The penultimate post

I know I will post at least once more when I get your scores back in September, but if you want, you can comment on this post in July when you get your AP scores (I'm assuming at least the ones who pass will be comfortable with that, but you're all welcome to email me about it, too). I really do want to know how you did.

Final grades are posted in the door window. I'm glad to say everyone passed with a C, at least...no green slips, yay!

All unrecovered work is sitting in a box outside my classroom door. You can pick it up at your leisure through 2pm tomorrow. After that, it goes in the recycling bin.

Some last words directed especially at my CW/AP students:

Mika
Holly
Amy
Shelby
Daniel
Elisa
Christy
Clare
Casey
Robert

I'm sure you noticed that there were some common themes in the author presentations: suicide, mental illness, addiction, suffering.

For the ten of you, who are, presumably, most interested in pursuing a life of letters, I would like to point out that while we all suffer through life, to some degree, and this suffering may be valuable in deepening our humanity and our ability to connect with others, there is also tremendous power in just being an observer of suffering, of bearing witness to other people's pain, and perhaps alleviating it by giving them a voice. Don't feel that you have experience everything firsthand in order to write about it...just paying attention to other people, listening and remembering, can be enough.

I will see you all on Friday.