Advanced Placement Program* Summer Institute
Pre-AP English for Experienced Pre-AP Teachers, June 15-19, 2009
This course will focus on the “nuts and bolts” needed by PAP teachers, whose role is so vital in preparing students for the AP language and literature tests. Participants will learn how to use such items as basic terms, AP released tests, and the vertical teams guide as tools in student preparation.
Topics will include the following:
-
Teaching annotation and close
reading of such items as these:
- contemporary, accessible “mirror” literature
- more difficult, pre-Twentieth Century “window” selections
- first person source materials from various eras
- Using composition, from writing folders to research papers
- Creating and utilizing rubrics
- Incorporating film clips, art, and text to teach irony, inference, and archetype
- Building critical thinking skills
- Writing lessons, using skills checklists and various texts
- Examining the AP test and its role in pre-AP classes
- Dealing with grammar and syntax
- Adding meaningful hands-on projects
What participants should bring:
- Three magazines (anything from Life to Sports Illustrated) to cut up
- An old paperback or hardback book to “enhance”
- A short story or essay taught in his / her classroom
Kim Thurman-Reifle spent twenty-one years teaching honors / pre-AP 7th and 8th graders (mostly at Bonham Middle School in Amarillo, Texas) before deciding she was mature enough to “graduate” to high school ten years ago. She presently teaches junior AP language at Tascosa High School in Amarillo, where she also serves as department chair. Kim also taught pre-AP sophomore English at Tascosa for two years. Kim has been a College Board consultant since 2002, and has presented summer institutes and two-day seminars throughout Texas, as well as in New Mexico and Oklahoma. Kim holds a B.A and M.A. in English literature from West Texas A & M University in Canyon, Texas; she has also earned 12 hours towards a Ph.D. She changed her name at Christmas of 2008, marrying a wonderful man with whom she enjoys the symphony, bicycling, scuba diving, and bad puns. She’s still working on getting him to ride her grey horse, though.
* Advanced Placement Program and AP are registered trademarks of the College Board and have been used with permission.