The Wisdom of Your Age

An open letter to my AP Lit students:

You people never cease to amaze me.

You are, literally, so insightful. If only I could say that I taught you how to be that way! Then I could write a How To book and become a millionaire. Alas, you arrived on my doorstep in Septmember, bundled in your many colorful blankets, ready to teach me how to think about how I think.

I am very excited about this week–on one hand because The Test will be over and we will not feel quite so much pressure, but on the other hand because I am so confident in your ability to prove (to Them and Yourself) just how much insight coupled with grammatical correctness and stellar word choice you have.

You. Can. Do. It. (Really Well).

We’re so close!

You will be happy to know that, despite my untimely absence, I am diligently working on grading these essays and will be able to go over some of them tomorrow! I am taking a moment to acknowledge to you and the world wide web the incredible sense of pride I am feeling in you. You have worked so hard and it is evident in the college-level essays I am currently reading. It is true what they say! All of it!

This happened.

Foolin’ Around

What’s so funny?

This week we are embarking on an odyssey of humor in which we will examine what makes us laugh. Now, you have all been dutifully sending me links to videos you think are funny in order that I may put together a buffet of laughable items for us to analyze. And I will admit that I am having a tough time assembling said buffet because WE DON’T THINK THE SAME THINGS ARE FUNNY. Boy is this a wake-up call for me. There is officially a generation gap between us and it is LAUGHING AT ME! It’s all, “Hey, there’s a reason no one laughs at your jokes anymore. That reason is: you are OLD.” All this to say, I will keep working. And you WILL laugh at my jokes from here on out.

Here’s the video about comedy we watched in class:

Why take AP Lit?

To recap last night’s AP Extravaganza, here are some reasons you might choose to take AP Literature next year:

1. Learning to read closely and analyze specifically will be important in a variety of fields–not just the bookish ones.

2.  Two years from now everyone in your Econ 201 class will be begging you to help them with their essays. You will literally be sought after for your mad skillz.

3. It is a journey–there will be intense challenges and tearful triumphs. You will meet it all head on and you will arrive at the intended destination changed for the better.

Be “Frank” About Theme

We are quickly approaching the end of Walton’s (and Victor’s and the creature’s) tale of woe. And you know what that means: time to talk theme. Specifically, Franken-theme. Let’s start here by having an online discussion–use the comments to make a textual connection to one of the below-listed themes or propose a new theme of your own. Please read through what other students have said before commenting, so as not to be overly repetitive.

Morality: When we are born we are a tabula rasa, or blank slate, our morals are then formed by society.

 Evil: We are born innately good; it is society that makes us evil.

 Knowledge: Are the boundaries of our knowledge meant to be pushed or should we impose limits upon our knowledge?

 Isolation:  Love, companionship, and friendship are necessary for human happiness; we cannot live lives of isolation.

 Individual vs. Society: When making decisions we must consider the greater good of society, not individual desires.

 Revenge:  The obsessive, primal desire for revenge turns us into monsters.

 Nature:  When others cannot understand us, we can often turn to nature for comfort, solace, and understanding.

 Redemption: When individuals are seemingly beyond hope, they can often find redemption by saving someone else.

It is snowing on my parade.

Well, well, well. It appears we have a bit of a situation on our hands. And on our shoes and in our hair and down the backs of our sweaters.

I know what you’re thinking: “This is severely impacting my inert need for constant and rigorous learning activities!” Well, never fear. I have compiled a list of exercises you can do on a correspondence basis and still be well prepared for Friday’s in-class passage analysis essay (with an emphasis on syntactical devices). Here they are:

1. The Syntax Packet. Remember how I gave you an entire packet full of activities aimed at making you an expert in analyzing passages and poems by looking at syntactical devices used within? Do that.

2. Pick up a book you have not read. Read the first 2-3 pages. Stop. Now, using everything you know about diction and syntax, write a paragraph or two explaining how the author characterizes the protagonist or another character. If it is written in 1st person, explain how the author characterizes the narrator. You could also do this activity with a short story–look around the house for any anthologies or google “American short stories” or “British short stories”–look for authors you recognize. Repeat this exercise as many times as it takes to become an expert at analyzing how an author uses literary devices to create a character.

3. Literary Device Glossary. We are running out of time for revisions on this so do it right the first time. Read the directions carefully, the formula is simple: C#1/C#2/C#3.

Additionally, if you must know, Snowmaggedon is making me quite stir crazy. You know how difficult it is for me to go multiple days without explaining to others about the deeper layers of meaning that surround us all. And for some reason my 5-yr-old is not internalizing my lectures about the many and varied universal themes in Cars 2.

I’m hoping to see you tomorrow…