During the 2020-21 school year, teachers are dealing with the challenge of educating students in remote and hybrid learning environments. Now, more than ever, teachers need digital tools to help them educate their students. Check out these great resources for teaching AP® English Language.
Important Pages on the College Board Website
Primary Course Page on AP® Central
This is the main landing page for the course and contains information about the course, the exam, and how it is scored.
Direct Link to the Course and Exam Description
This document houses College Board objectives for the course as well as a suggested pacing guide. It is an incredibly valuable resource.
AP® English Language: The Exam
This page explains the different components of the exam.
2019 Score Distributions
This page gives score distribution tables to show the percentages of 1s, 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s for each AP® subject.
AP® English Language Past Exam Question
This page houses essay prompts, rubrics, and student samples from previous exams from 1999 to 2019.
AP® Daily Intro to AP® English Language
On this channel, English faculty from universities and high schools around the nation will work together to deliver short videos targeted towards teaching the course objectives that appear in the Course Exam Description.
Digital Text Resources
American Rhetoric
This is a great resource that includes hundreds of short rhetorical speeches. It spans across decades, ethnicities, political parties, etc.
The Living Room Candidate
The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials 1952-2020 is an online exhibition presenting more than 300 television commercials from every election year since 1952, when the first campaign TV ads aired. Students can compare and contrast tone, voice, audience, etc.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks to download and share with your students.
Gifts of Speech
Compiled by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas A&M University in 1999, this list reflects the opinions of 137 leading scholars of American public address.
Speeches with Sound
On this site, you can listen to famous speeches made by influential leaders of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Allsides
You can use Allsides to find the latest news across the political spectrum on any political topic or issue; you can find balanced news coverage, media bias ratings, civil dialogue opportunities. The most useful part of this site is that you can search by issue topic or pick from a list.
Test Prep Resources
Preparing for the AP® English Language and Composition Exam
This course focuses on the development and revision of evidence-based analytic and argumentative writing and the rhetorical analysis of nonfiction texts.
Albert.io Score Calculator
Share this widget with students so they can see how they might do on their exams. Could come in handy if you want to scare an unmotivated student into completing her homework!
Marco Learning’s Free Study Guide Pack
This is a helpful resource if your students need some collateral to help them study key principles for the AP® English Language Exam.
They Say, I Say
This book identifies the key rhetorical moves in academic writing. It shows students how to frame their arguments as a response to what others have said and provides templates to help them start making the moves.
Ultimate Guide to the AP® Lang Exam
Learn everything you need to know about the AP® English Language and Composition Exam in this comprehensive guide. Includes a scoring guide.
Essay 5W
This site helps students learn to fully develop their ideas when writing. Through links, tips, and sample essays, students can learn how to become stronger writers.
Online Lesson Plans
Newsela
This site provides engaging articles, lessons, and thought-provoking activities for students and teachers. The best part is that most of the content is free to educators! If you need a quick way to expose students to more information, this site will help you!
Teaching Tolerance
Teaching Tolerance provides educators with free materials to supplement the curriculum, to inform their practices, and to create civil and inclusive school communities where children are respected, valued, and welcome participants.
Marco Learning’s Free Lesson Plans
Developed for Marco Learning’s AP® Teacher Support during the 2019-20 academic year, each lesson plan is aligned to the 2019-20 edition of the College Board’s official Course and Exam Descriptions and vetted by experienced AP® teachers.
National Archives Virtual Classrooms
Students can interact in a live virtual classroom session led by an Education Officer from The National Archives. They examine and annotate high-quality digital images of original documents, and exchange ideas and ask questions via a microphone and the chat-box. Sessions are free, but have to be booked.
The Choices Program
Brown University’s Choice Program offers curriculum materials to help develop the skills and knowledge young people need to be informed about history and decision making on contested contemporary policy issues. For teachers, choices offers introductory professional development workshops around the world to assist educators in implementing Choices materials in their classrooms.
Inquiry Design Model
The Inquiry Design Model is a unique approach to creating instructional materials that avoids over-prescription by highlighting key elements, offering pedagogical suggestions, and relying on teacher expertise and experience.
National Council of Teachers of English
NCTE offers journals, publications, and resources to further the voice and expertise of educators as advocates for their students at the local and federal levels.
Facing History
Facing History and Ourselves uses lessons of history to challenge teachers and their students to stand up to bigotry and hate.
America in Class
This website is brought to you by the National Humanities Center. It provides a series of webinars, lessons, and primary sources for English language arts.
Zinn Project
The Zinn Project offers free, downloadable lessons and articles organized by theme, time period, and grade level. These teaching materials emphasize the role of working people, women, people of color, and organized social movements in shaping history.
The Learning Network (New York Times)
The New York Times has a great collection of free lesson plans based on current events, as well as an archive of over 1,000 lesson plans based on past New York Times articles.
ReadWorks
ReadWorks creates world-class content, teacher guidance, and integrated tools that improve teacher effectiveness and student achievement.
Facebook and Community Groups
AP® English Language and Composition Teachers
This is a group strictly made for current instructors of Advanced Placement English Language and Composition so every conversation in here is AP® Lang ONLY!
Marco Learning’s Online Resources for AP® Teachers
A forum for AP teachers to share advice, experience, and resources for teaching AP® classes online. Created and moderated by the Marco Learning team of teachers.
AP® Language and Composition Resource Group for Teachers
This is a place to share and exchange resources for current and former instructors of AP® English Language who wish to share ideas for teaching AP® English Language and Composition.
