This workshop invites participants to explore trauma-informed teaching practices that benefit all students and contribute to a "compassionate" teaching environment. It begins with an overview of trauma, its impact on learning, and trauma-informed teaching principles before addressing strategies teachers can use to support trauma-informed teaching. Participants should bring one story of how trauma has impacted their teaching as well as a policy, document, or practice used frequently in their own teaching.   View Recording & Access Slides ... View more

There are several ways to teach AP® Literature, so how do you choose which way is best for your classroom? Join authors Renee Shea, Kate Cordes, and Carlos Escobar with BFW contributor Doranna Tindle as they discuss how to align your course to the CED and teach essential AP® Literature skills without losing flexibility in your course. Then, take a deep dive into a lesson from the third edition of Literature & Composition, featuring Nella Larsen’s Passing.   View Recording & Access Slides ... View more

Did you know that ideas are the secret to success on the AP® English Language Exam? It’s not enough just to discuss a topic. To excel, students need to express an idea about that topic. Join John Williamson, Mary Jo Zell, and Elizabeth Davis as they discuss what constitutes an idea, why ideas are important, and how you can encourage your students to become persuasive writers and analytical readers. You will take a look at how the features in their new AP® Language text, Ideas in Argument, align with the course skills and encourage students to conceive of their own ideas. You’ll walk away with a full Unit from the program and an exclusive lesson plan.   View Recording & Access Slides Ideas in Argument  ... View more

Ideas in Argument provides everything a teacher needs for a successful and fully CED-aligned AP® Language course. Each Unit includes brief, approachable skill workshops aligned to each Big Idea in the Course and Exam Description as well as to AP® Classroom.      ... View more

Since its first edition, Literature & Composition was designed specifically for the AP® English Literature course. Its unique structure of skill-building opening chapters combined with an engaging thematic anthology provides the flexibility you need to plan your year and differentiate based on your students’ needs. In this edition, the book you know and love now fully aligns to the new AP® Course and Exam Description.     ... View more

In this webinar Renee Shea, Robin Aufses, Megan Pankiewicz, and Kate Cordes will reflect on the new AP® Language Scoring Guide and the 2021 AP® Exam results and discuss ways to prepare for the 2022 exam. They will also discuss how we can utilize available tools to engage our students beyond preparing for the exam and get them actively reading and analyzing.   View Recording & Access Slides ... View more

In celebration of National Poetry Month, the authors of American Literature & Rhetoric (ALR) and colleagues who contributed to the resources discuss "Contemporary Poets Talk Back: An American Tradition." One way to view our new book  ALR is one big conversation about issues and ideas about our perfect—or imperfect—union. Nowhere is the conversation more dynamic than in our "talk backs": contemporary poets responding to a song, a painting, or another poem from another era. These responses might be an appreciation or a challenge, but they always raise questions that continue to engage us. During this webinar, we will discuss five contemporary poets who are talking back: Ada Limon (to “The Star-Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key) Natasha Trethewey (to "Veteran in a New Field" by Winslow Homer) Ilya Kaminsky (to "At Lowe's Home Improvement Center" by Brian Turner) Ocean Vuong (to "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa) Eve Ewing (to "How It Feels to Be Colored Me" by Zora Neale Hurston)   View Recording Here! ACCESS THE WEBINAR ... View more

This slide deck contains a combination of “The College Board Pacing Guide for Flipped Classrooms” for AP English Literature and Composition and a modified pacing guide for Literature & Composition, 2e. Feel free to use it for the remainder of the 2021 school year to prepare for the exam in May. ... View more

This slide deck contains a combination of “The College Board Pacing Guide for Flipped Classrooms” for AP English Language and Composition and a modified pacing guide for The Language of Composition, 3e. Feel free to use it for the remainder of the 2021 school year to prepare for the exam in May. ... View more

Renee Shea, Robin Aufses, and Kate Cordes wrote a lesson plan for Amanda Gorman's Superbowl poem "A Call for Captains." Take a look, try it out with your class, and let us know what you think! ... View more

When Faulkner stated, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past,” he could have been providing a preview into the inflection point today’s students face. Whether through remote learning or in-person classes in 2021, this generation of students will need to be prepared to address critical social, economic, and cultural issues, as well as define their role as active citizens who shape them. In this webinar, BFW English authors Renée Shea, Robin Aufses, Kate Cordes, and Larry Scanlon will discuss how American Literature & Rhetoric offers opportunities to engage with the past in order to frame—and more deeply understand—the present. In particular, attendees will be introduced to how American Literature & Rhetoric’s underlying philosophy, structure, themes, features, and chosen texts guide this study of America’s key writers and thinkers. American Literature and Rhetoric  ... View more

This school year—and our world—looks quite different than ever before. From an upcoming, future-shaping election, to youth-led climate change protests, dynamic social justice movements, and virtual learning as the norm, the 'new normal' that can challenge student attention. However, these realities also offer opportunities to introduce relevant content in your AP English course in ways that encourage students to develop the skills necessary to read and write at the college level. In this webinar, BFW English authors Robin Aufses, Megan Pankiewicz, Larry Scanlon and Renee Shea will present strategies, multi-media content and structured curricular tools to guide teachers in using 'elephants in the room' to engage students in deeper learning. Webinar attendees will: discuss key current events that may present challenges to student engagement and lesson-planning in the current educational landscape explore specific strategies for using current events content to engage students in meaningful ways around themes of Social Justice, Sports, Environment and Community review a classroom-ready instructional approach (e.g., graphic organizer, analytical framework) for each of the strategies shared examine the features of an expertly-constructed AP Language program that provides ready-to-implement tools for engaging students, while also providing flexibility in lesson planning ... View more

Whether you teach on-level, Honors, Pre-AP®, you want all of your students to leave your 10th grade class ready for AP®, college, and beyond. In this webinar, BFW authors Carlos Escobar, John Golden, and Renée Shea will examine textbook and teacher resources that help scaffold and differentiate skill building for deeper student learning. They will also review key updates to Advanced Language & Literature, Second Ed. that were made in response to your feedback. Advanced Language & Literature  ... View more

The authors of Foundations of Language and Literature discuss the range of pre-AP classes and making certain that all students can engage with the text ... View more