The AP Experience

My fourth period class is an AP class. I really enjoy the students. I find they are lazier than I had expected and hoped!! I have introduced them to many short stories. We are reading The Awakening by Kate Chopin. In correlation with this novella, we have read "Story of an Hour," "The Yellow Wallpaper," and "The Astronomer's Wife." We also read Wordsworth's poem that inspired "The Astronomer's Wife." The students are writing comparisons papers with the novella and short stories. I had them write one with the poem and the short story, but they didn't quite "get" that yet. We will try again when we study poetry more in depth. Overall, I have a great class, and they are eager to learn. They don't quite get the feminism in each story. They find it hard to relate to other periods of time. I played a song for them. The song is called "Soulshine." This song discusses moonshine and sunshine (all images we are discussing) but the most important aspect is to let your soulshine. I hope they understood that these women just want their souls to shine--to be free!! They liked this too becuase they saw a side of me that was not just "teacher!" I'll let you know how the rest goes!!