity and aid in preparation. The video covers the three main essay types: synthesis, rhetorical analysis, and argument essays. For the synthesis essay, students must cite at least three sources and develop a position with a defensible thesis. The rhetorical analysis essay requires students to analyze a given passage, considering the rhetorical situation and the impact of the author's choices. Lastly, the argument essay prompts students to assert their position on a quote's issue, supported by a logical argument with specific evidence. Coach Hall emphasizes the importance of using appropriate grammar and punctuation and offers tips for writing an academic essay, including avoiding filler words and cliches. The video concludes with an encouragement to subscribe for more exam preparation tips.
Takeaways
- 📝 The College Board has standardized the wording for AP Lang prompts starting in 2020 to create more continuity.
- 📚 For the synthesis essay (Question 1), students must cite at least three different sources, not multiple citations from the same source.
- 💡 Students are expected to develop a position and argument on the issue at hand, not just summarize the sources.
- 🧐 A defensible thesis is crucial for the synthesis essay, and students should aim for strong evidence and commentary to support it.
- 📉 Filler words, cliches, and misused sophisticated words should be avoided in academic writing.
- 🎓 The rhetorical analysis essay (Question 2) requires students to analyze a given passage's rhetorical choices and their impact.
- 📜 Passages for the rhetorical analysis are typically 600-800 words and can vary in format, such as speeches, letters, essays, or articles.
- 🔍 The prompt will provide the rhetorical situation, including full name, birth and death dates, and the year of publication or speech.
- ✍️ For the argument essay (Question 3), students should assert their own position on the issue presented by the quote, not just defend or qualify.
- 🔑 A defensible thesis and specific evidence are required for a strong argument essay, with a focus on a logical and coherent argument.
- ⚖️ Students should ensure their evidence and commentary are relevant and directly support their thesis for all three essay prompts.
Q & A
What is the main change the College Board has made to the AP Lang prompts starting in 2020?
-The College Board has decided to streamline the phrasing of the prompts to create more continuity, making the wording more stable across different years.
What is a synthesis essay?
-A synthesis essay is a type of essay where students are given multiple sources and are required to cite at least three sources in their essay, creating an argument with those sources.
What does 'develops a position' mean in the context of the synthesis essay?
-Developing a position means creating developed thoughts and an argument on the issue at hand, rather than just summarizing the sources.
What are the key elements of a strong synthesis essay?
-A strong synthesis essay will have multiple claims supported by evidence and commentary that relates back to the thesis.
Why is it important to avoid filler words and cliches in an academic essay?
-Filler words and cliches can detract from the sophistication and clarity of an essay, making it sound less academic and potentially misrepresenting the writer's argument.
What is the purpose of the rhetorical analysis essay in the AP Lang exam?
-The purpose of the rhetorical analysis essay is to analyze a given passage, examining the author's use of rhetorical choices and their impact on the rhetorical situation.
What is the approximate word count for the passages in the rhetorical analysis essay section?
-The passages are approximately 600 to 800 words in length.
How should students approach the evidence in their rhetorical analysis essay?
-Students should select and use appropriate evidence, which can be a paraphrase or a direct quotation, and ensure that the evidence supports their line of reasoning.
What are the three options that students could be presented with for the rhetorical analysis essay prompt?
-The three options are related to how the essay question could be phrased, focusing on the analysis of rhetorical choices and their impact on the rhetorical situation.
What is the acronym SOAPSTone or SPACECAT used for in the context of rhetorical analysis?
-SOAPSTone or SPACECAT are acronyms that help students understand and analyze the rhetorical situation by keeping in mind elements such as Speaker, Purpose, Audience, Subject, Tone, and Occasion.
What is the key difference between the rhetorical analysis essay and the argument essay in the AP Lang exam?
-The rhetorical analysis essay focuses on analyzing a given passage and its rhetorical choices, while the argument essay requires students to assert their own position on an issue and support it with evidence and commentary.
Why is it crucial for students to have a defensible thesis in the argument essay?
-A defensible thesis is crucial because it provides a clear position on the issue and serves as the foundation for the student's argument, guiding the selection and analysis of evidence.
