hello and welcome to AP daily practice sessions my name is John Zia and I'm an AP language teacher from Chelsea High School in Chelsea Michigan today we're going to be discussing question one from the free response or essay section of the exam which is more commonly known as the synthesis essay if you want to work through the prompt we're using today you can click on the link provided and you can download a PDF of the text that you'll see featured in this video as I mentioned a minute ago today's Focus will be on the synthesis essay which is one of the more complex parts of the AP exam and that it contains multiple components and requires us to do a lot as readers so let's start with what we're given we're provided with a prompt as well as six to seven sources in a source packet and then in response we have to provide three things number one a defensible thesis two evidence from The Source packet that supports that thesis along with commentary connecting the evidence to the claim and lastly we want to try to do all this with an error of sophistication if possible and that's a lot more than we can cover in one 15minute video so for today we're going to narrow our Focus to just two of these components and practice reading a prompt uh to identify our task and then trying to create a solid defensible thesis in response I want to focus most of today's video on practicing with an actual prompt but before that I always like to offer just a few reminders or tips on things that we can keep in mind both today and on test day for starters when we read we want to make sure we work to identify the topic and task usually this comes somewhere toward the middle or end of The Prompt uh maybe in a second or third paragraph and there will usually be one direct line that actually invites us to do something so we want to make sure we identify that task very specifically we can look for possible positions or other key factors or considerations in the prompt a lot of times we get context surrounding the issue or the topic we'll be discussing and that can be really helpful in helping us develop our own positions when it comes time to write we want to work to craft a defensible position that responds to the prompt and lastly if possible we want to shoot to say something sophisticated so we can aim for that six point on the rubric so let's take a look then at an actual prompt remember you have all this available on a document that's accessible by clicking on the link provided and this prompt is fairly typical we have a few paragraphs of writing here which means we need to do a little bit of sorting and processing in order to really get the key information out of what's on the page so I want to invite you right now to pause the video to see if you can identify two things the topic of our synthesis essay and the task that we've been presented with when you've had a chance to read and review that you can press play and I'll help point out what I notice when I look at a prompt like this all right so fortunately for this particular prompt our topic comes immediately we right away in the first two words are given this focus on vertical farms and if you've never heard of vertical Farms before which is probably not unusual um they give us a really nice description later in that line of what vertical Farms are indoor agricultural facilities in which plants are grown often in hydroponic soilless environment on tall stacks of shelves so we know immediately what it is that we're going to be talking about but we don't yet know what our task is with this topic so we have to keep reading and look for that particular directive and for us we see that come in in the last line of what's featured on page here we need to develop a position on the value if any of vertical Farms to the future of Agriculture um if you've practiced with previous synthesis essays you might know that a lot of the prompts tend to take one of three forms sometimes we're asked to identify certain factors to consider in relationship to a topic other times we're asked to develop a position yes or no on a topic and sometimes we're asked to identify the extent to which something is the case I would say this prompt is maybe something like that last prompt how valuable to what extent is the valuable of vertical Farms to the future of Agriculture and sometimes it even helps to take a prompt like this and reframe it as a question that we might need to answer in our essay in this case the question being posed is are vertical Farms valuable to the future of Agriculture and if so how much so we will always see something that directs us to essentially argue a position in response to something and we have that right now so before we go barreling into the sources we should remember that there is still other content available on the page or in this prompt that can be helpful to us let's take a minute to review the prompt one more time to see if we can uh identify what possible positions or factors are included in the promp tier things that we can keep on our radar as we get ready to read the sources or as we start to formulate our own positions want to encourage you just take a one more moment to pause the video review the passage or prompt here and see if we can identify any possible positions to keep in mind for later all right so this was a really valuable prompt in that I thought they really provided us with some great positions immediately here um for instance we are told two things that Advocates might point to when they support the use of vertical Farms high quality produce so the quality as well as the efficient use of land and water and to continue rounding out the discussion as good context will do we also hear from the other side of the debate we're told that critics warn about energy consumption uh the cost of vertical Farms along with the nutritional value so already we've been given five different possible factors to consider when thinking through this prompt or this particular topic and that's going to help us when it comes time to craft a defensible thesis also might help us when it comes time to read our sources because we know most likely our sources are going to speak to some of these exact factors that have been previewed so this really sets us up for what we're going to do later on in the synthesis task um gives us a directive for reading and allows us to start thinking about what our thesis might look like so before we wrap up our video let's turn our attention to that idea of a defensible thesis and I know normally we'd have the luxury or the advantage of reading through the whole Source packet before we craft our thesis but even with what we've been given here we should be able to provide something that might set up a line of reasoning for us to argue in our essay so I want to invite you one more time in our video to pause the video here take a minute to either try and write down or think through what a defensible thesis might look like for you and then when you're ready to hear a few examples from me you can press play to resume all right so I'm going to bring up three examples of possible thesa statements here we'll consider each one and whether or not it works well given what we've been provided as a task and a topic for our first example our thesis says vertical Farms have value to the future of Agriculture if I saw a thesis like this I would tell a student that yes it does address the prompt which is always an important first step it does take a position on the value of vertical farms in the future but I would also say this thesis right now is a little bit lacking you might notice it doesn't preview the points that are coming in the essay it's very vague as to what the value of the future of of vertical Farms to the future of Agriculture might be so if we were to revise this thesis we might want something that's a little more specific a little bit more complete and provides something that we have to do a better job digging our heels in to defend let's take a look at a second example thesis here to see if it does any better because of the high quality produce they generate and their efficient use of resources vertical Farms are extremely valuable to the future of Agriculture I like this thesis quite a bit better than our first one I like that we have two specific focal points here the quality of the produce and the efficient use of resources to me that's much more specific it's previewing for me the line of reasoning that might come in the essay to follow and it's just all together a sharper more specific stance that we can now dig in and defend with evidence from the packet and evidence and commentary from our own perspective as well let's take a look at one last thesis statement to see if it does any better or worse than what we've already seen here our third example says while vertical Farms do offer high quality produce their high cost and immense energy consumption limit their value to the future of Agriculture of our three thesis statements so far I actually like this the best yet yet again here a few things that I like is number one this is a little more complex or nuanced of a position you might notice that the student started by offering a concession to the other side of the argument before then coming back and outweighing that concession with two points on the students perspective or side I really like that that sets up a more complicated thesis that we might defend this also brings in a third factor to consider so that's just one more point we might be able to unpack in our line of reasoning this feels more complete yet so in terms of our three we might shoot for something like that third example second example would work as well first example is probably a little bit too vague or general and something we want to try to steer away and obviously the thesis statement really does depend on more than just what our prompt gives us we need to see what the sources cover but generally speaking if something's previewed in the prompt there's a good chance you're going to see it in the source packet too so as a wrap up let's review what we've covered today when we read a synthesis prompt we want to work to identify the topic and task ask we want to look for possible positions or other key factors or considerations that might be connected to that particular topic we want to work to craft a defensible position that responds to the prompt and lastly we want to shoot to say something sophisticated bringing in some nuances or complexities that go beyond something simplistic or basic uh thank you for watching this video I appreciate the time you're all putting in here and I'm hoping that you'll feel that success come as a result a few weeks from now when the test rolls around hang in there you guys have got this