I want students to know that no matter the path they choose in life, it is important to have a facility with language. Being able to read, write, speak and listen efficiently and effectively matters. And while there are ways of working around a lack of these skills, i.e., hiring editors, etc., the glass ceiling of literacy does exist. Impressions are conveyed through language whether it be to the parents of the girls in a Girl Scout troop or to the CEO of a major corporation.
I want students to know that, frustrating as this may be for the strongest among them, reading and writing are skills which can always be improved. So a student is the best reader in the class, there is most likely a more complex text with which that student can challenge himself. So a student has "mastered" argumentative writing, rewrite it using different rhetorical moves or condense it to half of its size making it more concise. When they walk into my classroom in September, most of my students have already reached the "good enough" status. Good enough to communicate their ideas, good enough to score well on the ACT, good enough to get into the University of Michigan. But when they get to Michigan, their professors will expect them to reach higher. When they graduate and begin their careers, their employers will expect them to work harder and smarter and faster. The benefit of the willingness to struggle and persevere and continue to challenge oneself is a large part of what they must know from taking AP Lang.
Alas, AP Lang is a skills based class and so, by the end of the year, I want them to be able to:
- think more critically than they've ever thought before exercising powers of discernment and inference.
- write more effectively than they have ever written before for a variety of purposes and audiences, synthesizing the ideas of others and contributing to the ongoing discussions that exist in the world on a variety of subjects, reflecting upon their own struggle and progress, demonstrating clarity and coherence and voice and utilizing the writing process
- read more carefully and closely than they have ever read before tolerating difficulty through challenging texts, rediscovering enjoyment in reading for pleasure, identifying textual evidence, writer's purpose, and rhetorical strategies
- speak more articulately and eloquently and confidently than they ever have before utilizing the style, tone and vocabulary that is appropriate to the audience.
And by the end of the year, I want them to do all of these things with greater ease and more fluidity than in their previous English classes.
Big ideas. Big job for everyone involved. Big payoff in the end, beyond ACT or SAT or AP, beyond college...for life.
