Post AP-workshop

I'm all pumped up from the four-day AP Lit workshop I attended this week. It was held at the Coastal Georgia Center, so it was an easy drive for me, but many attendees came from across Georgia and out of state; one even came from Brussels (yes, as in Belgium). The purpose was to train teachers how to deliver an AP curriculum to prepare students for the AP exams. I'll never have a chance to teach AP at RHHS, since they already have a lot of AP-qualified teachers, but I wanted to sign up for the training anyway because I believed that the high-level-thinking techniques could be used for any class. As always, I wanted to expand my knowledge of new tricks to get students engaged and learning.

When I used to go to the AP readings in Daytona, I always felt that they should launch the Reading by giving the teacher/readers 40 minutes and assigning them to write a competent essay in response to the same prompt given to the students during the AP exam a week earlier. This experience, I felt, would reduce the number of cutting remarks that inevitably filled the air at each table ("Ha ha! Look at this: `Huck Finn was against slavery, so he helped Jim escape.' Boy, is that simplistic!")
It never happened at Daytona, but at the workshop, the leader made the teachers write an AP essay. It was a "read the following excerpt from so-and-so"---which was a lengthy reading!---"and then write an essay explaining how the author uses literary techniques to create its theme." Just as I'd predicted,it was an appropriately humbling experience for the teachers there. Not for me; I've always known that it's easier to criticize someone else's work than to actually do it oneself. I used to be the rebel at Daytona readings who would gently remind the other mocking teachers that 40 minutes is not a whole lot of time to write a brilliant analysis of a literary work on a first reading! I remember taking the Praxis exam a few years ago. I had to perform a similar task of writing four separate essays in response to excerpts from literature, and by the end of the afternoon, I felt like I'd been devoured by Moby Dick or suffocated by Montresor in "Cask of Amontillado".

Thus, one of the most valuable activities at the workshop was becoming a student and writing a timed essay. We also graded student-written AP essays, analyzed already-graded essays to determine why they received the grade they got, reviewed classroom techniques, discussed literary devices in a lot of poems, held a model Socratic Seminar, and heard about each other's best practices. I felt rewarded when it was over at the end of the day on Friday. I'm also certified to teach AP if the opportunity should ever arise, which I doubt.

Other AP disciplines were meeting too, and I ran into the social studies teacher from Groves, Angelina, whom I'd worked with on several school-wide literacy projects since becoming a high school teacher. Liberto and I had also gone to several parties at her house. At one of these parties, we had a good chuckle when a teacher remarked that his student, "Fred," a senior, had gotten a waiver for his Georgia High School Graduation test because he was in jail for armed robbery.

Angelina asked me during a coffee break if I was happier at RHHS. Of course I said YES! She said in her usual blunt way, "Well, it must be an improvement not to have a sadistic bitch breathing down your neck every minute." I agreed that it definitely was an improvement. Angelina said she would like to leave the school if she finds any job openings. Then she invited me to her Ladies Book Club meeting Friday night.

I went to her party last night and became reacquainted with several Groves teachers whom I'd liked, as well as meeting some new people. I took some photos with my blackberry, and if I can figure out how to get them from there onto my computer, I'll post them.

Paul has started his new school quarter. I'm proud of his dedication as a student. He begins reading the assignments right away, rather than wait until an hour before something is due. He uses the technique I taught him of reading the material out loud so that he can hear the material as well as see it. This morning, I heard him in his room reading the economics textbook out loud.

Shawn is still waiting to hear from the military. He has his paperwork in and can do no more but wait. He's flying to Maine next week for a family reunion.

I hear Liberto outside doing yard work. He slept well last night for a change and he recently had another spinal epidural.

I'm reading a wonderful book Terry lent me entitled The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Bronte, by Laura Joh Rowland. It's a biography written as creative non-fiction, in which Charlotte is a vivid character in her own life story.