This week I am at the AP Institute in Bellevue, WA. Last year I came to this same institute alone, because I’d heard it’s the best around. I agree. Last year it rocked, and my presenter was the Chief Reader for AP Language. The beginning of the week began a bit quieter until my friends [...]

Posted in AP Lang, conferences, curriculum, eng11, travel

Last week we “hired” a new AP Language teacher. As you may know Shirley Crabtree is headed to Perry, so we desperately needed someone. We did discuss in house people, and Ken James had someone in mind. When Liza and I met her, we were really excited and recommended her to district immediately. She seemed [...]

Posted in AP Lang, technology

At the end of the week I had a sit down with my new boss, Ken James, who is a pretty cool guy. I wanted to talk to him about American Studies and the trip to Boston. He explained how team teaching has and has not worked in the past, and the successful scenarios are [...]

Posted in AP Lang, American Studies

We’ve begun going to talk to the current Sophomore Honors students about AP English & American Studies. Mostly the course curriculum they disregard until we get going because there’s just too much, and typically they can’t wrap their minds are AP vs American Studies vs AP Exams vs Dual Enrollment. I get a lot of [...]

Posted in AP Lang, American Studies, Summer Reading, google docs, google groups, nhs

After school today we had a meeting about summer reading. In our district, we cannot really call it “Summer Reading” so we make it due 2-3 weeks into the school year. This really isn’t feasible anymore given all of the higher ed institutions who require summer reading for incoming freshman. Ladies & Gentlemen, get with [...]

Posted in AP Lang, American Studies, Summer Reading, books, literature, wiki

Earlier this week in a staff development meeting we reviewed student work and rubrics. The rubrics we examined were from our colleagues and most were pretty bad. Now I was first introduced to rubric writing in 1999, and I think I can do an above average job. Later this week I was preparing a project [...]

Posted in AP Lang, google docs, grading, rubrics

This afternoon after we finished the final lesson for the quarter, I asked my last class of the quarter to evaluate the course. They were to include weaknesses and strengths of the course curriculum, and then weaknesses and strengths of me as an instructor. The first time I did this, I cried. I cried all [...]

Posted in AP Lang