Exile on Fourth Street - Wrapping up the AP Lit Exam Reading

One week ago this morning, I sat down with seven readers and one very gracious leader at Table 89 for the AP Lit Exam reading. Seven days and 1250 essays later, it's time to head home. But first, a few notes from the week that was. . .

I read Question 3, the "open" essay, where students answer a prompt using a major work they've read. This year's question dealt with the concept of being exiled as being both "alienating" and "enriching". I've endured hundreds of essays on Heart of Darkness, Jane Eyre, and Brave New World. Future students should be grateful for this, as I have no intention of ever teaching these titles after this week.

While there were some incredibly lame responses, on the whole, I thought the essays were better this year than last. Unfortunately, they were also much, much longer on average. Our colleagues on Question 1 (poetry) had it much easier; they were finished at 10:00 AM yesterday. The rest of us wrapped up just before 3:00 PM.

This was the first year that both the AP Lit and AP Lang exams were read in Louisville - some 2000 high school and college English teachers under the same roof. 1200 of us gathered Sunday night to hear former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins - some of us got there two hours early to snag a decent seat. Collins is a phenomenal poet, one of the few rock stars of the profession.

The food was edible. That's an improvement over last year's "wouldn't feed it to my dog" rating. We managed to get out for a tasty rack of BBQ ribs at FABD (Frankfort Ave. Beer Depot), where they also serve Oberon on tap. Follow that up with a night at the ballpark with the Louisville Bats, and you have the makings of a wonderful week.

But it will be good to get on a plane at 9:55 and head home.