College Board’s Official AP® Community
This online community is where AP® and Pre-AP® teachers discuss teaching strategies, share resources, and connect with each other.
Podcasts for AP® Language Teachers and Beyond
This Facebook group is dedicated to AP® Language teachers who want to share and discuss podcasts. The creator describes it as a space to share great episodes that keep the learning going (author interviews/ teacher craft/ rhetoric/ etc) and keep our minds sharp.
Podcasts
Note: Some recommendations may contain mature language. Please use your own discretion.
Serial (Season 1)
Listen to Season 1 of “Serial” for free here! “Serial tells one story — a true story — over the course of a season. Serial has won every major award for broadcasting, including the duPont-Columbia, Scripps Howard, Edward R. Murrow, and the first-ever Peabody awarded to a podcast. Season 1 is based on the case of a murdered high school student and the judicial process.
Nice White Parents (New York Times)
From the New York Times and the creators of “Serial”, “Nice White Parents” is a five-part series that examines how to better the school systems in NYC.
Presidential (Washington Post)
In 44 chronological episodes, the “Presidential” podcast takes listeners on an epic historical journey through the personality and legacy of each of the American presidents.
Up First (NPR)
This is an easy way to stay up-to-date with current events. Up First will give you and your students the three biggest stories of the day, with reporting and analysis from NPR News — in 10 minutes.
People’s History Podcasts for Young People
Many podcasts offer accessible and engaging people’s history lessons. This link contains recommendations that may be of interest to high school students. (Some of the podcasts would be appropriate for upper elementary and middle school as well, such as selected Storycorps and Uncivil episodes. Listen first.)
Dissect
Dissect is a serialized music podcast that examines a single album per season, one song per episode. Each season includes forensic dissections of the music, lyrics, and themes of significant pop culture albums like Lemonade and DAMN.
Writable – Writing Matters
Writing Matters is the perfect podcast for professional development and personal learning. You can watch full episodes on YouTube, or listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play, or Soundcloud.
YouTube Channels
College Board’s Spring 2020 Review Sessions
These lessons not only help students but teachers as well. Use them to enrich your own understanding of the AP® English Language skills or share them with students to scaffold their learning.
Marco Learning’s AP® English Language Playlist
Marco Learning has a whole bunch of YouTube videos that walk students through the key concepts of the AP® English Language course, as well as videos that breakdown the Exam and scoring rubrics.
Ted Ed
From the same minds behind TED talks, this channel has dozens of carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators nominated through the TED-Ed website.
Coach Hall Writes
Educational videos to help high school students with essay writing and standardized test prep.
Digital Tools for Teachers
The New EdTech Classroom brings you weekly education technology tutorials from Sam Kary, a veteran middle school teacher and instructional coach. Learn how to use the most important features of the most innovative and impactful education technology software. In addition to nuts and bolts, Sam also shares lesson plan ideas as well as implementation tips to help you start using technology in your classroom right away!
Documentaries
Building the Machine
Building the Machine introduces the public to the Common Core States Standards Initiative (CCSSI) and its effects on children’s education. The documentary compiles interviews from leading educational experts, including members of the Common Core Validation Committee.
Stossel in the Classroom
This series was created to help teachers present balanced lessons on the topics that John Stossel addresses. Each month, they pair two of John’s videos with videos from outside sources representing opposing arguments. Their goal is to provide students with different viewpoints and encourage open discussion and critical thinking.
Waiting for Superman
This documentary follows the lives of five Harlem and Bronx families in the high stakes lottery for access to New York’s best charter schools. This would pair nicely with the “Nice White Parents” podcast.
An Inconvenient Truth
This documentary weaves the science of global warming with Al Gore’s personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing climate change.
Blackfish
This is a 2013 American documentary film that concerns Tilikum, an orca held by SeaWorld and the controversy over captive killer whales.
Loose Change
Loose Change is a series of films released between 2005 and 2009 that argue in favor of certain conspiracy theories relating to the September 11th attacks.
Outside the Bubble
Intent on escaping her coastal bubble, Alexandra Pelosi sets out on a cross-country trip to engage in conversations with fellow Americans in an effort to gain an unfiltered understanding of other perspectives.
Super Size Me
Morgan Spurlock’s social experiment in fast-food gastronomy sees him attempting to subsist uniquely on food from the McDonald’s menu for an entire month.
Fat Head
Full documentary refuting the arguments made in “Super Size Me”.
General Digital Teaching Tools
EdPuzzle
Edit a YouTube video to include questions.
Pear Deck
Creating engaging presentation with this great addition to Google Slides.
Peergrade
Online platform to facilitate peer feedback.
Flipgrid
Students create short videos.
Smallpdf.com
A free solution to all your PDF problems.
Kami
For editing PDFs.
Loom
Make a video for your class.
Screencastify
Make a video for your class.
Padlet
Group Discussion Board
Gimkit
Turn quizzes into a game!
Educaplay
Free Educational Games
EDrenaline Rush
Editable, adaptable templates for distance learning.
Ditch That Textbook
Editable templates for digital learning.
Sutori
Great for group projects, timelines, etc.
Quizlet
Great for vocab!
Jamboard
If you already have or use google classroom.
Google Classroom Introduction for Educators
Other Resources
Online Learning
Free online classes from Harvard, MIT, and more!
Great Courses Plus
Binge-worthy online courses.
Help