AP English Language lesson plans are a challenge to write. Rigor and pacing are paramount, not to mention all those folks breathing down our necks. Spoiler alert: You DON’T need to create those lesson plans from scratch.
My largest AP English Language course bundle has been growing since 2012 when it was a tiny collection of three units. Since then, 47 more resources have joined the team, and as more and more teachers have found it, the questions about it have grown. This post is an attempt to address them all in one place.
Is the AP Lang course bundle digital? Could I use it in Google Classroom?
Over 90% of the bundle is on Google Apps, mostly Slides. Two of the resources are on Forms, and a handful have Easel, TpT’s new Digital Layer Tool, which allows a teacher to split a PDF and assign individual pages in Google Classroom. I have just a few more resources to get up on Slides, but they are not student resources; rather, they are pacing guides and other similar teacher planning products. Here’s where the large course bundle stands right now:
How often do you update this AP English Language bundle?
There is no set schedule, but I revise constantly. I do everything from overhaul units to replace dead links to create new resources. Every time I make a significant change, I alert teachers via email and my Facebook group.
To subscribe to the email, click HERE. To join the Facebook group, click HERE.
Can we edit the Google Slides?
The editable elements of the slides are the student text boxes. In order to protect my own copyrighted materials and the clip art used in the resources, I set the background of each slide as an image.
Is our bundle divided into the AP Language CED 9 units?
I have paced the course by the free-response essays with American lit and multiple choice woven in. I teach in this order: rhetorical analysis (general), writing in and analyzing seven rhetorical modes, argumentation and persuasion, the research process, and the synthesis essay. North Carolina requires a survey of American literature, so we begin with Indigenous folk tales and then wind up after the exam with contemporary fiction.
Within the three free response units, I have embedded the AP Lang skills from the Course and Exam description so that teachers can see where they are addressed. This free alignment document gives a bird’s eye view as well.
Do your resources meet all the changes to the exam – i.e. the 6 point rubric as opposed to the 9 point, changes to multiple choice, etc?
Yes. I took the new six-point multiple-page rubrics and designed three one-page matrix versions that are student friendly. The multiple choice practice sets reflect the question stems used on the current exam, and the latest set, #11, offers all composition questions.
Can this bundle be used in a full-year AP Lang course with 55 minute class periods?
It certainly can. I’ve taught it as a full-year course with 50-minute classes and a full-year course with A day/B day 90-minute classes. I have two pacing guides for the course. Grab the year-long, 180 day guide HERE and the one-semester 90-day block guide HERE.
Are the multiple choice exercises from previous exams or AP Classroom, or are they something you’ve created?
I modeled the question stems after those in released exams and the current CED. I pulled essays and letters that are in the public domain to create original MC practice sets.
Does this curriculum have an outline? Maybe weekly? Or lesson plans?
The bundle includes two editable pacing guides, one for a 90-day block schedule and one for a 180-day traditional schedule. The pacing guides map out a DAILY plan. The majority of the 50 resources included in the bundle include detailed lesson plans. The first time I teach something, I literally script the lesson, so I like to create lessons for other teachers who might also have that approach.
Is there a way to see the pacing guide before purchase? This is a significant investment, and I’d like to understand your approach.
Yes! I’ll send you a 90-day pacing guide or a 180-day pacing guide for free.
Would it be possible to see some free sample pages of how you’ve laid out the units? I would like to have at least an idea before I make the purchase.
You certainly can. I have six free lesson plans I give out to people who join my email list. Here’s the link.
I don’t think I need ALL of this. What do you think are the most important pieces for a teacher who is new to the AP Lang course?
I’ve taken the large 50-resource bundle and organized it into smaller bundles so that you can pick and choose what you really need. Some of the resources are in more than one bundle. Here they are from largest to smallest:
No-Fiction AP Language Bundle
This gives the teacher everything BUT the fiction pieces that I weave into a full-year course. A teacher on a block schedule would probably get this one, not the full-year bundle.
Basics + Multiple Choice Bundle
This gives the teacher an exam package with detailed units for the three free-response essays, two resources for dealing with rhetorical modes, an alignment document, and all 13 of my resources for the multiple-choice portion of the exam. Everything in this bundle is provided in both PDF and Google Slides.
Basics Bundle
This gives the teacher an exam package with detailed units for the three free-response essays, two resources for dealing with rhetorical modes, and an alignment document. If you can’t get anything else, get this bundle. It’s the core of the course. Everything in this bundle is provided in both PDF and Google Slides.
