What are some good questions to ask a class of 8th grade AP English students on their first day ..

Question

to grasp their knowledge of the language so far?

Here are some of the questions I have thought about so far:

1) What is the difference between a colon and semicolon?

2) What is a comma splice?

3) Name one famous essay that has made a significant impact on your life?

4) How will having a good basic understanding of the English language help to improve your future goals?

any other ideas ... I want to have the students write an 250 word "essay" on their first day of class to kind of grasp what I am working with

Answer 1

Eighth grade AP? I'm in 11th grade and I'm finally taking my first AP classes this year...that's odd...but I'll give you my suggestions anyway from a student's perspective.

5) Differences between dependent and independent clauses. That's something that my peers didn't grasp until last year.

6) What the difference is between direct and indirect objects. Something I still sadly don't understand.

7) How Shakespeare has impacted modern English language. (All the words and phrases he invented that are still in use today, etc...)

That's about all I can think of right now. Just one suggestion, though--almost every student gets confused by "x amount of words" for an essay. That scares them a little bit, because they think 250 is a huge number. Try telling them "one page" or "half a page" to ease their nerves a little.

Answer 2

Not much of a tutor, if you have to ask that on here!!

Ok.... Hope you get the answers you are looking for on here, although as yet, not many!?

Perhaps have a chat with other tutors in the same field?

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Answer 3

Umm... I would first check with the school in regard to the curriculum. College board will not allow you to take an AP test in eighth grade...