AP Human Geography: How to Improve FRQ Responses

So, you have taken the plunge and are now teaching AP® Human Geography. People will ask “What is Human Geography?” but you have no idea how to answer (yet). I get this question all the time (from students and teachers alike) and I have a short and longer answer that will help kick off your...

ELA Activity: Character Analysis Diagram

Analyzing complex characters in a novel or a short story requires students to look at many things such as how they’re described physically, but also their motivations for their actions and events that happen, their reaction to external factors, and the relationships they have. 

AP Language: Quote Displacement

In this lesson, students will choose pages from a scene from an assigned novel (this can be done with a shorter text, too). Students will start by choosing significant dialogue and writing in the middle of a blank page (included in the template). They will reflect on the context of the quote and...

overlapping pieces of multicolored paper to look like a venn diagram

Creative Ways to Teach Vocabulary

Teaching vocabulary—integrated into a text or isolation can be tricky when it comes to thinking of engaging ways to create meaning. We fall back on the old “write a sentence that shows the meaning of the word” assignment. But we all know that when students are developing an understanding of a word,...