ROBERT BROWN
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"Rob was fantastic! Warm, funny, and very knowledgable about his subject and about what kids need to know to pass the AP exam." "Rob Brown is a great instructor. He made me feel comfortable and provided a safe space where we could ask him questions as well as collaborate with other participants. He often stayed behind when the sessions were over and he always answered my questions with clarity. " |
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Bobby can be reached at rob.brownapsi@gmail.com
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Rob Brown
returns to the Marin by the Bay APSI for the second time this year. For the past two decades, Rob has presented workshops and AP Summer Institutes throughout the US and internationally, in locations ranging from the bucolic Northeast Kingdom of Vermont to the inner cities of Boston and Chicago. He has been a presenter at AP Annual Conferences, served as an AP Mentor, and has contributed ancillary materials to a number of popular textbooks. Rob has been an AP English Lit Reader and Table Leader since 1999. Rob taught AP English Literature and led the English Department at Rice Memorial High School in South Burlington, Vermont, for more than 35 years. He continues to teach virtually both for Rice and privately, serving students in Vermont, in New York, in Virginia, and in Suzhou, China. No stranger to virtual learning, Rob began teaching online in ancient pre-internet days on dial-up modems. In the years since, he has taught online classes in both college and high school settings as well as virtual AP workshops. Outside the virtual, physical and metaphoric classroom, Rob enjoys fishing in Vermont’s picturesque trout streams, and for over 20 years was off-camera signature voice of Vermont Public Television. |
Course Description:
An APSI workshop is an opportunity for participants to share their own best practices, and in turn sharpen their repertoires on the whetstone of their colleagues’ experience. The workshop will unpack the fundamentals of teaching AP English Literature, and review ways to leverage College Board resources, including AP Classroom and its storehouses of supplemental materials and assessment tools such as Personal Progress Checks and AP Daily videos.
As in all AP workshops, participants will review the College Board framework for the AP English Literature and Composition course, and consider classroom-tried ways to create or revise an appropriate sequence of activities and assignments for teaching fiction, drama and poetry. The session will also provide practice in assessment of student work according to AP standards, with close attention to scoring guides and student samples from past AP exams. Participants will be asked to submit a modest curriculum-planning project at the end of the workshop.
In the days before the workshop begins, registered participants will be invited to suggest specific topics for emphasis or inclusion, a process that will continue throughout the session. A schedule of each day’s activities prepared months ahead of time is a work in progress at best:
AGENDA:
Day 1
Preliminary Q&A, Goal (re-)setting
Overview of AP
Development, Equity and Access
AP English Lit - Course and Exam Description
Course structure, scope, sequence, Unit structures
Selecting texts
Workshop project – “The Artifact”
Questions, general discussion, group work time
Day 2
Morning Q&A, overview
Fundamentals of teaching AP English Lit
Ideas for teaching Fiction
Selecting texts; designing effective teaching strategies
Assessment strategies for fiction: Scoring exams, grading student work
Questions, general discussion, group work time
Day 3
Morning Q&A, overview
Ideas for teaching Poetry
Selecting texts; designing effective teaching strategies
Assessment strategies for poetry; Scoring exams, grading student work
Navigating AP Classroom and tapping its resources
Progress checks, AP Daily, Question bank
Questions, general discussion, group work time
Day 4
Morning Q&A, overview
Ideas for teaching Drama, long fiction
Selecting texts; designing effective teaching strategies
Project presentations and discussion
Questions, general discussion, closing
An online APSI workshop calls for the kind of overall time commitment demanded by a busy week on the job at school, while allowing participants time to breathe, reflect and think – and to walk the dog or prune the petunias. This workshop will blend synchronous and asynchronous activities, with a mixture of presentations, independent activities and collegial conversations. Daily “office hour” chats will round out each day of the workshop as needed.