“We read literature to know we are not alone.”
This quotation remains with me to this day. With the focus in education shifting to more testing, factual information, and reading passages instead of complete works, I worry that people are moving away from novels. Personally, I felt misunderstood most of my life (still do) and being immersed in a novel made me feel safe. People often say “fiction is fake,” but nothing can be farther from the truth.
Think about the documentary we viewed on James Baldwin, I am Not Your Negro. In every interview, he tries to explain his experience and no one on the panel appears to understand. I can see why fiction became such a valuable outlet for him, another way of trying to make others see the world as it exists. Reading between the lines is vital, especially with the landscape we live in now.
I have never been much of a phone person, and I do not use social media. This year, I replaced scrolling through my phone with carrying a physical book with me. As a result, I have read four major novels and two works of nonfiction since January. I read To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, reread Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, explored Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, as well as revisited Anna Karenina by LeoTolsty. For nonfiction, it was The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Nand Aron and Minimalism: Live a Meaningful Life by Joshua Fields Millburn. In every case, I found myself questioning the world around me and discovered answers in a book. I also reconnected with drawing and painting. Playing guitar. This came from literature. Reading helped me focus, see what is important and move away from daily minutiae. I hope you will continue to read literature in your life, disconnect from the anger in the world and find peace.
Whatever you choose to do in the coming year, do your best to recognize the “ghosts” and make the best decisions for you. Be kind to yourselves. If you see an opportunity to travel – take it! Explore the world. Remember, “We all came out of Gogol’s Overcoat. One day you will understand.”
I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
Mr. P.
Directions: In this space, please share your experiences in A.P. English. What works had an impact on you? What discussions? Lessons? Blog discussions? Anything to share to improve the course would be welcome, too.
Overall, I think the experiences I gained from this class were meaningful and helped better understand both literature, myself, and others like you mentioned. The fact that our class discussions were so immersive and tied into themselves helped me better as topics we previously covered were further touched on in later units instead of traditional methods where we never return after the first time. Additionally, I was really thankful to know you were so understanding regarding adapting your class assignments and helped explain and prepare us for all assignments. Often times teachers leave students unprepared for content but I never felt that was the case in this course.
ReplyDeleteMy experience in AP Lit was an overwhelmingly positive one. Not only did I learn several new techniques and skills to improve my writing, but I also became much more comfortable in my analysis and understanding of literature. In particular, I really enjoyed reading and learning about Henrik Ibsen’s plays. The fact that such a prominent writer created such radical pieces, especially during his time, was really admirable to me. His pieces came across as timeless, with themes that are certainly still relevant to this day. Even when we discussed the small details of symbolism and references to other things, I was incredibly interested. I also really enjoyed all of our work with Beloved. This novel was probably the most advanced and challenging piece of literature I have ever read, but I enjoyed it immensely. The amount of thought and ambiguity scattered throughout the work is incredible. Overall, however, I think the most meaningful piece of this class has been our open discussions. There was scarcely any sense of judgment between peers or teacher, and everyone was able to express their ideas freely. Whenever I was confused about something, Mr. Pellerin’s explanations and my fellow classmates’ insights never failed to clarify things for me. In addition to this, our entire reading of Freaky Freedom was very enjoyable for me. While not that similar to the other pieces we read, I found it greatly interesting to see the differing aspects of literature in different parts of the world, as well as learning significant pieces of information about education in other countries. AP Lit has undeniably been my favorite course this year, as well as one of my favorites I have chosen to take throughout high school.
ReplyDeleteThe works I liked most were the short stories we read by James Baldwin and Toni Morrison early on in the year. I learned that I really like analyzing short stories to figure out how they are constructed while putting together an overall meaning for a work. I particularly connected with James Baldwin’s work. His style of writing is very beautiful and engaging and while the content was often very heavy, it was an honest perspective that I had never experienced before. Reading his work was one of the first times I felt like I could see an author within their work, feeling so strongly about what they were writing and in turn making me want to engage in a personal way with the work. It was as if reading was a conversation. He is an author I will definitely want to read more of in the future. Previously I hadn’t thought of literature or fiction as a way to convey the emotional side to real experiences, though it seems that literature is much more influenced by real life and this gives me a greater appreciation for it. It feels much more personal now because I can imagine that a work divulges the experience of the writer or their views on society. Beloved was my favorite work we read this year. Morrison’s style was intricately constructed and I am still amazed by the complexity of the work. Certain imagery still stays with me from the novel. Through the blogs we did, I felt we could be more honest about personal experiences without being judged, both about our reflections on literature but also our own life experiences. Every aspect of this class has felt engaging and revealing not only about literature by about us as individuals and I am glad I chose to take this class for my final year at Andover.