Outlines
📚 AP Lang Synthesis Essay Overview
This paragraph introduces the topic of the AP Language exam's stable wording for prompts starting in 2020. It explains that the College Board has streamlined the phrasing to create continuity. The paragraph focuses on the synthesis essay, where students must use multiple sources to support their argument. It clarifies that students should cite at least three different sources and not repeat citations from the same source. The paragraph also emphasizes the importance of developing a position rather than summarizing sources and the need for a defensible thesis. It concludes with advice on writing an academic essay, avoiding filler words, cliches, and misuse of sophisticated vocabulary.
🎓 Rhetorical Analysis Essay Insights
The second paragraph delves into the rhetorical analysis essay, where students are given a passage to analyze. It suggests annotating the passage for better understanding. The paragraph details the rhetorical situation provided to students, including the speaker's full name, birth and death dates, year of publication, and the intended audience. It also discusses the word limit for the passage and the consistent phrasing of the prompt. The paragraph explains the importance of analyzing the entire passage and not just parts of it. It mentions the use of acronyms like SOAPSTone or SPACCE to understand the rhetorical situation and the necessity of including evidence from the passage. The focus is on analyzing the impact of rhetorical choices on the rhetorical situation and ensuring the evidence supports the student's argument.
📝 Argument Essay Structure and Strategy
The third paragraph discusses the stable wording for the argument essay prompt. It notes the inclusion of a quote that provides a general issue for the essay. The task requires students to assert a position on the issue and support it with evidence. The paragraph advises against rewriting the quote or focusing on the person who said it, as the goal is to present one's own argument. It mentions the change in wording from previous years, with a focus on asserting a position through challenge, qualification, or defense. The paragraph stresses the need for a defensible thesis and specific evidence to support the line of reasoning. It also reminds students to explain how their evidence supports their argument and to maintain appropriate grammar and punctuation throughout the essay.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Stable Wording
💡Synthesis Essay
💡Rhetorical Analysis Essay
💡Rhetorical Situation
💡Defensible Thesis
💡Evidence and Commentary
💡Academic Sounding Essay
💡Argument Essay
💡AP Lang Exam
💡Line of Reasoning
💡Grammar and Punctuation
Highlights
The College Board has standardized the wording for AP Language prompts starting in 2020 to create more continuity.
For the synthesis essay (Question 1), students must cite at least three different sources in their essay.
Citing the same source more than once counts as multiple citations of that source, not as different sources.
Students are required to develop a position on the issue and present an argument with sources, similar to a mini research paper.
Developing a position does not mean summarizing sources; it involves creating an argument with developed thoughts.
Students should write a defensible thesis, which is worth up to six points in the synthesis essay.
Evidence and commentary can earn up to four points each in the new rubric, emphasizing the importance of a strong essay structure.
Academic essays should avoid filler words, cliches, and idiomatic expressions to maintain a sophisticated tone.
For the rhetorical analysis essay (Question 2), students are given a passage to read and analyze, which can range from a speech to an article.
Passages for analysis are approximately 600 to 800 words in length.
The prompt includes the rhetorical situation and three possible options for phrasing the essay question.
Evidence from the passage should be used to support the student's line of reasoning, and the entire passage should be analyzed, not just portions.
SOAPSTONE and SPACE CAT are acronyms to help understand the rhetorical situation, with both focusing on similar elements of analysis.
Commentary is crucial in analyzing the rhetorical situation and should relate to the audience and occasion.
For the argument essay (Question 3), students are given a quote that provides a general issue for their argument.
Students do not need to reference the quote or the person who said it; the focus is on presenting their own argument.
A defensible thesis is required, and students should provide specific evidence to support their line of reasoning.
Commentary should be developed to relate back to the thesis, and students are reminded to use appropriate grammar and punctuation.
The video offers tips to help students achieve the highest score possible on the AP Language exam.
