I’ve just returned from scoring AP English Literature exams, 1400 of them to be exact, and I will not pretend to have much of a brain left to blog. But besides that reality, this post, which I wrote a few years ago, speaks of my experience then, and is echoed just as vividly now. There are multiple worlds that collide while I am in Louisville: the privileged AP students whose essays I am reading and the homeless camping about the city. I have no answers to our national questions of poverty and race and inequality, only these brief personal reflections, only this re-post from 2012 in which to decipher my myriad of emotions. I thank you old-time Nine Cent Girl fans for re-reading. I hope to be back on solid ground next week.
Tag Archives: AP English Literature
Graduation Day
First published in June of 2011. True then, just as true now…And worth a re-read too!!
As a teacher of high school seniors, come June, I am reminded daily of the almost-here graduation-day swiftly moving toward us. There is no them and me or me and them at this point, for we have all been riding on this roller-coaster of great expectations and harsh realities for an entire school year together. All over the country 18 year olds are experiencing this free-falling sensation…and I for one think it is a feeling worth catching on to, but I did not start out with this appreciation. No, I most certainly did not, in fact, I did my best to stay uninfected with what I, as well as most adults, labeled senior-itis.
On This New Day
This morning I woke feeling a bit off kilter. After eight days of being in a very intensive and regimented program of scoring AP English Literature essays, I suddenly had six undefined hours ahead of me before I needed to be at the airport, and my morning felt oddly stiff, like donning a new pair of shoes. I attempted to lay in bed but dawn called me out and up and lead me to wander beside the Ohio River, which snakes along the backside of Louisville, Kentucky.
Nine Cent Girl 