In AP, we will work on helping you to become a stronger writer and more critical thinker. We will focus on deep criticism
of literature and effective writing. In the words of the critic Northrop Frye, “The skill developed from constant practice in the direct experience of literature is a special skill, like playing the piano, not the expression of a general attitude to life, like singing in the shower.”
Our goal will be to appreciate literature on this more analytical level, as critics, not merely readers. We will write, perhaps more than you ever have, and discuss in depth issues from the classroom content and outside. If everything goes as planned, this will be a course that will provide a constant challenge as well as a frequent source of amusement.
Debate is an elective open to students in all grades. My goal is to help you become a more critical consumer of argumentation and someone whose insight is not limited to sound bites, but in-depth understanding. We are going to learn about the foundations of argument, techniques for persuasion, and tools for evaluating the advocacy of others. In the mix, we might also throw in some philosophy, ethics, current events, great films, and more.
This article is almost certain to make some of you gloat malevolently and throw others of you into despair. From the piece:
I think there is a clear solution to this problem. Literary studies should become more like the sciences. Literature professors should apply science’s research methods, its theories, its statistical tools, and its insistence on hypothesis and proof. Instead of philosophical despair about the possibility of knowledge, they should embrace science’s spirit of intellectual optimism. If they do, literary studies can be transformed into a discipline in which real understanding of literature and the human experience builds up along with all of the words.
Congratulations on completing the test. I wouldn’t waste another minute thinking about it. Now, it’s time to begin thinking about how you would like to spend your last few weeks at Helena High.
