Welcome

Welcome back to school and welcome to AP Language and Composition. I hope you are as excited about this course as I am. I look forward to a challenging, but intellectually stimulating and rewarding, year. During the year, I want to incorporate several journaling exercises. These will allow you a chance to practice your writing without the stress of formal composition. Ideally, you will quickly learn that journaling can also be an excellent way to stimulate your thinking. Writing is thinking - trust me, you'll see.

We will conduct all of our journaling online. My reasons are many, but primarily, I want all of you to be able to see and respond to each other's work. I want each of you to feel the responsibility of writing for an audience larger than your English teacher. Your classmates and I will depend on you for clear and concise, insightful commentary. Ideally, I will ask you to provide two types of responses - one that answers a direct question from me and one that allows you the freedom to write about topics that interest you.

I will respond to each of your "posts" with short, but constructive feedback. I hope that you will respond to your classmates' posts as well. Please know that this "blog," which I will refer to as our "online journal," will be shared only with our class. No other visitors, teachers, or parents, will be invited to join. You should feel completely comfortable sharing your ideas, just as you would in class. I will discuss my plan for this journal and the grading policy tomorrow in class.

 Tonight, I would like you to add your first post to the journal. Like the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland, Doctor Manette from A Tale of Two Cities, Tom Bombadil from The Fellowship of the Ring, or even Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey from The Who, I am curious "Who are You?" Using between 300-400 words, please identify yourself. 

A couple rules: When posting please use the "New Post" function and NOT the "Comment" function. We will use the "Comment" function to respond, briefly, to the "posts." Also, please do NOT title your posts. The "Title" is really the only aesthetic way to differentiate between the assignments I write and the responses you write. If everything is titled, then everything will look the same, and this will quickly get confusing. 

Thanks, and let's get to work,

 Mr. Fitzgerald