ReplyDelete-Audrey Gallacher
Overall, I found this course to be enriching and I truly took a lot away from my experience. English has usually been one of my worst subjects, so I was often discouraged prove exploring this discipline and challenging myself. However, this course gave me the resources and inspiration to further learn about literature, while also raising my confidence in my literary skills. One of my favorite aspects of the course was definitely the blogs. Often times after I read an article or sections of novels, I had my own perspective on the content, and in some cases, I missed out on some important details. What the blogs allowed me to do was gain various perspectives and interpretations on the information we read, and this resulted in a more enriching experience for each work. This translated to stronger performance on the AP exams and the essays we completed in class. The discussions after each blog also had a similar effect, as they broadened my knowledge on the topics and works.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to the physical works we read, I really enjoyed most of them. A Doll House and Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen resonated with me and I found the analysis of the role of the typical Victorian woman to be fascinating. Also, to see how Ghosts was inspired by the criticism of A Doll House was interesting as I spent a lot of time attempting to draw parallels with each work. The Importance of Being Earnest was also a play that I found to be very interesting. I found the comedic play that Oscar Wilde used to be comical and profound, and I actually ended up using this work on the Q3 of the AP Literature Exam. Finally, Beloved by Toni Morrison was also a novel that I enjoyed reading. Although it was rather gruesome and difficult to understand at times, I found it to be the most profound work of literature I read in a while.
The course as I whole was very enriching and I took a lot away from the works and assignments done in class!
A.P. English was one of my favorite classes this year. I really enjoyed not only the works themselves but the discussions that came out of them because I think that it gave so much more meaning to the stories. I also really felt like everyone in our class really cared about what they were reading rather than just saying something that the teacher wanted to hear once a class to get an A. My favorite story that we read was “Gogol” by Jhumpa Lahiri. I was really excited to read this after the summer reading because I really enjoy the way she frames her stories. I also really like that she writes about a culture that I have never had the chance to hear about or explore myself. I really think that our discussion on this story were eye-opening and intriguing and have inspired me to read more of Lahiri’s works this summer as well as other novels that relate to different places and cultures. I also really enjoyed “Recitatif” because I really liked how Morrison played mind games with the readers and really made them question what they thought they knew. It made them really delve into analysis and shift their thinking when new details arise. I also like this concept in “Beloved” because it really made me think and question what I thought rather than just giving me a straight answer, I got to form my own conclusions. Overall, I just really enjoyed the structure of this class. I always felt safe and free to share whatever opinions I had without being afraid of judgement or being “wrong”. I also feel that this class has rekindled my love for reading that I have lost over the years. Although the books we read were required, I found myself wanting to read them rather than seeing it as a chore. I will continue to read over the summer and years to come, and will have some new authors to explore as well from this class! Thank you for everything Mr. P, I will miss this class!
ReplyDelete-Kathleen
Overall, I really enjoyed this class, and one of the reasons for that is my rekindled love of reading. Ever since I was little, I have always loved reading and it was rare for me to be seen without my nose in a book. Although I never completely stopped reading, in the past two years or so I haven’t been reading as much as I would like. It’s easy to get caught up in all the responsibilities in life and not make time for doing the things you love. Not only have I enjoyed the works we have read this year in this class, (my favorite works were Ghosts, In the Lake of the Woods, and The Namesake/Gogol), but I have also started to make more time to read books for pleasure again. Like Mr. Pellerin mentioned, I had gotten into the habit of mindlessly scrolling through my phone rather than reading, and now that I have started reading more on my own I feel happier overall. Some of my favorite parts from the year included the “Who am I?” blog where we got to talk about a part about ourselves, The Danger of the Single Story, and the classes where the whole class would have long discussions with each other. When I signed up to take this class, I was slightly intimidated by the stories I had heard about “bootcamp” and I was worried that I wasn’t smart enough to take an AP English course, but it ended up being a really good decision. I am really glad that the entire course wasn’t hyper focused on just preparing for the exam and forgetting to focus on the actual learning, which unfortunately happens in many other AP classes. Not only have I rekindled my love for reading this year, but I have also immensely improved my writing skills and gained a new perspective from taking this course.