Multiple Choice Bundle #3
This bundle gives the teacher 14 resources. My favorite part of this set is Question Stem Swagger, a tool kit for helping students understand question design. The product also includes 11 practice sets, all of which can be used as warm-ups, bell ringers, homework, assessments, or exam review. Finally, I put the first five sets together as a full consecutively-numbered practice test and included it as well. Everything in this bundle is provided in both PDF and Google Slides.
Synthesis Bundle
This three-product bundle gives the teacher a detailed unit on argumentation with 15 lesson plans, a detailed unit on the synthesis essay with 10 lesson plans, and a resource for teaching students how to summarize and paraphrase.
Exam Review Pack
These 19 resources include prompts, anchor charts, practice tests, and even bell ringers to get students refreshed before the exam. Read more about Angie’s refresher review.
Argument Bundle
This two-resource collection includes my full Argumentative & Persuasive Writing unit and ten prompts.
Rhetorical Analysis Bundle
This bundle gives the teacher a detailed unit with 27 lesson plans, bell ringers, an assessment, and pre-exam review pages.
The Things They Carried Unit Bundle
This ten-resource bundle includes a reading accountability test, eight chapter- set mini units, and a bonus rhetorical mode unit.
Multiple Choice Bundle #1
This bundle includes five sets of multiple choice practice bell ringers and a full, consecutively-numbered practice exam.
Multiple Choice Bundle #2
This bundle includes six sets of multiple choice practice bell ringers and a full, consecutively-numbered practice exam.
Do you include the non-fiction reading passages in the bundle?
If a passage is in the public domain and I can drop it into a multiple-choice practice set, I do. There are places in which I have linked to essays that are perfect for a particular skill, but I would be breaking copyright law if I included the pieces themselves. This bundle affords the teacher a lot of freedom in choosing the pieces that will work for her or his students. Any good essay anthology like 50 Essays or Patterns for College Writing will work.
Is this bundle designed for veteran teachers or newer teachers?
The person I have in mind when I’m writing lesson plans is a first-year AP Lang teacher. She may have a few years of teaching high school English under her belt, but she is new to the course. I have had numerous veteran teachers tell me, however, that this bundle gave their courses new life, that students enjoyed the variety of activities and were engaged. The phrase I get most often in product reviews is, “You saved my life my first couple of years teaching this course.”
The amount of material in this bundle is overwhelming. Where do I start?
On TpT, there is a bonus file that comes with the larger full-curriculum bundles. It explains the design of the course and where to start. Look at the bonus file and then pick the pacing guide that fits your schedule. The pacing guide will lead you to the must-have pieces.
I want it ALL, but I don’t have the money. What do I do?
First of all, you shouldn’t be making this purchase out of pocket. Your school has instructional funds, and there are several ways your principal can cover the cost of curricular materials. Your admin can sign up for TpT School Access, which is a subscription system that allows teachers to use credits to open and access resources. There are some drawbacks to it; not all teacher-authors are included in the beta test, and there are no resources over $20 in the program. A bundle of four products would “cost” four credits. Also, you can’t download the resource; you can open and print or open and click through to Google Slides. (For my resources on Google Slides, you would be ok because you could then just save the file to your Drive. You wouldn’t get updates though unless you accessed that file again using another credit the following year. Not perfect.
The second thing an admin can do is sign up for TpT for Schools, which sets up a school-level system for teachers to request resources with administrators approving and purchasing. I like this option, especially if you have a principal who trusts your judgment and will let you do the legwork on alignment and pedagogy.
The third way a school can purchase is through an old-school purchase order. This pathway is a bit cumbersome, however, and may keep you from getting what you need when you need it.
But times are tight, and not every school has the money for such things. So, what if a teacher DOES have to make purchases out of pocket? (I have always spent about $1000 a year on my classroom, so I get it.) Look at the list of bundles above. If you can’t do anything else, get the Basics Bundle.
Would this be appropriate for Advanced Composition? These are regular high school seniors…not an Honors class.
The lesson plans in this bundle are aligned with Common Core and AP English Language, so they work with both. Some units have TEKS tagged as well. I have used the materials with regular-ed sophomores, honors sophomores, regular ed juniors, honors juniors, and AP Lang juniors. The materials are rigorous but accessible.
