How to EARN The SOPHISTICATION POINT On ANY AP Lang or Lit Essay

Summary

In this video, Tim Freitas from the Garden of English shares tips on how to earn the sophistication point in AP Language and Literature essays. He emphasizes that while there are nine ways to secure this point, focusing on a consistent, vivid, and persuasive writing style is key. Before tackling sophistication, students should concentrate on achieving thesis and evidence points. He shares detailed steps, including creating complex theses, varied topic sentences, smooth evidence integration, and advanced punctuation, to elevate writing skills.

Highlights

• Tim Freitas explains nine ways to earn sophistication points in essays. 🌟
• Start with a complex thesis using a complex sentence structure. 🤓
• Importance of varied topic sentences that link to your main argument. 🔗
• Using precise, synthesized quotes in your essay to blend evidence and commentary. 📜
• Commentary should be detailed using connective language to enhance sophistication. 💬

Key Takeaways

• Focus first on earning thesis and evidence commentary points before sophistication. 🥇
• A complex thesis with a properly punctuated complex sentence is essential. ✍️
• Integrate topic sentences with transitional language and clear argument connections. 🔗
• Synthesized evidence in essays should mix quotes seamlessly into your own words. 🔄
• Advanced punctuation like semicolons and colons can add flair to your writing. 🎨

Overview

Tim Freitas, from the Garden of English, dives into the topic of how students can score the elusive sophistication point in AP Lang and Lit essays. He cautions that while there are nine ways to earn this point, the primary focus should be on crafting a fluid and persuasive writing style. The journey starts with securing thesis and evidence points before sophistication is attempted, ensuring that the foundation of the essay is solid.

The core strategy involves creating a sound complex thesis, employing varied topic sentences with transitional language, and flawlessly integrating evidence. Tim advises that quotes should be woven into essays in such a way that they harmonize with the author's narrative. Running through all of this is the need for advanced punctuation, like semicolons and dashes, to add a refined touch to your writing.

To aid students further, Tim Freitas has provided templates and playlists to guide learners toward mastering complex theses and organized commentary. By following these structured steps, students can enhance their writing, making it not only sophisticate-friendly but ready for all evaluative scrutiny. Encouraging practice, he suggests these writing skills will benefit learners well beyond their AP exams.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Purpose In the chapter "Introduction and Purpose," Tim Freitas introduces himself and addresses a common question he receives from students in AP Lang and AP Lit courses: how to earn the sophistication point. He explains that, while there's no easy method, there are nine different ways to earn this elusive point across both courses. He hints at the significance of this point and sets the stage for discussing these methods in more detail.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Striving for Sophistication In 'Striving for Sophistication', the importance of striving for sophistication in writing is discussed. The chapter emphasizes that while sophistication is valuable, it should not overshadow the fundamental aspects of a thesis and supporting evidence. The chapter encourages readers to put effort into making their writing style vivid and persuasive, but also to recognize the attainability of other critical writing points.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Complex Thesis Construction The chapter focuses on advancing your writing skills to produce high-scoring essays, emphasizing the importance of earning 'thesis' and 'evidence and commentary' points on scoring rubrics. It advises prioritizing these areas over sophistication until achieving consistency in scoring. The main takeaway is the importance of constructing a complex thesis as a foundational step.
• 02:00 - 03:00: Varied Topic Sentences The chapter on 'Varied Topic Sentences' emphasizes the importance of complexity in writing, specifically through the use of complex sentences in thesis statements. The chapter suggests that embracing complexity can lead to the creation of sophisticated ideas. To construct a complex thesis statement, it is beneficial to use subordinating conjunctions, as they form the basis of a complex sentence. Furthermore, numerous video resources providing templates for writing such statements, along with lists of subordinating conjunctions, are mentioned as tools for crafting effective literary and analytical essays.
• 03:00 - 04:30: Integrating Evidence The chapter titled 'Integrating Evidence' focuses on understanding what constitutes a complex thesis, providing models for better comprehension, and encouraging practice. It mentions that accompanying videos with playlists categorized by essay types are available below for further learning. Additionally, the speaker encourages viewers to engage with the content by liking, subscribing, or supporting the channel, while humorously advising against using the thumbs down option.
• 04:30 - 06:00: Providing Detailed Commentary The chapter titled 'Providing Detailed Commentary' begins by highlighting the limitations of writing skills - even being capable of composing a complex thesis alone may not render one's writing vivid and persuasive. It emphasizes the need for more to achieve a consistently engaging writing style. The chapter then introduces the importance of varied topic sentences in crafting a clear line of reasoning. These sentences should incorporate transitional language, specific references to evidence, and articulate connections to the main argument, to enhance the clarity and persuasiveness of the writing.
• 06:00 - 07:00: Advanced Punctuation Techniques The chapter 'Advanced Punctuation Techniques' discusses the flexibility and variations available in constructing topic sentences in an essay. It emphasizes that while topic sentences should contain certain essential elements, the order can be rearranged as long as they remain sensible. The chapter refers to additional resources where sophisticated topic sentence templates and forms are explained in detail. The goal is for the reader to practice incorporating these components to enhance the complexity and clarity of their essays.
• 07:00 - 08:00: Concluding Advice In the concluding advice chapter, the focus is on integrating evidence into essays effectively. For literary and language questions, it's crucial to incorporate precise quotes from the provided texts into body paragraphs. The chapter emphasizes combining quoted text with original words, a process known as synthesis. This involves ensuring that the selected evidence is seamlessly woven into the argument, enhancing overall persuasiveness and clarity in essays.
• 08:00 - 09:00: Call to Action In the 'Call to Action' chapter, the focus is on the effective integration of quotes within paragraphs. It emphasizes that quotes should be limited to 13 words and seamlessly embedded into the writer's words. It warns against simply dropping quotes into text without commentary. The goal is to achieve a synthesis where it's difficult to distinguish the author's words from the quoted material, ensuring that the writing is cohesive and fully integrated. An anecdotal quote 'we finish each other's sandwiches that's what I was gonna say' highlights the concept of seamless integration.