Transcripts
hey guys welcome back to coach Hall
rights in today's video we're going to
be talking about the stable wording for
the AP lang prompts starting in 2020 so
basically what this means is that in
years past the College Board has used a
variety of different phrases and their
prompts and in order to create more
continuity they have decided to
streamline the phrasing a little bit so
many of the phrases are not actually new
to ap Lang but it does help teachers and
students to know the stable wording in
order to prepare for the exam so let's
see what they're actually going to be
using for this year's test let's go
ahead and start talking about question 1
the synthesis essay so for those of you
who might not be familiar with a
synthesis essay basically the College
Board gives students multiple sources
and you need to cite at least three
sources in your essay so let's look at
what students actually are provided with
this part is not necessarily new the
prompt is going to contain a basically
like a subject introduction it's gonna
be the context of the issue and so the
wording is going to vary from prompt to
prompt because the topic of the prompt
is going to change so that's to be
expected they've done this in previous
years so this is not necessarily new but
they need to give students a general
idea of what the issue is and the
different perspectives on that issue the
instructions for the task itself have
not changed very much at all so for
instance students are still going to be
directed to read the different sources
and also the additional information
provided with each source so if you've
seen a synthesis essay you might have
noticed that above the source is a box
and it tells you the publication
information that's still going to be
provided to students and also usually
above the source is a sentence or some
kind of italicized portion that gives
students a little bit of context if
needed and so students are to read this
to help the source make sense and so
that's going to be part of the
instructions as well that has not
changed I've already mentioned that
students need to cite three different
sources in their essay but I want to
clarify what this means because
sometimes students misunderstand this
and so basically three different sources
means that you have to cite three
separate sources and so if you cite the
same source more than once that counts
as multiple citations of that source but
it does
not count as a different source so for
instance if you cite a source a twice
and then cite source B and that's it
you've only cited two sources so just
keep that in mind but the thing that
interests me the most here is the word
develops you have to develop a position
on the issue at hand and I think that's
a key thing to remember because they're
looking for developed thoughts and
actually an argument you have to
remember that a synthesis essay is
basically an argument with sources it's
kind of like a mini research paper but
they've done the research for you
another thing to remember is that
developing a position does not mean
summarizing the sources summarizing the
sources is just restating information
given to you it's not actually creating
an argument students are also going to
be directed to write a defensible thesis
this accounts for one of the possible
six points that students can earn for
the synthesis essay students are also
going to be reminded to explain how
their evidence creates a line of
reasoning so to me this means commentary
remember that based on the new rubric
students are eligible for up to four
points and evidence and commentary so a
strong essay that is developing a
position is going to have multiple
claims and those claims are going to be
supported by evidence and commentary
that relates back to the thesis the
final bullet point if you will as far as
the stable wording for the synthesis
prompt pertains to using appropriate
grammar and punctuation now this is
going to be part of the stable wording
for question two and question three as
well so I'm going to be giving
additional tips for this later in the
video but let's talk about the way to
write an academic sounding essay first
of all we want to avoid filler words
like really and very we want to avoid
cliches and idiomatic expressions
basically if it sounds like it came from
a fortune cookie it does not belong in
your essay we also want to make sure
that we're not just sprinkling in
sophisticated words for the sake of
trying to sound sophisticated because
that's not how the sophistication point
works oftentimes when students include
elevated vocabulary just to try to sound
more impressive it actually backfires
because they misuse the word now let's
talk about the stable wording for
question two the rhetorical analysis
essay so for this part of the
students are given a passage that they
are to read and analyze I highly
recommend that students annotate as they
read and this passage can be anything
from a speech to a letter to an essay or
article they've even done satire in the
past it's been a little while but they
have done it and so one thing that
students need to remember is that
they're going to be presented with the
rhetorical situation this is part of the
stable wording but it's not necessarily
something new they've always given
students this one thing I like about the
College Board prompts is that they give
students all the information they need
to know to be successful to interpret
this passage this includes providing
students with the full name of the
speaker the birth and death dates of
that speaker if that's relevant
they give the students the year of the
speech or the year of publication they
tell the students to whom the letter was
written or to whom the speech was given
all of this is given to students and
they give extra context as far as in the
case of the most recent prompt in 2019
Gandhi's letter to Lord Irwin they told
students exactly when India gained its
independence they told students who Lord
Irwin was and so students are going to
be given the rhetorical situation in the
prompt but they need to analyze the
impact of the choices on that rhetorical
situation one of the things that I found
interesting is that the College Board
said the passages are going to be
