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Here's an original synthesis-style essay prompt that's perfect for AP Lang & Comp or a college Comp/Rhetoric class (where I use it). Can be used as a formal assessment tool, or as an informal introduction to synthesis thinking and writing--I generally have students do some freewriting with it, and then do a Lincoln-Douglas-style debate to talk it through.

11 pages of parallelism handouts, practice problems, sentence creating, quizzes and tests. There's a nice mix of multiple choice questions and interpretive questions, including a rhetorical analysis quiz that is a great reading strategies activity.

To help my college students construct arguable, specific, and representative thesis statements, I use a series of templates to have them work through their ideas. Included in this word document are a template warm-up exercise, which helps students articulate their core position on the essay topic; and two thesis structures, one for position essays, where they would evaluate the worth or meaning of something, and a proposal structure for when they are making recommendations or providing solutions

This document contains dozens of ideas to develop lesson plans: bellringers/sponges, direct instruction techniques, group activity descriptions, closure exercises. Will inspire you during unit/lesson planning and save you lots of time! This is the one document I consistently return to, both for secondary and postsecondary teaching situations.

Included in this doc are 7 fantastic prompts for use with 1984--try them out as essays, in-class quickwrites, summative assessments, etc. Six are literary analysis-oriented; the other is a great exercise in reader response.

Save yourself the time and trouble of developing a participation assessment device with this handy tool! I usually give the students a copy so they know what I'm looking for; when I factor in the grade, I just circle the criteria and give them back a copy of this rubric.

This is an intriguing, intellectually stimulating synthesis prompt that can be easily adapted for the AP Language classroom. The topic/issue is on limiting/enabling choice, with several of the documents dealing with the "nudge" debate that popped up in 2008. The visual stimuli included should spark conversation as well. Would be a great summative assessment for an argumentative writing unit as well.

This handout is for teaching a sociological lens when analyzing literature. You'll note that the excerpt is from Jane Eyre, but you can replace it with any text you choose; the core concept remains the same. Great for AP students!

Using lit theory in class can be challenging; however, the rewards of letting students see outside their own perspective are immense. Here, I've given a simple sheet with questions I've used--with sophomores!--to get them to understand how gender, particularly women, is constructed in fiction. I've used it with everyting from Scarlet Letter to Lord of the Flies!

Attached are 11 pages of resources for Albert Camus's most famous piece of existential short fiction, "The Guest." In addition to handouts on existentialism, the download also features a Reading Level Response journal assignment based on Hillocks's tenets of reading comprehension; there is a followup activity for class discussion that follows along these lines. You can use these resources in any way you see fit--let me know how it works for you!

This document can be used as a series of in-class activities or as a guide/worksheet for students when preparing for comparison-contrast analysis. Here's what's so invaluable about it: I've come up with a method to teach students how to construct their theses, and subsequently organize their response, by theme/idea, which is often difficult to express to students (especially more simplistic organizing devices are so easy and familiar to them.). This doc. is especially helpful for comparative lit

What we've got here is perfect for your poetry unit needs: an essay assignment focusing on the skills of definition and analysis--three different response options, all asking for complex responses. The prompts are broad and not poem-specific; design your own unit and use these prompt options to achieve your goals.

A series of lessons, handouts and assessments for Rebecca Gilman's controversial 1999 play on race, Spinning into Butter. In the attachment are discussion questions, a group performance activity (w/character & scene analysis handouts) and an analysis essay to culminate the work. If you are unfamiliar with the play, it's not Shakespeare but will intensely engage your students; it's impossible not to have a strong opinion about its ideas. Should take between 5-8 instructional days to get through t

handout, practice, two types of quizzes

Features a response assignment w/three options, key dialogue from the film, some review/summary material, and my question/notes that I use with teh class. This is great as a pre-reading tool for the Great Gatsby!

This is a Word template to create bookmarks for your students--fill out the form with your reading assignments and give these out the first day of teaching a text...it's a great way for kids to keep track of their reading and always know what their assignments are.