AP Language & Composition: Zinsser Swings an Axe: Simplicity, Clutter & Style

Friday, 8 October 2010

Zinsser Swings an Axe: Simplicity, Clutter & Style

If you managed to leave your copy of ON WRITING WELL at school on this long-weekend, you will be happy yo know that I managed to find excerpts from the chapters I asked you to read in preparation for next week's meeting. I would also encourage you to look up Zinsser himself, if you have the opportunity.

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AP: Advanced Preparation?

While AP actually stands for Advanced Placement, a more apt title for what we are doing this Fall might be Advanced Preparation. The journey that we are embarking on next semester will require a great deal of packing and preparation. Before we leave port you will need to make sure that your bags are packed, and you've brought everything you think you will need. This preparation will take three forms, all of which will make our journey much more enjoyable:

1) Write! AP English Language and Composition is first and foremost a course in writing. If you are not writing in English regularly (read EVERYDAY) then you are not preparing yourself. Yes, it will be difficult. Yes, you will have days that you don't want to do it. Yes, you will need help sometimes, and I will do my level best to support you when necessary, but in the end, any real progress you make will come down to YOU. Like any kind of physical training, it takes practice and commitment. Take this seriously, and pay out in spades later on.

2) Read the texts I assign you. I realize that you have full course-loads, and that you will have other important commitments during the first semester, but reading the assigned texts will allow you to participate in a dialogue which will prepare you for the work ahead. There will be some texts that will interest you more than others, but each of them holds something for us that will help us on our journey. They are the paths laid down by the people who passed this way before us, and we ignore them at our peril.

3) Record your thoughts, questions and impressions as you read. Some of the texts will come up again when we sit down face to face in the classroom next semester, and keeping good notes on where you've been will save us from having to review and re-read. Good notes will keep us from walking in circles.

4) Participate in discussions. I know that we don't have a regular class-time, but use this blog and our Tuesday study-periods to voice your questions, concerns or comments. None of us, including me, has ever been on this particular journey before, and the best way to get everything we can out of the experience is by sharing with one another. If you have a nagging question, or you have had a sudden epiphany, let us know.

We have nearly four months before the ship leaves. Let's be prepared.