The course itself has two primary foci: first, that the students be able to write both guided essays and research based essays; and second, that students be given thorough enough instruction regarding the actual AP Literature and Composition Exam so that they have the very best opportunity to earn college credit by successfully scoring a 3 or better on the culminating test in May.
I continually modify and redirect my pedagogy based on my on-going formal and informal evaluations and assessments of student responses—both verbal and written—to assigned work. However, in the past I typically only taught one section of this course. Now I am teaching six sections—a daunting task to be sure, especially on weeks where the students write essays or respond to prompts from the released samples of previous AP tests. I have found it necessary to exam data accrued from student tests to simply see, “what they are getting.” But this year I feel has been my best work regarding actual implementation of the data in redirecting my students toward success.
Regarding writing, I have asked my students to track their errors through creation of a log of their typical mistakes. Many are shocked to see that they, even though they know it is wrong, continue to use, for instance, the word “you” in formal essays regarding literature analysis. By asking them to track their errors, I am—in effect—pushing them to use data to promulgate their own growth as more mature writers. This effort has successful and I frequently hear comments such as, “No one ever told me that, Mr. Veon!” They have been told before, I am sure, but they simply never developed a sense of ownership of the knowledge. They are now.
Regarding the actual AP test, I am using data gleaned from the responses to the highly analytical multiple choice section. This section is indeed daunting and requires the ability to understand or decode complex vocabulary as well intricately worded questions often based on subtle concepts such as tone or inference. To better serve my students, I am doing line-item analysis of their responses and picking five questions from each section that were most often answered incorrectly. Then my students and I unpack these questions, frequently asking, “Why did I miss this?” and “What do I need to know to answer similar questions in the future?” This effort is still in its infancy but I believe I am seeing improvement—which is especially satisfying as the practice books we use are much harder than the actual tests.
I hope in the future to not only do line-item analysis on individual in-class test sittings, but to track over-all year long—and even year to year—tendencies. I believe this effort will be key to my practice since the College Board, the administrators of the AP program, share very little specific data with teachers regarding actual test results—other than telling us which students got three and above and which did not. A useless bit of information to be sure.