ReplyDeleteThis was the best experience I have had in an English class. I enjoy English because of the reading and writing, and that was what we spent time doing, rather than making graphic organizers and taking notes. I felt comfortable sharing my thoughts in our blog discussions, and they helped me analyze the material I read. I was able to push myself to speak up in class discussions, which was rewarding. These conversations were relevant to contemporary debates in our society, and the documentaries we watched helped me make those connections.
ReplyDeleteOf all the works we have read this year, I was most impacted by Beloved. In my high school career, I had never read anything quite like it. I had always distanced myself from feelings when we studied slavery in history class, so when our discussions about Beloved were focused on the emotions of the characters, in a “story-of-one” experience, I developed more empathy and understanding.
I have always enjoyed reading, at least in comparison to the rest of my schoolwork, and taking a class where that was the main focus was a great experience. I really enjoyed the blog system of digesting the reading; in previous classes the process of note taking would ruin books for me as I constantly needed to stop and regurgitate whatever I had just read, pick out quotable lines, and figure out if any given event is more of a plot thing or a matter of character development. Conversely, by taking time after I read to reflect and interpret the text, it actually added to the experience as it allowed me to work through the events without taking me out of the text. This was particularly helpful with more complicated texts like Beloved. Almost everything about reading Beloved was a new experience, in terms of literary organization, the concept of two interpretations, and the content, and even if it wasn't necessarily the best experience it was interesting. Conversely, my favorite book this year was actually a play The Importance of being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde. This piece is probably far from the most meaningful text we worked with this year, but I found the use of irony and the fact that the comedy of the play has stood up so well after all this time to be incredibly impressive. Moreover, the play was also very enjoyable to read, the writing was quick, witty, and held value not only as a comedy but also as a solid literary work. Overall, AP Lit has been an enjoyable and interesting course, and I am glad to have taken it for my senior year english class.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with AP Lit this year has been one of the best experiences yet. I loved how everyday we would start out with a poem of the day in order to ease into the class. I also really enjoyed the plays we read, especially A Doll House. A Doll House was probably my favorite piece we read all year because of how bold it was for its time. I really enjoyed learning the historical background of how that one play affected society and created noise. I also really enjoyed learning about different cultures when Mr. Pomary came to our class. It was really interesting to learn about how his school differs from ours. It was also a great experience to be able to read his novel, Freaky Freedom. This class allowed me to work on my writing skills and becoming more confident in my ideas. Before taking this class, I was always hesitant to share my thoughts, but after doing blogs I am more confident in my ideas and am able to share them. Thank you for a great year Mr. Pellerin!
ReplyDeleteA.P. English has remained my favorite class all year. The experience of reading different novels, plays and poems, watching interesting movies and documentaries, as well as being able to write about interesting topics has overall been great. The works that probably had the greatest impact on me were 13th, Beloved and A Doll House. 13th has inspired to look more into prison reform and think about it for something to focus on in my future. Beloved exposed me to beautiful writing that was experimental and very interesting. A Doll House shocked me with its modern values inside a 19th century play and made me happy to know that someone was looking out for feminist values even back then. I really enjoyed the blog discussions we had where we entered into actual conversation, responding back and forth to each other and questioning why we thought a certain way. The class overall was great, it was always fun and the topics were always interesting.
ReplyDeleteI forgot to add, thank you for everything Mr. Pellerin!
DeleteI still remember the TED Talk about the danger of a single story. I feel like it was a great video that really opened up my eyes. After watching it, I realized that without knowing, I have been guilty of applying the single story to a whole group of people. But now I am much more conscious of the danger of the single story and will keep that in mind for the rest of my life. I also really liked the books Ghosts and A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen. I liked learning about the author’s life through the characters in the book. I think his books had interesting meanings and all the characters were very complex. I really liked the class discussions and I feel like they offered a lot of different viewpoints and opinions that I would have not known before. Thank you for everything Mr. Pellerin!
