AP Language Class Notes
Objective(s): APELC students completed a timed-writing 2 today.
Hey all, not much to say about the timed-writing. We’ll talk more about it next class. I do, however, have to share some important feedback on other class goings-on.
First, some feedback on your responses to “Once More to the Lake” (considerations that can be applied to future work):
- Too much “Lots of figurative language,” or “The drums indicate thunder.” Too little detail; arguments flat, lacking, with little, obvious, or no substantive analysis.
- You must read carefully and closely. If you’re not using the post-text questions and the basic questions for rhetorical analysis as guides to your reading, you’re failing.
- You must put yourselves in others’ shoes as you read—the speaker, the audience—and try to experience a piece from different perspectives.
- Second pronoun “you” and “calm” tones are to be stricken from further analyses.
Marie C. clarified with me again today something I’ve been over with both classes many times in the past: I don’t expect you to write only to please me or corroborate my interpretation of a text. As long as you can provide evidence from the text for your analyses, and you must provide evidence from the text, our interpretations may can be opposite. That’s what makes for discussion and argument. And discussion and argument are good.
Second, those troubling numbers, again, I shared briefly with you in class:
- “Song of Myself” process: 13 out of 25 turned in second period, 21 out of 33 turned in fifth period.
- “Once More to the Lake” questions: 20 out of 25 turned in second period, 26 out of 33 turned in fifth period.
- “Arm Wrestling with My Father” questions: 21 out of 25 turned in second period, 25 out of 33 turned in fifth period.
Although I’d hate to see any one you leave, especially after the success many of you achieved last quarter and after much anxiety, if you 1) aren’t willing to read a piece deeply more than once, questioning and writing as you do; or 2) aren’t willing to extend yourself beyond the assignment as written by seeking contextualizing or clarifying information on your own, or 3) aren’t willing to take thorough notes in class and taxonomize them nightly, or 4) are having trouble understanding the material but aren’t willing to see me in tutoring, or 5) all (or some) of the former, I recommend that you effect a schedule change quickly.
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