Common Mistakes for the AP Lang Argument Essay

Summary

In this video, Coach Hall revisits common mistakes students make in their AP Lang argument essays. The key issues highlighted include writing weak theses, relying on general or hypothetical evidence, and failing to provide proper context for famous people or events. Hall emphasizes the importance of specific evidence and commentary to strengthen essays. Moreover, while counterarguments are not mandatory, if included, they should be logical and well-developed. The video is part of a mini-series designed to help students avoid common pitfalls in various types of essays.

Highlights

• Weak theses occur when students try to argue both sides or remain vague. 🚫
• Specific evidence should be chosen over general references, like choosing Simone Biles over just 'sports'. 🤸‍♀️
• Use personal anecdotes over hypothetical situations for greater authenticity and relatability. 👥
• Context is key: Explain who historical figures were and why they're relevant. 🎓
• Weak counterarguments can damage your essay more than strengthen it if not well-developed. 😖

Key Takeaways

• Don't hedge your bets; pick a side for a stronger thesis. 🎯
• Avoid general evidence; be specific with names, dates, and events. 🌍
• Use personal experience wisely instead of hypotheticals for better engagement. 🗣️
• Connect your evidence back to the thesis clearly through detailed commentary. 🔗
• Don't assume readers know; provide context for famous references. 📚
• Developed counterarguments can strengthen your essay but aren't required. 🛡

Overview

Coach Hall kicks things off by critiquing vague and non-committal thesis statements. Many students struggle by trying to cover both sides of an argument equally, a mistake that dilutes their point. To guide students towards success, she advises crafting clear, opinionated theses that reveal their stance without revealing too much of their argument’s entire evidence base, maintaining an element of surprise.

The video further suggests choosing precise, well-defined evidence over broad, vague examples. Coach Hall highlights moving past generalities, such as 'sports', suggesting instead to use specific figures, events, or anecdotes, like standout moments from Simone Biles' career. She encourages the use of proper nouns and context to vividly ground an essay in reality, and embraces the use of personal experiences to illustrate points as more relatable and convincing.

Finally, Coach Hall discusses the potential merits and pitfalls of including counterarguments. While not always necessary, a well-placed counterargument can enhance an essay's depth if there is enough time to properly develop it. She also emphasizes the importance of contextualizing references and suggests students should always assume the reader is uninformed, requiring full background information to ensure clarity and understanding.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 02:00: Introduction and Thesis Writing Mistakes The chapter begins with a welcome from Coach Hall, who revisits the topic of common mistakes in argument essays for AP Language classes, a subject previously covered in a video from a couple of years ago. This video is part of a series addressing similar issues in synthesis essays and rhetorical analysis, with links provided for those interested in further details.
• 02:00 - 05:00: Using Specific Evidence The chapter titled "Using Specific Evidence" addresses common mistakes in writing argument essays for AP Lang, focusing particularly on the issue of having a weak thesis. It emphasizes the importance of taking a clear stand rather than equivocating or arguing both sides equally. The chapter also refers to other resources such as the "common mistakes for Q3 video" linked in the description for additional guidance.
• 05:00 - 12:00: Commentary and Context Importance The chapter underscores the importance of having a clear thesis statement in exam essays, emphasizing that including reasons in the thesis is beneficial. Yet, it advises against revealing exact evidence, advocating for an approach that maintains strategic ambiguity. This ensures the reader remains engaged and curious about the specific arguments and evidence the essay will present.
• 12:00 - 15:00: Counterarguments in Essays The chapter focuses on integrating counterarguments into essays, especially within thesis statements. It suggests using advanced sentence structures, such as starting with 'although' or 'though,' to acknowledge counterarguments while asserting the writer's position. The chapter discourages revealing specific discoveries or examples in the thesis, suggesting it might spoil the development in body paragraphs. It supports the use of counterargument theses even if counterarguments exist.
• 15:00 - 15:30: Conclusion and Additional Resources The chapter titled 'Conclusion and Additional Resources' emphasizes the importance of not addressing a counter argument in the essay, as the thesis and evidence are scored separately. It suggests focusing on strong thesis writing and highlights the availability of additional tips in other videos. A common mistake discussed is the use of general or hypothetical evidence, while specific evidence is emphasized as necessary according to the rubric. The chapter provides a progression to illustrate this concept.