ReplyDeleteOverall, I felt that this class was very impactful and interesting. Although I thought that every discussion was valuable, what stuck with me the most were the two documentaries, 13th and I Am Not Your Negro. Both documentaries were extremely insightful and emotional, helping me further understand how injustices in the past are still present today. The discussions that we had following the documentaries, as well as Beloved and the short stories we read, were also very raw and powerful. On a much different note, I enjoyed reading The Importance of Being Earnest, too. Last year, my British Literature class focused on his work (specifically, The Picture of Dorian Gray) and his life, so it was beneficial that I was able to continue learning about Wilde this year. Also, the satirical themes of The Importance of Being Earnest acted as a nice contrast to some of the other works we read this year, such as A Doll’s House and Ghosts. In addition, I enjoyed learning more about aestheticism, which, to me, is a fascinating movement that many of my other English classes never highlighted. For blog discussions, my favorite one of the year was probably the “Who Am I?” response. This made the class feel much more connected, offering people a safe space to share certain experiences or aspects about themselves. Most of my other classes are not as personable, where grades seem to be more important than the student’s mental health. That being said, it was important for me to see that this class was so supportive and accepting of one another here. Like many of the other comments have mentioned, this has been my favorite class of the year and I’ll miss it moving forward. Thank you so much, Mr. Pellerin!!:)
ReplyDeleteThis year in AP Lit has been an amazing journey. This is one of the few classes designed for us to learn and explore, not just prepare for a standardized test. I was able to truly grow as a writer, and I found my voice in my blog assignments. I look back at my first blog attempts and can’t believe how much I have improved. As I reflect on those assignments, it occurred to me that the blogs were a great tool for deeper analysis. Because the blogs were less daunting than a full essay, I felt less stressed and could approach each one with a new eye. This truly gave me the confidence to dissect and scrutinize a piece of literature in smaller segments, but once stacked together, the blogs told their own story and completed a unique perspective. Our final project was a great way to end the year. The freedom to investigate our own topic and then express our final project in a distinctive way allowed me to see literature from many angles. Who knew that literature is not just about the words on a page?
ReplyDeleteWe owe you a debt of gratitude, Mr. Pellerin, for respecting us enough to give us the latitude to grow as readers, writers and human beings.
AP lit has been one of my favorite classes that I have taken in high school. Because senior year we have so much freedom with our classes, we are allowed to choose classes that appeal to what we want to study. I chose to take AP lit because english has always been one of my favorite subjects, and I wanted to continue to study it in last year of high school. The most rewarding part about this class as a whole is that I learned so much while doing projects and reading books that I actually enjoyed. We got to analyze books as a whole class and were not just responsible for writing a research paper on it. I felt as if the workload was perfect for the amount of content we studied, but when we looked back at all we had done this year, it still shocked me. I hadn't realized that we had written 13 essays, yet at the same time, I could see the improvement in my writing. I really enjoyed the class environment of being able to openly talk to each other about different topics in the books, and help each other on the projects and books. I learned to love reading books in high school, and not having to drag myself through reading them. I also felt as though I gained a lot of perspective about our world and our society through ted talks, documentarys, and discussion. We also dove into the idea of how do we define ourselves, and how do we fit into our society. I am really glad that I got to take this class this year, and gain all the knowledge that I did.
ReplyDeleteThis has been by far my best experience with an English class; I was never truly able to indulge in the texts because I was so caught up having to pull out quotes to only annotate later to write a prompt on rhetoric and prompts that strayed away from me ever being able to enjoy the text. With this class, we were able to discuss the text with the intent of understanding it and applying it to history or present time; That brought a whole new meaning to reading the text for me, in which I thoroughly enjoyed.
ReplyDeleteThe discussion that was the most impactful was when we talked about the “Ghosts” we saw in our everyday lives. It was interesting that a play from the 19th century can still apply to our everyday lives now. It not only had defied current idealism at the time, but it also showed that novels do truly stand the test of time. Although our society seems physically different than the 19th century, how much has really changed? There are some societal pressures we have now that can be argued hasn’t progressed much since the play came out.
I’m so glad that I was able to take the class this year, and gain knowledge as a reader and confidence as a writer.
Overall, AP Lit was by far my favorite English class I have taken at AHS. I felt like I not only developed my writing, but I also felt like I developed as a person through the meaningful class discussions that we had and reading the blog posts from my peers to see different ideas and perspectives on important issues. I think in a class it’s important to not only learn about the direct topic of the curriculum (literature) but also to connect that with global events that are important to know about. For example, I thought it was really beneficial to watch documentaries like “13th” and “I Am Not Your Negro” because it allowed me to understand how we still see issues like racism play out in our society today. We were able to connect the documentaries back to the literature we read like “Beloved” as well as many of the short stories we looked at.
