Tone. Purpose. Audience.

Tone: Forthright
Purpose: To encourage them to admit they need help
Audience: My 5th Hour AP Composition class


Tone. Purpose. Audience.
Audience. Purpose. Tone.
Purpose.
Tone.
Audience.
TPA. APT. PTA.

For the last seven weeks I have been swimming--no drowning-- in the words tone-purpose-audience. It's at the core of any good writing, and therefore the core of the AP composition class I love and hate to teach. I love to teach this course for the reasons many teachers would think: students who actually want to learn, who do their homework, and who can think deeply. I hate teaching this class for reasons that most people wouldn't expect: it consumes my life.

Sure the 60 papers sitting in my inbox to provide feedback on is overwhelming. And yes, reading a novel or two every two weeks is demanding. But what really consumes me is the thinking involved.

I'm consumed by the thinking because I was not an AP Composition student. I am an AP Composition teacher, but never an AP student. Thankfully, that is not a requirement for the job, but I wonder if that would've been helpful. I wonder if it would've been helpful for me because then I might understand my audience. I know my purpose: to teach students to become better writers and thinkers and to do well on the AP test. I know my tone: didactic . And often, I think I know my audience, but in reality, I don't know them.

I don't know what it's like to take pre-AP classes. I don't know what it feels like to have to be a perfectionist. I don't know what it feels like to have the pressure from my family to get into Standford, Harvard or Yale someday.

But what I do know is what it's like to be the teacher of said students. I do know that it's incredibly difficult to teach students who are afraid to admit they don't know something. I do know that learning doesn't begin until they can admit that. I do know that I need them to take a risk and fail. And I need them to trust me that when they do take that risk, and do fail, I'll be there.