Common Mistakes for the AP Lang Argument Essay Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey everybody welcome back to coach Hall rights a couple years ago I made a video about common mistakes that I was seeing on argument essays for AP Lang and since it's been a couple years I decided I wanted to revisit that topic and update that video in fact this is actually part of a series so if you're interested in knowing the common mistakes that I see on synthesis essays and how to avoid them check out the description below for a link to that video I'll also be posting one for rhetorical analysis as
• 00:30 - 01:00 well and if you want to see the old common mistakes for Q3 video that I made I will link that in the description box as well as always if you haven't already please be sure to subscribe and turn those notifications on that way you don't miss any upcoming APL content the first Common mistake that I see in argument essays for AP Lang is that students have a weak thesis you need to make sure that you pick a side don't try to argue both sides equally we call that equiv ating you also don't want to just
• 01:00 - 01:30 summarize both sides either generally speaking we tend to see a lot of closed thesis statements for argument essays on the exam and I think for a timed essay this is perfectly acceptable I encourage my students to include their reasons in their thesis so for example something like exploring the unknown is valuable because and then they would have reason one and reason to but what I tell my students is I don't want them to spoil their exact evidence so let's say one of
• 01:30 - 02:00 their reasons is that it leads to Discovery that would be a reason but the actual discovery that they're going to talk about in their body paragraphs I don't want them to put that example in their thesis to me personally it feels like it's kind of spoiling it if you're looking for a more advanced sentence frame you could try a counterargument thesis these are the ones that start with although or though where you acknowledge the counterargument and then assert your position you are allowed to have a counter ARG thesis even if you
• 02:00 - 02:30 don't actually address the counter argument in your essay because the thesis point is scored separately from your evidence and commentary I do have other videos on thesis tips so if you're looking for help with writing a strong thesis definitely check out those videos as well another common mistake that I see students making is that they try to use very general or even hypothetical evidence based on the rubric it's important to realize that your essay needs specific evidence so I've given you a progression here to show you what
• 02:30 - 03:00 that might look like if your evidence is simply sports that's way too General you can make it somewhat specific by narrowing it down to gymnastics however even gymnastics is still rather General so we can make it more specific by focusing on a particular gymnast in this case Simone biles and then from there we want to think about more specifically what is it we want to focus on well let's say for the purposes of this example we're going to focus on her comeback at the Paris
• 03:00 - 03:30 Olympics one way to double check if your evidence is specific enough is to focus on proper nouns do you have a specific person or event now you do want to be careful with this though because things like the Civil War or the American Revolution those technically are proper nouns but they're still rather General so if you're thinking about the Civil War you want to narrow it down to a specific component of the war or maybe a particular battle for the American Revolution instead of talking about the entire Revolution Maybe going to talk
• 03:30 - 04:00 about the stamp act so proper nouns are a good start but remember that you want to be as narrow or as specific as possible this is the first step in helping you get toward the three and the four in row b evidence and commentary in general I tend to advise against hypothetical examples because oftentimes they're not convincing and usually when I see students using hypothetical examples in their writing there's usually a real world example that they could be using I think sometimes students try to write hypothetical
• 04:00 - 04:30 examples because they are worried that they're not supposed to use personal experience so instead of talking about themselves they'll say imagine a high school student who does this but really they're talking about themselves let me be clear there are times when English teachers say don't use first person in your writing and when I say this I mean things like don't say I think I believe or in my opinion those phrases weak in your writing however in an argument essay you are allowed to use personal experience
• 04:30 - 05:00 it's a rhetorical choice that you can make you could tell an anecdote so if you're using a hypothetical example in place of actual personal experience the personal experience is going to be stronger now ideally you won't only rely on personal experience for your essay we do want to make other broader world connections as well but personal experience is allowed and it's usually better than a hypothetical example speaking of personal experience there's kind of a right way and a wrong way to do it so as I've already said yes you
