Official AP Writing Practice

Depending on their performance, students will be recommended some or all of the following AP Writing Practice packs. The packs provide practice through Quill Connect, Quill's sentence combining tool. With the exception of the AP Writing - Advanced Sentence Combining pack, the activities in each pack are scaffolded to build in complexity. Here are descriptions of the packs:

AP Writing Practice - Complex Sentences

Students practice constructing complex sentences using subordinating conjunctions, such as even though, after, while, and because. Students also practice identifying time order, opposition, and cause/effect relationships.

AP Writing Practice - Relative Clauses

Students begin by using a provided relative pronoun, then progress to choosing between who, that, or which.

AP Writing Practice - Appositive Phrases

Students practice describing nouns using appositive phrases at the beginning, middle, and end of sentences.

AP Writing Practice - Participial Phrases

Students practice constructing sentences with -ing and -ed participial phrases at the beginning, middle, or end.

AP Writing Practice - Parallel Structure

Students practice constructing sentences in parallel structure with correlative conjunctions like either/or, neither/nor, and both/and, and with subordinating conjunctions like although, because, and when. Students also practice constructing sentences with parallel clauses.

AP Writing Practice - Compound-Complex Sentences

Students practice constructing compound sentences with and, or, but, and so. Students also practice constructing complex sentences with subordinating conjunctions such as even though, after, while, and because. Finally, students practice constructing compound-complex sentences with coordinating and subordinating conjunctions. Students also practice identifying time order, opposition, and cause/effect relationships.

AP Writing Practice - Advanced Combining

Students apply their knowledge of multiple sentence structures to combine the sentences in the strongest way possible. Students practice constructing compound and complex sentences, using modifying phrases and clauses, and combining predicates.

Each AP recommended pack* contains between 4 and 7 activities, each of which are designed to take between 10 and 15 minutes each.

*Please note that the activities in the AP Writing - Advanced Combining pack are different as they are all uncued, meaning the feedback does not direct students to combine in a particular way. These are great for students who are ready to apply the strategies covered in the survey without suggestions or direction.

The focus in most of these activities is to build the target skill of the pack (appositives, relative clauses, etc.), so the vocabulary and reading level are intentionally designed to be accessible by all students.

Teacher Tip: You can preview and play through any pack and its activities to get a sense of whether it's appropriate for your students.

You can assign all the recommended packs in one click, or you can pick and choose, revisiting the recommendations report to assign more packs as needed.

As Quill was designed to be a supplementary tool with each activity taking approximately 10-15 minutes, students are ideally completing an activity at least 1-2 times per week (at most completing one activity per day). Since each AP recommended pack contains between 4 and 7 activities, teachers generally expect a recommended pack to be completed in 1-2 weeks. Of course, students may need more or less time depending on the amount of activities in the pack, their level of difficulty, and students' level of proficiency.

This article explains how you can use deadlines to help students pace themselves.

It is recommended that you and your students create free accounts on Quill.org. Creating an account will give you access to the Survey and its recommended practice. Creating an account also allows you to track your students' progress and view data reports. You can create an account by visiting the Quill sign-up page.

If you do not want to create an account, you or your students can complete the Survey here. However, please note that if you do not create an account, your students' performance on the Survey will not be saved or shared with you, and you will not have access to the recommended skills practice. You will also not be able to track student progress or view data reports.

We are here for you! The following resources are available:

Quill Instructional Coach: You can reach out to us at[email protected]. Be sure to mention the course(s) you teach.

Teacher Center: The place to go for all things best practice and implementation!

Support: Having a technical issue? Email [email protected] or use the chat in the lower right corner of Quill to connect with a member of the Quill support team.

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