After eight years of teaching AP Lang, I finally got a chance to be a reader for the national AP Reading this summer. This is where thousands of teachers and college professors come together for a week to read and score what usually amounts to over a million AP Lang essays. Of course, this year was a bit different. There was only one essay instead of three per student, and teachers gathered together "virtually". All scoring was done on the computer as we socially distanced in our own homes.

The first day, four or five hours were spent teaching teachers how to apply the rubric and practice scoring essays. Each group of teachers was assigned a specific prompt and taught how to apply the rubric to that prompt. In order to move on and be able to score student essays, you had to pass the calibration tests and score the essays the way the AP Lang reading team decided that they should be scored.

Every student essay was read and scored at least twice. If there was a discrepancy of more than one point, then the essay would be read and scored a third time by "table readers," more experienced AP Lang scorers. Table readers also "back checked" essays to make sure that readers continued applying the rubric consistently.

The essay that I was assigned to read was Harold Ickes' 1941 speech urging Americans to get involved and help their British allies in WWII. For someone who teaches Lang from a historical perspective (American Studies) this was right up my alley.

The rubric used to score the essays was the "new" 6-point rubric where students earn up to 4 points for their use of evidence and commentary to support their argument, plus up to one point each for having a clear thesis and sophistication in the essay. Of the 700 essays that I read, most students -- nearly all-- earned the thesis point. Most students had some degree of evidence and commentary that supported their thesis, many earning a 3 or 4 in row 2 of the rubric.

Successful essays (those earning 4+ total points) were those that had a clear thesis that responded to the prompt and provided analytical commentary of how the author used specific rhetorical strategies to help reach the audience and had a clear connection to the author's purpose.

Less successful essays often were able to identify rhetorical strategies used by the author, but did not move into analysis, often relying on paraphrase or summary instead of showing why that strategy was effective at moving the audience.

What surprised me was how difficult it was for students to earn the 6th point or the "sophistication" point of the rubric. This point was not easy to earn, as a student's argument had to be particularly vivid or have incredibly strong contextualization and connection to purpose throughout the entire essay. Essays earning the sophistication point, really did have the "wow" factor and were particularly impressive.

The College Board has not released how the individual essay scores were converted into the students' official AP Exam scores.