• 05:00 - 05:30 can write about personal experience but if you're going to do that you want to make sure that the example you're including is relevant to the prompt itself so you're going to need to establish appropriate context remember the reader doesn't know who you are and they can't infer you also want to make sure that the experience that you've chosen has a clear value lesson or moral that relates to the prompt if you're looking for more tips and examples on how to write about personal experience I do have a separate video on this that
• 05:30 - 06:00 goes into much more detail for the students who are struggling with getting from a two in evidence in commentary to a three in evidence in commentary chances are you're struggling with the commentary portion a lot of times students try to summarize their evidence and they don't actually analyze its significance one way to start is to ask yourself what does this example show or suggest a lot of students who earn a two in row b at least have a sentence that says this
• 06:00 - 06:30 example shows and then they finish that sentence but usually the reason why it stays at a two and doesn't progress to a three in evidence and commentary is because the explanation that follows is very superficial commentary so you really want to dig deep and what is the actual lesson or Revelation I'm trying to get the reader to realize by including this example and why is this example important in proving my point you had to have chosen the example for a reason don't assume that your reader is
• 06:30 - 07:00 going to automatically understand how the evidence proves your thesis that's the job of commentary you have to be the one to say it here are a couple examples of what this could look like in student essays so let's say that for this particular example the evidence is going to be how the US invested in space exploration in the 1960s summarizing the evidence which weakens your essay would essentially be just restating what the evidence already said notice that in that example it's
• 07:00 - 07:30 not adding new information and we've got really vague language like these Innovations helped people in various ways now look at the stronger example we're sticking with the same concept except notice that this is not only longer but it's much more specific I bolded some phrases that I thought might be helpful for students so you can see there that we have the dash and then further clarification for those that are working on your writing style practice using dashes or colons appropriately these can
• 07:30 - 08:00 be really refreshing to see students using Advanced punctuation in a meaningful way in their writing I also bolded the word demonstrate simply using the word demonstrate does not guarantee that you have strong commentary but I do think it's helpful for students who are struggling with commentary to recognize that there are certain verbs that can help signal commentary demonstrate highlight suggest illustrate underscore which means to emphasize but notice that what follows the word demonstrate is
• 08:00 - 08:30 much more specific here there's even an added Clause at the end reinforcing the argument that such Pursuits Drive human progress presumably that's a connection back to the thesis so adding a clause with an ing verb there at the end could be another way to tie everything together another common mistake that I see is what I'm going to call a lack of context I think a lot of times this happens when students are writing about famous people or events because they assume that the reader knows what
• 08:30 - 09:00 they're talking about but here's the thing that you need to remember readers are not supposed to infer context so let's say a student is writing about someone famous like George Washington or Rosa Parks as a reader yes I am aware of who those people are however I'm not supposed to project my knowledge of that person onto your essay instead you're supposed to guide me through that thought process so some quick ways to fix the lack of context would be to include a person's credentials so like
• 09:00 - 09:30 what was their title were they an activist were they a politician you could also include the date or time period of an event if you're not sure about the exact date but you know the decade that's fine too you can use commas or dashes to offset the extra information that interrupts the sentence providing appropriate context helps you establish your commentary as well because if your reader understands who the person is that you're talking about or why the event is relevant
• 09:30 - 10:00 then as you get to the commentary it's going to be easier to explain the significance let me show you an example of what this could look like so in our week example we have the US landed on the moon this proves humans should always explore so right there we have very limited commentary and there's essentially no context in the revised example it's much more specific so notice for the revised example we have a date and again if you didn't remember the exact date you could just use the year worst case scenario you could say
