You Know You're an English Nerd When...

As you all know, I'm an unabashed and unapologetic English Lit nerd. I am proud of my nerd status in this realm, and I embrace it fully. Far from being a pejorative phrase, the title "nerd" is pride-worthy, in my estimation. I think John Green expressed it quite nicely when he stated that...

Some of you may recognize this quotation since I have the exact same poster on my classroom wall!

Today, as I pondered what I was going to put up here for this week's post, I thought of a YouTube video I love, and I thought to myself, what an awesome example of anthropomorphism! I can't wait to share it with my seniors when we start studying poetry next semester! Then an epiphany descended upon me...how many other people can seriously say they have a favorite example of anthropomorphism in popular culture? 'Tis a select group, and I think many of you can count yourselves among the few, the proud, the increDIBBLE lit nerds. :) Here it is, for your viewing pleasure:

Anthropomorphism at its hilarious best (IMHO)

So this week's participation opportunity is a fun and facile one! You're going to add on to what I started here by providing extensive commentary and personal reflection (and links if you wish) whilst finishing the following sentence:

You know you're an English Lit nerd/aficionado when...

I can't wait to see what you guys come up with! This should be amusing. :) There are so many more I could add to my list, including why I favor a certain NFL team (the Baltimore Ravens, #edgarallanpoerocks), how I can't help reading into almost everything as a double-entendre, how I have to practice deep breathing skills when I see grammatical errors in published materials...

Creative Thinking, Creative Teaching: Pondering the Method Behind Mama Dibs' Instructive Madness

Hi, super seniors!

For this week's participation opportunity, I thought I'd have you ponder WHY I've crafted the Heart of Darkness presentation/project in the way that I have.

First, read the following article: http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb13/vol70/num05/Learning-from-Creative-Teachers.aspx

Then, craft a 3E response in which you consider how creative learning experiences like my short story project help enhance the learning experience. How/where/when have you had similar experiences? Tell us about them and what made them special or memorable. Why do you think I place such value on having a balance of fun and fundamentals? Use the article to back up your points.

I think it's important to note that I'm not looking for you to heap praise on me for the methods I use in the classroom. :) Rather, I want you to consider the pedagogical implications behind this style of teaching and try to understand and appreciate it...even though said pedagogy might take you a bit out of your educational comfort zone.

Why Study Literature? (the AP Lit edition)

Hi, sweet seniors!

I hope you had a lovely three-day weekend. It's nice to have a little extra time to recharge your intellectual batteries, right? I know I feel that way, especially after the first week or so of school.

Remember, you have until FRIDAY AT 8AM to submit your scintillating and 3E response to this prompt. Remember that you should 1.) compose/save your responses in Word and then cut and paste them into the comment box here, 2.) avoid the "preview" button like the plague, 3.) not freak out if I don't approve your response immediately because I wait until after the due time to approve them, and 4.) email me your response if you're worried it didn't go through.

The title of this blog post is "Why Study Literature?" And that, essentially, is the question I'm asking you to ponder in your response. Note that EVERY WORD in the question, however, is packed with meaning. I have not asked "Why do we read novels?" or "Why study English?" As you will learn, in this class EVERY WORD MATTERS. Appreciating and analyzing diction, whether in a poem, prose excerpt, or a prompt, is of paramount importance. So make sure you're focusing your written efforts on the question you've been asked.

Of course, this wouldn't be an Advanced Placement course if I weren't making this a bit more of a challenge, so here's where things get a little more involved. You're going to read and synthesize four documents before composing your response. And you will incorporate said documents in your argument as evidence to support your claim(s). I also welcome you to use your own experiences with studying literature as a way to inject personal voice into your written response; you do not need to be entirely objective in your prose style, at least for the purposes of this blog entry (when it comes to writing AP essays, that's a different story for a different day).