How to EARN The SOPHISTICATION POINT On ANY AP Lang or Lit Essay Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey folks Tim Freitas here from the garden of English as I work with students around the country and around the globe there's one question I'm asked more than anything else in AP Lang or AP Lit what's the easiest way to earn the sophistication point now the short answer to that question is that there's no easy way but there are a total of nine different ways for you to score the mythologically elusive Point whether you're taking lit or land and amidst these nine options there's one that shows up in every criteria for every essay in both the Lang course and the
• 00:30 - 01:00 lit course it's incredibly teachable and also incredibly learnable especially if you are willing to put in the effort so let's check out what you can do to put yourself in a better position to earn your sophistication Point by employing a style that is consistently Vivid and persuasive now before I get into what you can easily do I want to remind you all that striving for sophistication isn't a bad thing but you need to recognize that the points that are significantly more attainable are the thesis point and the evidence and commentary points so before we really
• 01:00 - 01:30 trying to take your writing to the next level make sure to focus on learning to write in a way that will earn you the most points by producing essays that will earn you the thesis point in row a and the evidence and commentary points in row b on all of the scoring rubrics sophistication should be a bit of an afterthought until you're consistently earning at least a four out of six points on each essay now that we've got that PSA out of the way let's get into what you can do step one you need to produce a complex thesis the easiest way
• 01:30 - 02:00 to produce complex ideas which can in turn become sophisticated ideas is to have an argument that Embraces complexity the easiest way to write a complex thesis for any litter laying essay is to make sure that you write a properly punctuated complex sentence for your thesis statement don't know what a complex sentence is well it's just a sentence that includes at least one subordinating conjunction I have a bunch of videos that offer thesis templates for lit and laying and these templates are all complex many of these templates also provide you with a list of subordinating conjunctions so if you
• 02:00 - 02:30 need to see what a complex thesis would look like and see some models and then go practice you can actually look in the description right below this video and see that I've linked all of the playlists to all the essay types and you can just find the thesis videos and you'll see what to do yes that's right we have playlists for every type of question in Lang by the way while you're poking around below the video don't forget to crank that like button Smite the Subscribe and perhaps even consider becoming a channel member or give us a super thanks any button you're willing to press down there helps us out well except for the thumbs down that should
• 02:30 - 03:00 be off limits anyway even if you know how to write a complex thesis alone that won't make your writing Vivid and persuasive but it will certainly be the first step in helping you'll have to do more though to employ that style that is consistently Vivid and persuasive so that leads us to step two you want to write topic sentences that are varied and help clearly establish a line of reasoning to do this you want to make sure that all of your topic sentences include transitional language a somewhat specific reference to the evidence you're going to include in that particular body paragraph and an articulated connection to your
• 03:00 - 03:30 overarching argument even though your topic sentences should include all of these parts you can actually vary their order as long as your sentences still make sense in all the playlists that I link below this video you'll be able to easily find all of the videos that include sophisticated topic sentence templates and forms and in each one I show you how all of this works I show you the pieces that need to be in there and how to rearrange them if you practice having all of the parts I just mentioned you'll continue to write complexly and clearly further augmenting your essay as one that could be
• 03:30 - 04:00 considered Vivid and persuasive but we're not done step three involves how you integrate your evidence in any one of your essays for both lit and Lang questions 1 and 2 provide you with texts to read and then apply to your essays because you have the text to quote from you really need to put them in what you write when you incorporate text as you add examples into your body paragraphs you want to make sure that you quote them precisely and you want them to be synthesized with your own words that's just a fancy way of saying combining what this means is as follows if you
