DAY LAST: DAYTONA LANGUAGE READING

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Arriving at my table this morning, I heard rumors that the Question 1 room had been told when they left  yesterday afternoon that they should have reading material for the next day. That always means the room’s dangerously close to finishing. Since that room started out with extra tables, we weren’t too surprised or resentful. On the other hand. . .tables had been moving into the Question 3 room on a steady basis.  Hmmm.

Sure ’nuff. . . Larry Scanlon, our Question 2 Guru, announced a new table before lunch and two new ones after lunch. Since Question 3 folks had been told to take 90 minutes for lunch (ahem), we knew we were going to be the last to finish.

By 3:00 this afternoon, each room had scored over 300,000 essays. My count toda

y was 200 essays. No, I wasn’t bubbling slowly hoping not to get one of the few books left on the table. Since there were no books left when Becky, one of our runners, came to pick mine up, those of us who were finished just started helping those of us who weren’t.

Oh, to catch you up on one of the most important aspects of this event….meals.  In no particular order, we had a Chinese-food theme dinner with sherbet for dessert. Last night was Italian night. One of the desserts was tiramisu. Yes, of course, I ate dessert, but I compensated by eating only one cheese-filled manicotti.

If you plan to be a reader, try to ease up on your caloric intake two weeks before you arrive. It’s killer poundage the whole time you’re here. Table leaders usually provide bottomless bowls of candy for their tables. Ours was especially generous. We slowly nibbled away at the mountain of Werther’s and Hershey’s chocolates he provided.  At each fifteen-minute break, morning and afternoon, we filed out for coffee, iced or hot tea, water, Coke, and-of course-snacks.  Donuts, muffins, popcorn, pretzels, ice cream bars, pound cake, and the staple bananas, oranges, and apples. The only meal that doesn’t provide dessert options is breakfast. Mexican food night we had vanilla ice cream with yummy fried something with cinnamon. Then there’s the Red Velvet cake, carrot cake, brownies, icing topped fudge, cookies, coconut cake, apple pie, Key Lime pie, doberge cake. . . I know there’s more, but my denial system refuses to budge with any more varieties.

A few of today’s “what I learned” tidbits:

1. Floundering rhetorical questions (Note from me: as opposed to perching, bassing, or redfishing ones?)

2. Synthax

3. Diction can also be philosophical and bombastic (Note: not used together in the essay)

4. One can “procure a sense of stressed fatigue”

5. Scientists were “metaphorically and rhetorically placed in the woods”

6.  Rhetoric can be painful as evidenced by the following:

  • Barry was driving his point into the readers’ brains
  • Barry was dragging readers through the passage with this metaphor
  • Barry was nailing pieces of wisdom into the readers’ minds

Notes to students and/or teachers of AP:

1. No one expects you to be able to italicize the title of a book when you are handwriting an essay. Just write it as you normally would and UNDERLINE the title. In nine out of ten essays, the title of Barry’s book was written using backward, slanting, squiggly handwriting.

2. We don’t so much care if you mistake the male author and refer to him as “she” or vice versa. Referring to him as John, though, does suggest a familiarity that would be questionable. Simply use his/her last name and forget courtesy titles of Mr./Mrs.

3. Don’t announce what you’re doing: “I’m going to now analyze how. . .”; this analysis should be evident.

Miscellaneous Musings:

I didn’t discover, until I had a roomie who taught college, that many of the college scorers are not all that familiar with the AP test, how it’s administered, and/or how the scores are determined. For example, my roomie one year didn’t know about the 55 multiple-choice questions, which are 45% of the score, the students had to answer prior to the three free-response questions. She didn’t know that after answering those 55 questions, students probably felt as if they’d been punched in the gut.  She didn’t know that some students are attempting to write these essays on an ordinary school day in an ordinary classroom with all the ordinary school distractions.

I don’t know why she didn’t know much about the test, but I think if college teachers are going to score, someone should provide a briefing. If not online, then when they arrive for the reading…some how, some way. And if this is provided, then-as a high school teacher-I’d truly appreciate if they’d read the information.  At the Open Forum night, someone went to the microphone asking about how the test was scored, how much time students were given, and other questions that any high school teacher could have readily answered. I was embarrassed for him. He, on the other hand, seemed a bit peeved that time was not going to be spent dispensing that information.

I was also annoyed. The internal dialogue and movie playing in my brain rolled out with me, teacher protagonist, looking somewhat like a bull ready to spear the red cape. Between huffs and puffs, I’d be seething, “My students have devoted months of their lives and money to prepare for this test. You’re getting over a week on the ocean, with airfare, food, and room provided for and a stipend. The least you could do is read about the AP exam.”

Many of the college teachers I spoke to think, regardless of the score the college accepts, the students should take their 101 course. One at my table commented that he returned a “D” paper to a student who told him she scored a 5 on the AP test. His response to her was something along the lines of, “…welcome to college.” Some, not all, seem rather proud of the fact that their university won’t accept an AP score for credit.

Because it’s who I am and what I do, every time I held a new book of essays, I said a silent prayer. No, not for my sanity. Well, maybe. Generally, my prayer was for me to remember there was a name and a face behind each one of those anonymously written essays, to read objectively, and to reward the student for what he or she did well during that response. When I’d open a booklet and find a blank page where the essay should have been, I’d look on every page to make sure I didn’t miss it. Sad. I wondered what the student did for the allotted two hours.

It’s almost 7:00 p.m. Daytona time.

The Closing Night Party starts at 8:00.

There’s a dance floor.

That’s scary

I wonder if there’s a scoring guide.

[More musings to come on how to really read the rubric/scoring guide and prompt answering. And, if anyone's reading this and has questions, leave them in the comments, and I'll answer.]

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