A Professor of English at California State University, Los Angeles, Dr. Marilyn Elkins was the Chief Reader for the Advanced Placement* Program Examination in English Language and Composition for 2000-2003. An English teacher for 25 years, she began her involvement with AP* as a public high school teacher in 1982. She has been reading AP* Exams since 1984 and has served as a Table Leader and a Question Leader. She was a member of the Test Committee for the AP* Literature and Language Examinations from 1999-2003 and wrote the 2001 Released Examination for English Language and Composition. She has presented at thirty-two Advanced Placement* Summer Institutes, the National AP* Conference (four presentations), and numerous one-day faculty development seminars; she also directs GLAAPSI, an AP* Summer Institute that is held annually on the Cal State Los Angeles campus. The author of five books, Dr. Elkins was selected as a CSULA Outstanding Professor, a Distinguished Visiting Professor at West Point and the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and as a Fulbright Professor at the Universite' Blaise Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, France. She holds a Ph.D. in English, with distinction, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

You can e-mail Marilyn at melkins1@earthlink.net

Day 1 - Overview of recent changes in the AP* Examination
  AM

• Audience questions - Fill out 3x5 cards
• Discussion of AP* priorities...Close Reading; Writing/Expository forms; Grammar; Multiple Choice Questions; Listening and Discussion Skills; Technology; Vertical Teaming
  PM

• The essentiality of Close Reading...Strategies
• Various examples and techniques for comprehension
• Sharing methods that have worked
  Homework:

• Provide/create one new approach for deeper student comprehension of a text

Day 2 - 2009 AP* exam exercises; review of the synthesis; argument and style analysis
  AM

• Close review of last year's examination and a comparison to 2010's exam
• Strategies that have worked to clarify the different forms
  PM

• Group effort on the 2010 questions...this approach will divide the audience into three groups, each of which will address the most efficient ways to relay to students the focus, nuances and essential inclusions in any student's response to the prompt the group is considering.
• Report out
  Homework:

• Choose the most difficult of the 2010 prompts for you. Explain how you will approach that prompt to your students.

Day 3
  AM

• Review the audience suggestions for specific prompt strategies
• Using provocative/controversial commentaries (editorials, articles) we will explore the integration of comprehension, what you are being asked (i.e., the prompt) and the resulting written commentary
  PM

• Practice writing prompts for various texts
• Report out and share
• Grammar - a different approach
• Graph and analyze capacitor charging and discharging curves
  Homework:

• Select your own material/commentary...write two prompts; one for a persuasive response and one for a style analysis response

Day 4 - Grammar suggestions 9th through 11th grade
  AM

• GAPPI...subordination...parallelism...sentence types
• Exercises in the essential grammar...discussion
• Vertical Teaming...Benefits and liabilities
  PM

• Summing up...more questions...e-mail addresses...future networking
• Appropriate texts...suggestions
• Concluding remarks...