• 10:00 - 10:30 in the late 1960s if you forgot the year notice that we now have specific names as well so we have Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren also notice in the next sentence where it says this achievement driven by the Cold War era Space Race okay so that's some context as well that's helping us understand the significance of the year and why this was an achievement and then we have another commentary version there
• 10:30 - 11:00 showcased now in this particular example there is a relatively famous quote followed by some commentary notice that we're connecting back to this idea of exploring the unknown and why it's valuable because it leads to advancements and Innovation but I want to be clear you are not required to memorize quotes in fact if you're wondering how to study for question three I would recommend becoming very familiar with about three to five famous figures if you want to add in a little more I would maybe add add in three to five current events as well and start
• 11:00 - 11:30 with people in events that you're actually already interested in maybe you have some outside knowledge of an athlete or a musician or maybe there's a famous person that you've learned about in history class I think one of the biggest hurdles that students face with question three is they're worried that they won't have good evidence that they won't come up with examples off the top of their head and I do think that can be very challenging especially under the pressure of exam time constraints but I also think it's important to recognize
• 11:30 - 12:00 that as high school students you do have a toolbox of knowledge that you can draw from here's another example of lack of context I find that sometimes when students are writing about really famous people that they forget to include that context or maybe they oversimplify the context because they just assume that the reader is going to know so you can see in the week example it's just a couple of sentences it says Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat from that alone we don't have any idea of what's actually happening whereas in the second
• 12:00 - 12:30 example we have a date we have a place we have a reference to what's going on in the time period And if you're looking at this and you're like okay I know about Rosa Parks but I wouldn't have known the exact year or date or something like that that's okay remember we could use time periods if needed but I also think this is a lesson in picking the evidence that you could write about best sometimes the first example that pops in our head is not always the example that we should write about in fact some of the essays that I have
• 12:30 - 13:00 found most interesting as a teacher and a reader have been the essays where students were clearly writing about a topic that they knew well whether it was an athlete or a musician or a famous person sometimes going for that Niche knowledge as opposed to the obvious example makes for a much stronger essay another common mistake for argument essays for AP Lang is weak counterarguments it is not mandatory to address the counterargument I do believe that this
• 13:00 - 13:30 is a valuable skill for students to learn and I do think for exam purposes if you have a strong counter claim and rebuttal or concession and reputation and you have the time you should include it but I don't think every student should try to address the counter argument in every argument essay that they write now for classroom purposes that might be a different story there are times as a teacher where I want my students to practice that skill so I tell them hey in this essay I want you to address the counter argument but for exam purposes I don't want my
• 13:30 - 14:00 students trying to cram a counter argument in if it's not going to actually help their essay and that's what I see a lot of times with these weaker counter arguments is that often times the counter argument itself is maybe not logical or there's not enough time to develop it so it's actually weakening the argument as opposed to bolstering it it's also important to recognize that the counterargument can be anywhere in the essay so it can be its own paragraph a lot of students tend
• 14:00 - 14:30 to put it as a third body paragraph I think just because that way if they need to cut it they can and the rest of their essay is still intact a lot of my students actually like to weave their counterargument into an existing body paragraph that way they're still just doing two body paragraphs but they use it as a way to develop one of their main ideas so on exam day you need to recognize that as a writer you have certain choices to make and one of those choices for an argument essay is going to be should I address the counter argument do I have a strong counter
• 14:30 - 15:00 claim in rebuttal or concession and reputation if so do I have time to execute it properly and where does it belong in my essay all right there you have it those are the most common mistakes that I see on AP langang argument essays don't forget that this is part of a minseries so be sure to check out the description box below for other common mistakes videos if you found this video helpful please give it a thumbs up feel free to share it with ap students and also don't forget to
• 15:00 - 15:30 subscribe that way you don't miss any upcoming videos as we prepare for the aping exam thank you so much for watching and until next time happy writing