:: ENGLISH

Week One: June 28-July 1, 2010
Week Two: July 26-29, 2010

In the course titles below, “combined” means that the institute is open to both new and experienced teachers in that particular Pre-AP* or AP subject.

ENGLISH WEEK ONE: June 28-July 1, 2010

Pre-AP English for new Pre-AP teachers (high school), Section 1

Basic Training: Strategies for Success in English Language Arts
In this interactive workshop, participants will learn foundational Pre-AP strategies that align with AP English Language and Composition and AP English Literature and Composition. These strategies include close reading application for fiction, non-fiction, and visual texts. Additionally, participants will learn methods for teaching introductory skills for research, argumentation, rhetorical analysis, and synthesis writing tasks. Participants will leave with hands-on activities, lessons, and graphic organizers and will also learn strategies for integrating these tools into their existing curriculum. This institute will feature many new curriculum pieces to include a new Pre-AP synthesis unit and timed writing workshop strategies.

Participants should bring the following:

Course syllabus and titles of major works taught
Thirty copies of a few pages (one or two powerful pages) of major works taught; copies of poems, essays, short stories, visuals, etc.

Lead Consultant: Elizabeth Villarreal
Elizabeth Villarreal has taught all levels of English from grades six through 11. She currently teaches AP English Language and Composition at New Braunfels High School. She has taught English for the past 18 years, 14 of which have been in Pre-AP/AP courses. She is an endorsed College Board consultant and an Educational Testing Service Reader for the AP English Language and Composition Exam. She is also an SAT Reader and a member of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). She has presented at workshops and Pre-AP/AP Summer Institutes in Texas, New Mexico, and Maryland. In addition, she has been a presenter at the AP Annual Conference and at the AP Colloquium for Equity and Excellence. On her off time, Elizabeth writes poetry and paints.

Pre-AP English for experienced Pre-AP teachers (high school)

This workshop will provide participants with a deepened understanding of the skills underlying both the AP English Language and Composition and AP Literature and Composition curricula. Class work will be discussion-based and frequently collaborative as we examine and practice effective methods for preparing ninth and tenth grade students for successful enrollment in AP English courses. Participants will read a variety of literature and rhetoric, to which they will apply instructional techniques aimed at deepening students’ critical reading and writing skills. All participants will receive electronic and print curricular materials for adaptation in their own classrooms.

Lead Consultant: Erin Mayo
Currently the head of upper school at the Episcopal School of Dallas, Erin Mayo began teaching Advanced Placement Language and Composition at St. Johnsbury Academy in 1996 and consulting for the College Board in 1999. She has been an AP Exam Reader, collaborator on the initial design of AP Central, vertical team facilitator, and AP/Pre-AP workshop leader both in both the New England and Southwestern regions. Erin has also consulted with numerous New England middle and high schools on curriculum design and critical reading instructional strategies.

AP English Language and Composition for new AP teachers

Advanced Placement English Language and Composition teachers will explore strategies to improve and enhance junior English courses by focusing on the five curriculum areas of essay writing: close reading, language analysis, rhetorical analysis, constructing an argument, and personal voice development. Emphasis will be placed on non-fiction selections and methods to approach the Synthesis Question. Participants will work to refine major units to more closely reflect Advanced Placement goals, will review and discuss the AP English Language and Composition Exam, and will brainstorm what AP teachers can do to help students achieve necessary skills.

Participants should bring the following:

30 copies of a successful and engaging lesson used with students
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. Read the novel prior to the Institute and bring your copy to the Institute. I will be using the Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin Co. edition.
Post-its, notepaper, and note-taking supplies

Lead Consultant: Jamie Stanley
Jamie Stanley teaches at Stephen F. Austin High School in Austin, Texas. As a College Board consultant, she has worked with Pre-AP and AP English teachers throughout the Southwest Region in one- and two day conferences and AP Summer Institutes at Southern Methodist University, Rice University, the University of Oklahoma, The University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arkansas, and others. She has been a Reader for the national Advanced Placement English Language and Composition Exam since 1999 and has served as department chair and English Vertical Team Leader. Ms. Stanley holds a B.A. in literature from the University of Houston, Clear Lake.

Register

AP English Literature and Composition for new AP teachers

Participants will discuss and practice strategies for creating and maintaining a student-centered learning environment through close reading strategies and careful analysis of written text. Because there will be a variety of experience levels in the class, we will utilize all methods we bring to share including the following:

How many and what genres we should include in the course
How do we get students to better assess their own products
How to give written feedback and coach our students to do the same
How to help students learn to read and think carefully and critically

Participants should bring the following:

A best practice lesson with which they have had success (20 – 30 copies for all participants if possible)
A read copy of Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (in order for us to progress through effective AP strategies it is necessary to know a common text before)
Sticky notes
Eagerness to share and learn from each other

Institute Schedule
Please note that the following agenda is tentative; an effective facilitator will address the needs and desires of the participants and we will proceed accordingly.

Monday

AP Handbook (in depth)
2010 AP English Literature Exam – a deconstruction

Tuesday

Prose: short cuttings
Prose: short stories
Poetry: in-depth look at selected canonical poets

Wednesday

Poetry (modern influences)
Novel: East of Eden

Thursday

Novel, continued
Sharing best practices

Lead Consultant: Gretchen Polnac
Gretchen Polnac taught AP English Literature and film for 31 years in the Austin Independent School District in Austin, Texas where she received numerous teaching awards. She now teaches full time at The University of Texas at Austin in UTeach Liberal Arts, guiding pre-service teachers though their professional sequence of methods courses. Gretchen’s undergraduate work was completed at The University of Texas at Austin and her graduate work at Texas State University and The University of Texas at Austin. She is a consultant for both AP English Literature and AP English Language and is a Reader for the AP English Literature Exam. In January 2009, Gretchen participated in the Anti-Defamation League’s 2009 Echoes and Reflections Professors’ Study Tour in Israel.

