12 AP Writing Expectations

1. 12 APWriting Expectations Adapted from College Board AP Program

2. Writing Tips Adapted from Connie Shelnut’s “An Examiner’s Advice on Writing”

3. Tip #1: Make a plan. • Do not begin writing until you fully comprehend the prompt and/or the passage. • Avoid copying the prompt word for word. • Make quick notes and outlines in the margins, which will help to organize your ideas more efficiently. • If you fail to read closely, then you will end up paraphrasing rather than analyzing the passages. • Planning helps you to stay focused.

4. Tip #2: Begin Quickly and Directly • Write a strong introduction. • Answer the question quickly and avoid beginning with ideas that do not relate directly to the prompt. • What Not to Do: From Question One on the 2002 AP English Literature Exam "All people at some point in time have encountered a great deal of trouble in their lives. I know of so many people who have been embarrassed by parents that will wave at you from across a room. I have a friend who told me that her parents did this very same thing."

5. Tip #2: Begin Quickly and Directly • Such generalities often signal a writer's inability to respond in a thoughtful manner, suggesting that the rest of the paper also may be incoherent or rambling. • The Reader might begin to suspect that the student is just trying to bluff his or her way through the question.

6. Tip #2: Begin Quickly and Directly • What Not to Do: One-sentence perfunctory introductions -- especially ones that repeat the wording of the prompt -- also work poorly, suggesting to the Reader that the student isn't particularly interested or doesn't care. • Create an introduction strong enough to earn a grade of 3 all by itself.

7. Tip #3: Use paragraphs and topic sentences. • Indent paragraphs clearly. • A paper without indentation or with unclear indentation often confuses a Reader. • Paragraphs create the fundamental structure of the essay, and without them good ideas can get muddled. • No topic sentences=Confused and rambling thoughts.

8. Tip #4: Use quotations and explain them. • To score at least a 3, make use of pertinent references from the text. • Use specific quotations to back up your assertions. • However, you must explain your quotations clearly and demonstrate how they are relevant to the question. • Offering long quotes without explanation bogs down the essay and can give the undesirable impression that you are trying to fill up space rather than answer the prompt!

9. Tip #5: Create variety. • Short, choppy sentences without variety indicate that you have little background in grammar and style, perhaps someone who has read and written minimally. • Connect ideas with transitional wording, participial phrases, appositives, subordinate clauses, etc. • Imagine children making the same tower or castle each time they played with blocks. They soon would become bored. Likewise, both writers and readers get bored when everything is formulaic, lacking some individual pizzazz! I suggest asking them to experiment with different sorts of syntactical devices to help them develop a sense of style.

10. Tip #6: Find the right word. • An arsenal of appropriate vocabulary and analytical wording reveals a brilliant mind at work, but make certain that the words fit. • Some students stick in big words just to sound scholarly. Ironically, some of their papers score only a 2 because they lack clarity and sometimes say nothing of relevance to the prompt. • Use the active voice as much as possible as one remedy for repetition and other superfluous wording.

11. More Tips Adapted from Gale Larson’s “Observations of the Chief Reader”

12. More Tips! • Keep your point of view consistent. • Select appropriate material for supporting evidence. • Write in a focused and succinct manner. • Films are not works of literature and cannot be used to provide the kind of literary analysis required on the exam. • Avoid engaging in a mechanical repetition of the prompt and then supplying a list of literary devices.

13. Grammar, Mechanics, and Rhetoric • Yep, they count! • Think of them as elements that you can order to clean up your ideas, to sharpen your statements, to make your words and sentences glisten and stick.

14. Vocabulary • Develop a “technical” vocabulary. • Suggested vocabulary: syntax, tone, rhetoric, attitude, antecedent, denouement, exposition, climax, atmosphere, voice, speaker, stock character, thesis, ideology, persuasion, paradox, allusion, ambivalence, syllogism, and aphorism.

15. The General Reader • Someone, anyone, who possesses an average intelligence and has a fairly sound general education. • Interested in the events of the day and in the world as a whole; has a good measure of sympathy for humankind, appreciates the happy as well as the unhappy accidents of life.