Having proposed the “simple” solution of incorporating Advanced Placement classes in every high school in America as a way of improving our educational system with little taxpayer cost, I should outline what makes AP classes so transformative.
It’s all about the reading. The English Literature AP program is the one I’ve taught and graded for two decades, and for that students need to read widely and be able to think logically and with discrimination.
The rationale behind the course is that students will be able to determine how nuances in language communicate an author’s message to best effect. The ability to detect the magic of words in skilled writers is something we should all be able to do. Even the weakest students can all respond to engaging reading and writing, and many AP teachers hope that exposure to great texts will change students’ lives, even if they don’t earn them AP college credits.
Introducing AP courses to schools where the program of studies is not terribly strong may seem like a risk, but all a principal or school superintendent need do is make lots of good books available to students, and send the AP teachers to five-day workshops sponsored by the College Board. In those workshops, teachers will learn that AP is flexible enough to fit into any school, and rests fundamentally on the precept that students can read good books just as easily as they can read bad books, and can write about the techniques used in powerful writing once they become aware that words’ effects are dependent on how they are put together. (Students have no trouble seeing the difference between the rhetoric of Abraham Lincoln and George Bush.)
Once teachers attend a summer institute, the courses can be up and running in September. Teachers will still need their syllabi approved by the College Board, and will also have to acquire the books needed to teach the curriculum, but a stack of good plays and novels and a week’s dedication to AP in the summer is pretty much all a school needs to begin teaching students at a higher level than ever before.
Why do good books and the techniques learned at the institute make such a difference? Because students are not really challenged to think or write anything that shows dimension in high school. Regurgitation of memorized facts and lectures is usually the intellectual activity required — and there’s clearly not much “intellect” in becoming a parrot for an hour each Friday.
What happens when students’ minds become engaged by a book they truly love, and by language that persuades and moves them? It’s not such a great leap for students to be able to speak of what in the narrative or imagery or verb usage had that powerful effect on them. It’s a matter of learning how to express that effect in analytical vocabulary.
Next week’s column will offer some concrete examples of the kind of writing and thinking students can do without any prior introduction to AP. It will be my second-to-last column on the transformative effect reading and thinking can have on the educational process of every student in America.
What kids are reading
This weekly column will look at lists of books kids are reading in various categories, including grade level, book genre, and data from booksellers. Information on the books below came from the syllabi of Advanced Placement literature teachers.
Books Frequently on AP Reading Lists—Part II
1. “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte
2. “Beloved” by Toni Morrison
3. “Hamlet” by William Shakespeare
4. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” by Tom Stoppard
5. “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison
6. “Emma” by Jane Austen
7. “Dubliners” by James Joyce
8. “Anna Karenina” by Leo Tolstoy
9. “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen
10. “The Joy Luck Club” by Amy Tan