ENGLISH WEEK TWO: July 26-29, 2010

Pre-AP English for new Pre-AP teachers (middle school)

Our week will be spent looking at all areas of English for the Pre-AP classroom: organization, reading, writing, poetry, and putting it all together. We will look at upping the levels of reading and analyzing what our students need to do to be prepared not only for high school, but for the AP Exam and college as well.

Lead Consultant: Jan Harris
Jan Harris has been in secondary education for 18 years teaching in high schools and junior high schools around the Houston area. Jan holds a B. A. in psychology and English from Stephen F. Austin State University and a master’s degree in literature from the University of Houston, Clear Lake. She has taught high school English for nine years, teaching ninth, tenth, and twelfth grades, academic, honors, and Advanced Placement levels. For the past nine years, she has been teaching seventh and eighth grades with a concentration in Pre-AP and Gifted and Talented levels. Jan has been working for Lee College in Baytown, Texas, since 2000 teaching freshman and sophomore English night courses and came on board with the College Board in 2000. She has participated in two-day seminars in San Antonio, Austin, and Norman, Oklahoma in the last nine years, and participated in her first week-long conference in Rosenberg, Texas in the summer of 2009. Jan also presents the English Vertical Teaming seminars for the College Board.

Pre-AP English for new Pre-AP teachers (high school), Section 2

This course is designed to acquaint participants with activities and strategies that will help prepare their students for the challenges of upper-level AP courses. Attendees will have opportunities to practice with reading, rhetoric, writing, and discussion strategies that will foster deeper analysis and critical thinking. In addition, participants will work with ways to modify AP materials and develop scoring guides and rubrics that better meet Pre-AP abilities. This course is targeted toward the inexperienced high school Pre-AP teacher (two years or less Pre-AP classroom teaching experience) who seeks activities that will provide a practical foundation for AP English Language and Literature expectations.

Topics will include the following:

Foundation skills for AP English Literature and Language
Skills and vocabulary analysis
Strategies for reading, analysis, writing, and discussion
Modification of materials and exams for Pre-AP
Development of scoring guides and rubrics
Practice and activities in grammar, usage, and syntax
Tone applications

Participants should bring the following:

Highlighters
Post-it notes (3” X 3” and 1 ½” X 2”)
A poem, short story, novel or play used in your classroom

Lead Consultant: Pat Conquest
With B.A. and M.S. degrees from Purdue University and additional course work at The University of Texas at Austin, Pat Conquest has taught a wide variety of levels and courses during her 35 years in the classroom, the last 13 of which included the sophomore Pre-AP area. Although recently retired from Westwood High School in the Round Rock Independent School District, Pat remains active as an observer for UTeach student teachers, a College Board consultant in the areas of SAT and Pre-AP, and a presenter at one-and two-day conferences as well as summer institutes. A self-described “workshop addict,” she firmly believes that learning and sharing should never stop. She considers herself a lifelong learner—a student along with her students and participants.

AP English Language & Composition for new AP teachers

This workshop is designed for new and experienced teachers of AP English Language. During the week we will focus on preparing students for the exam through practice in critical thinking strategies in reading, strategies for analysis, and strategies for constructing argument. We will also look at sample essays from the 2010 Reading and examine recent changes in the English Language Exam. The workshop includes practical activities and teaching units.

Participants should bring the following:

A book of non-fiction they want to teach in their classes

Lead Consultant: Sandra Coker
Sandra Coker is an experienced teacher of AP English Language and Composition and currently teaches at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. She has taught all levels of English in middle and high school. A veteran table leader at the AP English Language and Composition Reading and a College Board consultant, she conducts AP Summer Institute and teacher development workshops both nationally and internationally. Sandra is the author, along with fellow writers John Brassil and Carl Glover, of Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis and of Writing the Synthesis Essay. She has also contributed to College Board professional development publications, both as a reviewer and writer. She also served as a member of the committee to write and compile the Texas Education Agency’s Lighthouse Initiative for English/Language Arts Classrooms, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), and the Advanced Placement Program.

AP English Language and Composition for experienced AP teachers

In this AP English Language and Composition institute, we will:

Examine the rhetoric of various genres / time periods / degrees of difficulty along with strategies enabling students of all levels to become “citizen orators”
Focus on the nuts and bolts of the multiple choice test, rhetorical analysis, argumentation, research, and synthesis
Review strategies for both struggling and advanced learners
Explore creative ways for our students to work with political / social issues

Participants should bring the following:

Recommended (not required) reading: Adam Gopnik’s Angels and Ages - a vivid reminder of the relevance of teaching rhetoric
Works / materials for an independent curriculum planning session
Post-it notes
Writing materials

Lead Consultant: Jennifer Troy
Jennifer Troy received a B.A. and M.A. from The University of Texas at Austin. She has taught English for 33 years in the Austin Independent School District, teaching AP English Language and Composition since 1990 at McCallum and Crockett High Schools. A College Board consultant since 1992, she has presented numerous workshops and summer institutes, written curriculum for Pre-AP and AP Language and Literature, and is an AP Language Exam Reader. Jennifer was twice selected McCallum High School’s Teacher of the Year and was a finalist in the 2009 O’Donnell Texas AP Teacher competition. For the past four years she has served as Lead AP English teacher to four Austin schools.

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