EP1: John Williamson on Essential Skills for Effective AP® English Instruction

AP Language and Literature teacher and host, Mike Atwood interviews AP® guru, John Williamson about the best practices and essential skills required for effective AP instruction. Throughout the conversation, John points to how teachers need to focus on teaching students the art of weaving in “Can’t Touch This!” abstract ideas into their FRQs in order to elevate lines or reasoning, creating sophistication. The two discuss the essential use of creative graphic organizers to analyze ideas, and organize key planning points in essays, as well as the use of multi-cultural literature blended in with what used to be “The Literary Cannon” for required student reading. John even poses the question “Is there even a Literary Cannon anymore?”
His mantra of focusing on quality instruction and best practices, as well as the idea that “Less is more” when it comes to assigning reading and longer essays becomes clear as shares his rich experience as an AP® teacher, College Board leader, Dean of P12 Programs and Superintendent Model Laboratory School at Eastern Kentucky University.
He is also the author of Ideas in Argument and Ideas in Literature from Bedford / Macmillan