approximately 600 to 800 words in length
and one of the reasons why I found this
interesting is because the passages are
generally in two columns usually it's a
page though sometimes it goes on to a
second page and so now we have a general
word limit that we can keep in mind a
phrasing that is going to be used in the
stable wording for the prompt of
question two is not necessarily new but
what I like about it is that we now have
a consistent way to phrase these prompts
so one thing you'll notice is that
they're using the word rhetorical
choices not rhetorical strategies also
in terms of how to finish the rest of
the prompt there are now three options
because in years past they sometimes
threw in other phrases like with the
original Gandhi prompt it said how does
he present his case so here you have the
three options that students could be
presented with this makes it a lot
easier for students to prepare because
they know the three different ways that
the essay question could be phrased
making it easier for students to
understand the expectations given that
evidence and commentary make up four
points of the rubric it should come as
no surprise that students will be
directed to include evidence from the
passage this evidence can be in the form
of a paraphrase or a direct quotation
it does not say however that students
need to actually cite the passage in
terms of a paragraph number or a line
number even though citations aren't
directly mentioned in the rubric as they
are with question one some students do
like to cite the actual line number and
that's absolutely okay one thing I would
keep in mind here with the wording is
that it says select and use evidence so
we want to make sure that we're
selecting appropriate evidence we don't
want really long quotes and we want to
make sure that the evidence we're
selecting has meaning to our argument as
with question one students are going to
be directed to explain how their
evidence supports their line of
reasoning one thing to keep in mind is
that you don't want to analyze only one
portion of the passage given you want to
make sure that your analysis spans the
entire passage so only focusing on the
beginning or the end of the passage in
your essay is going to be detrimental to
your score you want to make sure that
you're examining the passage as a whole
focusing on the beginning middle and end
looking at how the author develops his
or her argument conveys his or her
message or achieves his or her purpose
I'm going to venture to say that most AP
lang students have either heard of
soapstone or space cat
both of those are acronyms to help you
understand the rhetorical situation so
if you know those acronyms it doesn't
matter which one you like because quite
frankly in my opinion they equate to the
same thing you need to keep those
elements in mind as you are analyzing
how an author uses a particular choice
and the reason why is oftentimes
students correctly identify a choice
they choose appropriate evidence but
they lack commentary my own students
tend to ignore the audience in the
occasion those are the two that I tend
to harp on the most why this choice for
this audience on this occasion
especially if it is a letter or a speech
and so you need to keep in mind that
your job especially in your commentary
is to analyze the rhetorical situation
in regard to punctuation
if you
have time to go back and proofread go
back and check for missing commas this
is something that can actually help the
readability of your essay last but not
least is question 3 the argument essay
so let's talk about the stable wording
for this prompt so one thing you're
gonna recognize about question 3 is that
there's going to be a quote and so the
quote itself is going to give you a
general issue that you're going to be
writing about the task part of the
prompt is going to ask students to
assert a position on and then whatever
the author's last name is so-and-so's
position that and then they're going to
kind of paraphrase the quote so students
do not actually need to reference the
quote they don't even actually need to
reference the person who said the quote
because keep in mind the idea here is to
present your own argument so definitely
do not waste time rewriting the quote
the idea here is to put forth your own
position so in years past they used to
say challenge qualify or defend now if
you do those things you are asserting a
position so if you're looking at old
prompts it's okay to use them just keep
in mind that the wording is now
different agents will need to have a
defensible thesis for most students this
is going to be a closed thesis where
students answer what and why the stable
wording for this task
indicates that students need to have
evidence to support their line of
reasoning so a line of reasoning is
basically a logical and coherent
argument and according to the rubrics in
order for students to achieve a three or
a four in evidence in commentary for Q 3
they need to have specific evidence so
keep in mind that for question 3 you as
the student writer are choosing your own
evidence and so it's very important that
you choose that evidence wisely because
you want to make sure that you're able
to give specifics of the situation if
you generalize it's going to impact your
evidence and commentary score as we saw
with the other two prompts the stable
wording indicates that students are to
explain how the evidence supports their
line of reasoning and so basically this
indicates that students are to have
commentary more specifically they are to
develop their commentary to make sure it
relates back to their thesis and as you
might have guessed the stable wording
for Q 3 includes another reminder about
appropriate grammar and punctuation
thank you guys so much for watching this
video if you like this kind of content
please give the video a thumbs up make
sure you are subscribed to the channel
with notifications turned on because as
we approach the 2020 a-peeling exam I am
going to be releasing more videos as
part of a cram for the exam series where
I give you guys all of my best tips to
help you get the highest score possible
and I would hate for you guys to miss it
so until next time guys happy writing
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