Free teacher edition · 10-page PDF
An AP Lit Q1 scaffold your students can actually mimic.
Three model paragraphs at the 6-essay band, written against Gwendolyn Brooks's We Real Cool. Each paragraph carries side callouts pointing to the moves that earned Row A, Row B, and Row C. Built to be photocopied, annotated, and used on Monday.
What's inside
Nine pages, every one of them load-bearing.
Rubric anatomy
Row A, Row B, Row C — what each row actually rewards, with the language a Chief Reader would use.
Three model paragraphs
One per rubric row, written at the 6-essay band. Every paragraph carries side callouts pointing to the moves that earned the points.
Common student errors
Six recurring patterns — plot summary in disguise, decorative quotation, sophistication chased in every paragraph — with a fix line under each.
Classroom adaptation
Single-period plan, two-period block, differentiation notes for both the 3-essay and 6-essay bands. A short reframe exercise for the sophistication point.
Who it's for
We wrote this for three teachers in particular.
First-year AP Lit teachers
If you have never scored Q1 essays at an AP reading, the rubric language can feel like a code. The model paragraphs translate the code into prose your students can mimic.
Department leads choosing a Q1 anchor poem
We Real Cool is short, AP-canon, and rewards close reading at every band — well suited to a 40-minute scaffold or a one-period model lesson.
Teachers who already have a Q1 sequence
Drop in just the Common Errors page (Page 6) as a peer-review rubric. It works on its own.
Take it with you
Free PDF, no sign-up, no follow-up email.
The handout lives at storgy.com — feel free to share the URL with your department. If the scaffold is useful and you want the same depth on every AP-canon poem your students will sit with this year, the Founding Teacher coupon inside the PDF gets you $25 off Storgy Teacher Pro.