AP Lit: 2B/3B A Mushy Day of Mush & An Apology

Monday had a plan.  And  . . . it did not play out as intended in either class.  Here's what would have happened in a more perfect world.

Get inspired for 10 minutes by perusing the items on the inspiration shelf.
Go for a swim through the Mt. Blue Campus, taking in observations and then applying them to a reading of Cheever's "The Swimmer."
Read and discuss Hamlet.
Peer workshop synthesis essay #2 (3B only)

Instead . . . well . . . other things happened in each.  And I set a rather crap tone to carry us into our Turkey Day break.  This is a public apology for that.  We have had a really great fall from my p.o.v. and a confluence of factors came along this morning to disrupt that greatness.  My frustration cup runneth over and I looked for blame rather than solutions.  NOT the best way to go.

One thing I love about these three classes is that each has its own identity.  Today, I disrupted both classes with ill-considered min-rants.  They came from a place of truth, but not a place of empathy and thus, they were unfair.

Moving forward.  I will blog.  Daily. And if the blog is not up when you come to class, you will have time to work, discuss, DO, while I get the blog up.   No blog, no class.  It's a reasonable expectation.

Moving forward.  Please read.  I try very hard not to overwhelm with too much work at a time.  (Sometimes I fail at this.) And the penalties for lateness are minimal in AP Lit. As a result, I know that class work for other classes can sometimes take precedent.  I'm asking everyone to be amplify the cognizance around this: If I can't be confident that the class has read, I can't be confident in planning meaningful experiences around the reading.  And that means I make gross, lame, classes.  We haven't had many of those I don't think -- at least it hasn't felt that way to me.  So . . .

Putting this on the blog in hopes that it will increase my own accountability in these regards.

Mr. Ryder

Homework
Blog: NONE!  Take the week to catch up on past entries or just plain chill.  And if you want to blog, I will read it!  Blogs continue to be a source of inspiration for me.  So much good stuff.  If you haven't read through your classmates' thoughts yet, do so post haste!

Synthesis Essay 2: Due Tuesday, November 26th.  Google Drive that sucker.

Hamlet:  We will pause until we have read in class up to where we have read outside of class.  We will be calibrated when we are back from Turkey Day.