In 1817 and 1818, Rameses II was all the rage and topic of many a conversation.  Around Christmastime of 1817, Percy Shelley and his buddy Horace Smith were sitting around discussing ancient pharaohs, as one is wont to do, and decided to see who could write the best poem about Rameses II using the title "Ozymandias".  Both got published and experienced some acclaim, but Shelley's poem is the one remembered.   That begs the question - is Shelley's poem remembered because it is greater or because he was the more popular poet?  The power of an author's name is nothi ..read more

Here's a lesson you can use with no prep assuming that you are an AP Lit teacher and you have covered the How to Read Literature Like a Professor concepts. The FRQ3 prompt requires students to think quickly to have a text ready to go.  A little speed work can help them get mentally prepared.  This presentation will have students see a slide that has two HTRLLAP concepts on it and they will endeavor to write down eight titles that could work with either of the two.  Why eight?  Because I'm octopus obsessed and why not?  I've also ramped up the pressure and an ..read more

The following was used in an AP Lit class, but can be used for any class that has a multiple choice test to prepare for. We all know the best method of answering multiple choice tests is through process of elimination, but we also know that students often skip to trying to jump to the correct answer.    That's great if the correct answer is obvious to them, but not so good if they don't see it right away and often leads to poor decision making. In AP Lit, the multiple choice questions are quite the bear to get through.  Most prep guides say to shoot for 60% correct.  The ki ..read more

 In 2023, someone on the AP Lit Facebook page asked the question of more experienced teachers, what is their advice to students for answering the super hard multiple choice questions on the AP Exam.  The group responded.  I save them all and put them on a Google Doc that you can access here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GUzkI_W7xQYddTmVzdbg1NLaLR_4pdvMacuOkX5UNdA/edit But, if you just want to pursue a bit, here they all are.  These do not come from me, but from the brains of other talented teachers across the country: Facebook AP Teachers were asked: “What are ..read more

I recently had a student ask for a lesson on how to avoid summarizing on the FRQ3 prompt.  I've always just said, "Don't summarize, instead imagine you are talking to me about a Star Wars or Marvel movie - you don't have to tell me what is in it, I already know.  Let's talk about what it all means."  I didn't have anything else on it. So I started looking and everywhere I looked, all I saw were web sites stating, "Do not summarize," but no other practices on how not to. So now I was faced with having to create it myself, I just didn't have the passion to do it.  Luckily f ..read more

 The year is 2015 and Go Daddy pulled their ad because it was too controversial: Some of your students will find this as hilarious and others will not due to the puppy farm reference. There are two ways to use this for your classroom.  The first is to give it as a reading comprehension (yes, I know no reading is involved, btu the same skills are used).  You can do this using the Daily EOC Blog post.  This blog gives a reading comprehension style question every day that you can use as a class starter or pull up several of them for a quiz or however else you choose to use ..read more

 For a limited time: FREE RESOURCE One of my college professors absolutely loved the book Cultural Literacy by E. D. Hirsh, Jr.  The book was a proponent for rote memorization, but whether or not you like that concept, the other part of it has been useful to me in my teaching career. Hirsh asserts that there are certain things all Americans are aware of just by being immersed in American culture.  For example, ask any American what McDonald's is, and you can pretty much guarantee that they will be able to answer with at least some degree of competency.  Same goes fo ..read more

This is my second year doing this and I think I have honed it down to a good 45 minutes to hour-long discussion lesson.  I got the idea/inspiration from a podcast titled Alarmist.  The format of the show is to pick an event in history, say the sinking of the Titanic, the assassination of JFK, the Donner Party, the Superbowl XXXVIII halftime controversy, and many others like it.  They discuss the event and then start listing (well, they say they are listing it on a board - I'm just an audio listener so I will take them at their word) all the people and traditions and beliefs ..read more

 Heads up!  If you use TPT, there is a sale coming Feb. 6 and 7.  Get up to 25% sitewide. Use it for anything you need, but I would of course love it if you checked out my store during this time: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Extreme-English-Teacher And remember, if you find anything on TPT (for any store, not just mine) that you thought was helpful, the best thing you can do for that seller is to leave a positive review.  It helps so much!  I know the process is annoying because have to wait a day and it is easy to forget, but coming back to review hel ..read more

 Whether it is in my AP Lit class or my Standard Inclusion English II class, I have a standardized test at the end of the course to prepare them for.  For my English II, we are not concerned with speed, but for my AP students, there is a fairly short time frame they must adhere to.  So I thought I would give them a curve ball for yesterday's Multiple Choice Monday challenge. I did not take this one for a grade.  Instead I put them into groups.  On the board I had 1-20 listed, each with A B C D E beside it.  I gave each group a different color wet erase marker and ..read more