• 04:00 - 04:30 ever put quotes in your paragraphs which you should the quote should hardly ever be more than 13 words long and you need to make sure that the sentence that any quote is in also contains your own words as well do not just drop quotes in your paper you want to add quotes Sam famously so that when you read any of the sentences that you've written that include the quotes that you're putting in as your evidence you can't tell where your words end and the quotes begin we finish each other's sandwiches that's what I was gonna say if you can't tell then your writing isn't fully synthesized and it's not as
• 04:30 - 05:00 sophisticated as it should be if you want to learn how to do this for each individual question you better believe I have models in the playlist below everything link now for both AP Wishes the question three the argument and literary argument questions for those when you write about your evidence you want to use the best verbs that you can describe when you actually provide your examples you also need to make sure that your evidence in these argument questions can be described in a minimum of three sentences but a maximum of five writing thoroughly yet precisely prevents over
• 05:00 - 05:30 summarizing and also shows how complexly you can take situations and apply them to your thought processes of course you want models for this too I'm sure by now you know where to look for them now that you have a complex thesis statement and well constructed in very topic sentences and thorough and seamless evidence you can add to all this goodness by providing detailed commentary this is step four provide commentary that is accurate and complex the easiest way to do this is by making sure that as you explain how your evidence proves your thesis you include language that prompts
• 05:30 - 06:00 you to produce effective commentary this language also forces you to produce complex sentences words and phrases that will help you produce the commentary that you need need are things like this because consequently since thus therefore furthermore so that and due to the fact that if your paragraphs are not loaded with these words and phrases you probably don't have thorough commentary and if your commentary isn't thorough your writing isn't Vivid persuasive or sophisticated so go practice adding
• 06:00 - 06:30 words like these to your essays and watch your skills grow almost overnight also if you're looking for commentary templates to apply to each type of essay well once again go look in the playlist every essay is covered for you alright so if you enact all of my prior advice you'll have a great shot at earning the sophistication point but if you really want to you'll want to learn about and embrace step five step five is Advanced punctuation as an AP reader it's great to see complex thought and beautiful organization and commentary but what
• 06:30 - 07:00 adds the most Flair is when Advanced Punctuation is correctly utilized Advanced punctuation includes proper uses of the semicolon the colon and dashes Advanced punctuation also includes the proper use of brackets when you need to eliminate some of the words from a quote with an ellipsis or when you need to change the conjugation of any of the words in a quote to match the tense that you are writing in of course if you don't know how to use brackets check out my evidence integration videos for lit and Lang questions 1 and 2 in the links down below and I go over how
• 07:00 - 07:30 to do all of that I've got you covered there's a significant amount of myths surrounding the elusive unicorn point that we call the sophistication point and I have to admit at times it can be pretty hard to earn but it is not impossible and I just covered all of the most tangible things that you can do and learn to actually earn from this point and if you can consistently enact most of my advice you'll be in really good shape now I have to also admit there are other ways to earn the sophistication point but not ways that I can easily provide tangible steps for like this so
• 07:30 - 08:00 what you want to do now is you want to go watch the playlists that are linked right here and you can practice all that I give you so that your writing can be consistently Vivid and persuasive and you can go own your exams and take these skills with you not only through college but into the world [Music] foreign [Music]