ReplyDeleteSomething about this class that I think really worked in terms of understanding what we read was the blog. If there was ever a time where I didn’t fully know what was happening in whatever play or story we were focusing on, rather than turning to something like Sparknotes, I could look at what my classmates thoughts were in order to connect the dots. It also helped to focus on one small piece of the story every night rather than have to understand everything all at once in a final essay.
Thank you so much for a great year Mr. Pellerin!!
I enjoyed my time here in this class, learning a lot and broadening my perspective. I liked where we started with Baldwin and Morrison and how the issues they wrote about are still prevalent, in some ways more, today. Morrison’s piece “Recitatif” I found to be brilliantly written with her concealing the identity of each girl to eliminate prejudices. I liked the story of having the girls start off the same, but as they went their separate ways and society influenced their beliefs, they could no longer understand each other. I have never read a book like Beloved before, and it was quite the ride. That story was horrific, and yet written beautifully. I really enjoyed reading some of Baldwin’s work as well as watching his documentary. What he preached and how he presented himself is inspirational and makes me wonder what other historical figures I don’t know about because of their “controversial” behavior.
ReplyDeleteI liked how this class didn’t stick to the strict AP guidelines, taking breaks to read works like the award winning Freaky Freedom, now talk about a roller coaster. I had a lot of fun in class as we laughed about the absurdities of high school and life in general, but still managed to learn. This class has gotten me back into my love for reading, which I had lost throughout high school, inspiring me to continue reading over the summer. Thank you Mr. Pellerin for giving us more insight into the world as well as teaching us to keep an open mind. Also, thank you for dealing with our annoying behavior, as well as never taking life too seriously.
Throughout the year, I really enjoyed my time in AP lit. I think that I learned a lot and became a better writer. I loved the variety of works we explored- from short stories to full length novels and poems to documentaries. However, one that really stood out to me was the ted talk, “The Danger of Single Story” by Chimamanda Adichie. The talk was really insightful and made me think about how I view the lives of others. In an ever-changing world it is important to always remember everyone holds stories they don’t necessarily share. Another one of the works I really enjoyed was the play “Ghosts”. I thought it was incredibly interesting to read a play that was ahead of its time with regards to how women were treated. Ibsen is making a statement that society suffers because women did not have a bigger role or a say in society.
ReplyDeleteAt the beginning of AP Lit I was a bit apprehensive. I wasn't that confident in my writing skills and one of the reasons I took this course was to improve my writing before college. I am really happy I did because I enjoyed reading different styles of books and learning more about literature. In particular, I found the blog responses very helpful to improve our writing, prepare us for larger essays, and help our class to get to know each other better. I appreciated that while we learned a lot academically, we also had discussions that are extremely relevant to our lives. For example, I enjoyed talking about "ghosts". It was interesting to see how everyone in class was able to connect the novel to our own experiences. I also liked the incorporation of TED Talks such as "The Danger of a Single Story" and movies to help strengthen our knowledge of the topics we learned.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved this course! I think the main thing I will take away is how relaxing and calming coming into this class was. A lot of my other classes were filled with memorizing and busy work that was frustrating to complete. On the contrary, in AP Lit I think all of the novels, plays, and short stories we explored were meaningful and had purpose on a larger scale. Most importantly, learning about different cultures and people from varying time periods taught me a bigger purpose that life has. From Gogol traveling between US and India, to Sethe who struggled with her past of the slave trade- I learned the depth of each individual and how fortunate I am to be exposed to these different cultures. Often with school work and extracurricular activities it's very easy to get caught up in our tiny lives. Reading and discussing Freaky Freedom with the direct source of the content was liberating and eye opening. The way his school system functioned differently from ours was a joy to learn about. Overall, I could not be happier that I chose to take AP Lit this year as it was my favorite senior year class. Thank you Mr. Pellerin for creating a bright and cheery place to come and take a deep breath and reflect on what is important in life. From playing hangman with Aidan to the poem of the day, I enjoyed every class.
ReplyDeleteThrough this class I have grown significantly as a person, reader, writer, and overall intellectual. Through this course I think we all have taken away much more than how to take a test; I have learned how to deeper analyze characters, poetry, dialogue, and complex text. I am proud of how far i've come and I know this class has left me fully equipped for the next stages of life.
ReplyDeleteI think the discussions of identity had the largest impact on me because it was what I could relate to most is an adolescent. Another thing I found very helpful was reading this like Beloved and Gogol because they gave me a wider perspective and understanding of minorities. Thank you for being one of the teachers who truly cared for their students you have left a great impression on all of us!