English

 

Morning Sessions

9:00 - 9:15: Welcome, Updates from AP; What's new for AP English

Susie Bonsey (Director, AP Literature and Composition)

Emily Valaitis (Director, AP Language and College)

9:15 - 10:30: Plenary Session 01: The Transformative Magic in Writing

Deanna Mascle, Morehead State University 

I am a writing evangelist. I know writing is transformative magic. I believe everyone should write and whether or not they believe it, everyone is a writer. My challenge to you is to join my movement. If you teach your students to believe in their power as writers then no test, no writing challenge, can shake them.

Building that confidence takes time and experience but less time than you suspect if you make the work authentic, engaging, and communal. Our jobs as the teachers of writers is to center the writer by supporting the human and always inviting the writer into the work.

I am a National Writing Project teacher leader and that means this will be an active learning experience. You will think, write, create, and collaborate - and along the way find inspiration for activities that you can adapt to your classroom to help your students do the same.

10:30 - 10:45: Break

10:45 - 12:00: Plenary Session 02: No Magic Beans: Movements in Writing

Deanna Mascle, Morehead State University 

Writing is magic but there are no magic beans. There is not one magical organizational structure, graphic organizer, or lesson plan that will transform your students into writers that score perfectly on every essay exam. Writing and reading are human enterprises which means the variables are infinite. We cannot prepare our student writers for every infinite variable. That way lies madness. But we can give our students a variety of writing experiences to help them understand a range of texts and give them several tools they can deploy. And most important of all, we can give them the agency to choose which of those tools they will deploy. I want to do more than create writers - I want to create rhetoricians.

12:00 - 1:00: Lunch

Afternoon Sessions

Afternoon Session Descriptions

Melissa Smith, "Cultivating Close-reading Strategies to Get Students Digging Deep into Poetry and Unearthing the Power of Language"

With a focus on contemporary poetry, this session will provide teachers with strategies that foster student questioning, discovery, and insight into literature. Digging into a poem through close-reading, students will unearth elements such as juxtaposition, structure, and imagery, and discuss issues that sprout from the text. Methods of analysis and engaging activities for exploring poems will offer students the opportunity to feel as though they are a part of a larger world of language and to harness the power of words.

Matt Brisbin, "Developing Close-reading Strategies to Help Students See the Art of Ambiguous Arguments in Prose"

Reading literary fiction can be tricky. During this session, students will be given a framework for close reading prose passages, giving them the ability to identify the often ambiguous arguments hidden within literature. Students will work together to read, question, and analyze several short passages from often-taught stories in the AP Literature classroom.

Carlos Barrera, "The Skills of Argumentation: Hidden Intellectualism, Food Trucks, and Immigrant Cuisine"

Through the writing of Mayukh Sen, an American writer and author of a nonfiction book, Taste Makers: Seven Immigrant Women Who Revolutionized Food in America, we explore professional texts, student writing, art projects, and discussions on the benefits that the diversity of culinary experiences bring to a community. Inspired by Gerald Graff’s essay Hidden Intellectualism, there is knowledge and intelligence beyond what the traditional education system is practicing and by incorporating the interests of students into a lesson, this will help students think more effectively and logically.

Mary Jo Zell, "Reading and understanding multiple perspectives and purposes in Argument"

Working through historical and contemporary texts students will identify, question, and analyze how perspectives and purpose contribute to the complexity of an argumentative text.

Stephanie Kirk, "Be the Change: Project-Based Learning in ELA"

This session will look at how student preference and project-based learning can be used to support engagement and foster soft skills while building confidence and mastery of rhetoric and argumentation. By reviewing PBL implementation of an AP Lang classroom driven by student-identified problems and solutions, participants will be able to use shared classroom lessons, activities, and assessments to add project-based learning in their classes. 

Math

 

Computer Science A and Computer Science Principles

Morning Sessions

Participants will be with a single presenter for the morning session (9:00 am – 12:00 pm).

Afternoon Sessions

Please choose those sessions most helpful for you (1:00 – 4:00 pm).

Calculus AB, Calculus BC, Precalculus, and Statistics

Morning Sessions

Participants will be with a single presenter for the morning session (9:00 am – 12:00 pm).

Morning Session Descriptions

Calculus AB: Topics of focus will include helping students understand the integral and its application in specific contexts, the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus and how it is assessed on the AP exam, and helping students better understand the three Existence Theorems (Intermediate Value Theorem, Extreme Value Theorem, and Mean Value Theorem).

Calculus BC: Topics of focus will include applying the Convergence Tests for Series, Euler’s Method for approximating solutions to differential equations, and applying the Logistic Differential Equation Model.

Precalculus: The morning session for Precalculus will focus on Unit 3 of the Course and Exam Description: Trigonometric and Polar Functions. Teachers will examine the unit thoroughly, including key points of emphasis, effective teaching strategies, and handling more challenging content.

Statistics: The primary topics for the morning Statistics session will be providing effective feedback through multiple sources and approaches, helping students make sure they are answering questions posed to them and not just writing information down, and thinking more about teaching experimental design more effectively.

Afternoon Sessions

Please choose those sessions most helpful for you (1:00 – 4:00 pm).

 

Science

 

Conference Theme

Making Meaningful Connections with Students Through Access and Instruction

Agendas by Subject

AP BIOLOGY

AP CHEMISTRY

AP PHYSICS

AP ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

College Board Consultants