So, without further ado, here are the sources you need to read and cite (appropriately--include the author's name in parentheses after quotations/references!) in your carefully crafted response:

Source A (Gopnik): http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/why-teach-english

Source B (Chiaet): http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/novel-finding-reading-literary-fiction-improves-empathy/

Source C (Harvard): “A study at Harvard Medical School has shown that students are successful in their medical studies regardless of undergraduate concentration, providing that they have had adequate science preparation. Students are urged to strive for a balanced and liberal education rather than specialized training. No preference is given to applicants who have majored in the sciences over those who have majored in the humanities.” – Harvard Medical School Admissions website 

Source D (Brooks): http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/opinion/brooks-the-humanist-vocation.html?_r=0

I can't wait to read your responses. You guys are AMAZING, and we're going to have such a great year of studying literature together!

P.S. For those of you who didn't have me as your English 2 Honors teacher, I thought I'd include a link to the quizlet set of the words I teach my sophomores (Dibble Diction), so here it is. Take a gander and see how many you know--they are WONDERFUL words! And those of you who are returners might want to test yourself on how many you remember. Hopefully plenty! :)

https://quizlet.com/16536961/dibble-diction-e2hehap-vocab-2017-18-flash-cards/

Welcome to AP Lit, Class of 2019!

READ THIS ENTIRE ENTRY BEFORE YOU START COMPOSING YOUR RESPONSE! :)

Hey there, sweet seniors! I'm so excited to welcome you to the wondrous world of literature exploration that is AP Lit. We're going to have a great time together this year reading, analyzing, discussing, and most importantly appreciating fine works of prose and poetry.

First, I want you to watch this awesome video by the inimitably amazing John Green:

Next, read this selection from Thomas C. Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor:

Along about now you should be asking a question, something like this: you keep saying that the writer is alluding to this obscure work and using that symbol or following some pattern or other that I never heard of, but does he really intend to do that? Can anyone really have all that going on in his head at one time? 

Now that is an excellent question. I only wish I had an excellent answer, something pithy and substantive, maybe with a little alliteration, but instead I have one that's merely short. 

Yes. 

The chief deficiency of this answer, aside from its lack of pith, is that it is manifestly untrue. Or at least misleading. The real answer, of course, is that no one knows for certain. Oh, for this writer or that one we can be pretty sure, depending on what they themselves tell us, but in general we make guesses. 

Since proof is nearly impossible, discussions of the writer's intentions are not especially profitable. Instead let's restrict ourselves to what he did do and, more important, what we readers can discover in his work. What we have to work with is hints and allegations, really, evidence, sometimes only a trace, that points to something lying behind the text. It's useful to keep in mind that any aspiring writer is probably also a hungry, aggressive reader as well and will have absorbed a tremendous amount of literary history and literary culture. By the time she writes her books, she has access to that tradition in ways that need not be conscious. Nevertheless, whatever parts have infiltrated her consciousness are always available to her. Something else we should bear in mind has to do with speed of composition. The few pages of this chapter have taken you a few minutes to read; they have taken me, I'm sorry to say, days and days to write...all I'm really saying is that we readers sometimes forget how long literary composition can take and how very much lateral thinking can go on in that amount of time (82-85).

Now ponder these questions in a written response: What evidence from your prior literature study do you have to support both Green's and Foster's claims? And what facets of John Green's video particularly connect with Foster's claims?

You might be wondering what I'm looking for in terms of quality here. A phrase you will get used to hearing me say this year is "3E." That stands for eloquent, exhaustive, and effective. Your response should be worded in a fluid fashion, free of grammar or spelling errors. Your response should be in-depth and detailed, leaving no stone unturned, so to speak. And your response should effectively respond to the prompt above, neglecting nothing as you provide considerable insight into the topic at hand.

That said, students always want to know what they should be shooting for length-wise. 3E responses are typically comprised of multiple paragraphs; in fact, most AP Lit students from past years end up needing to submit their entries in two parts (or more) because blogger only allows comments up to a certain length. When it comes to AP Lit writing, size matters, and the bigger the better. :) I would advise composing your response in a Word document, then cutting and pasting it here. That way you have a record of your responses and are also less likely to have your response vanish into the tubes of the inter webs without anything to show for it (it happens every year to someone...don't let it be you!).

Literature Lurve