Stable Wording for AP Lang Prompts Starting with the 2020 Exam | Coach Hall Writes

Summary

In 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

00:00

📚 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.

05:02

🎓 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.

10:04

📝 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.

Keywords

💡Stable Wording

Stable wording refers to the standardized phrases and instructions used by the College Board for AP Lang prompts starting in 2020. This concept is central to the video as it helps create continuity and clarity for both teachers and students in preparing for the exam. The video discusses how this stable wording impacts the understanding and approach to each question type on the AP Lang test.

💡Synthesis Essay

A synthesis essay is a type of writing task where students are given multiple sources and must integrate at least three of them into their essay. It is a significant part of the AP Lang exam and the video emphasizes the importance of developing a position and argument using the provided sources, rather than simply summarizing them.

💡Rhetorical Analysis Essay

This essay requires students to analyze a given passage, such as a speech or an article, focusing on the rhetorical strategies used by the author. The video highlights the importance of understanding the rhetorical situation and how the author's choices impact this situation. It is one of the three main question types on the AP Lang exam.

💡Rhetorical Situation

The rhetorical situation encompasses the context in which a piece of writing is created, including the purpose, audience, and occasion. The video explains that the College Board provides students with detailed information about the rhetorical situation to help them analyze the passage effectively.

💡Defensible Thesis

A defensible thesis is a clear and arguable position that a student must present in their essay. The video stresses that for both the synthesis and argument essays, students need to develop a thesis that can be supported by evidence and commentary, which is crucial for earning points on the AP Lang exam.

💡Evidence and Commentary

Evidence and commentary are key components of an effective essay on the AP Lang exam. Students must use evidence from the provided sources or passage and then provide commentary that explains how this evidence supports their argument. The video emphasizes the importance of selecting appropriate evidence and providing meaningful commentary to earn points in this category.

💡Academic Sounding Essay

An academic sounding essay is one that adheres to formal writing standards, avoiding filler words, cliches, and idiomatic expressions. The video provides tips on how to write such an essay, including the use of sophisticated vocabulary appropriately and avoiding misuse of words.

💡Argument Essay

The argument essay is the third type of essay that students may encounter on the AP Lang exam. In this essay, students are asked to assert a position on an issue presented in a quote and support their argument with evidence and commentary. The video clarifies that students should focus on presenting their own argument rather than rewriting the quote.

💡AP Lang Exam

The AP Lang exam, or AP Language and Composition exam, is a test offered by the College Board to assess students' skills in writing and analyzing language. The video is centered around preparing for this exam, discussing the structure of the exam, the types of essays, and strategies for success.

💡Line of Reasoning

A line of reasoning in an essay is a logical and coherent sequence of arguments that support the writer's thesis. The video explains that for all three types of essays on the AP Lang exam, students must develop a line of reasoning that is supported by specific evidence and relevant commentary.

💡Grammar and Punctuation

Proper use of grammar and punctuation is emphasized in the video as an important aspect of writing an academic essay. It is mentioned in the context of the stable wording for all three essay prompts, indicating that clear and correct use of language is expected for students to achieve high scores on the AP Lang exam.

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