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Erica Jacobs
Why I love teaching to the test
- Like most teachers, I dislike tests created by for-profit agencies promoting textbooks and particular methods of learning. But there is one test I don’t mind teaching to: the Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition test.
A footnote to my career
- Thanks to the popularity of my column “This is Sparta!—Facebook Prank or Political Statement?” I am now a footnote in Wikipedia. I have written about the Advanced Placement program for more than twenty years, yet this is the first column to create any buzz.
The things I carried
- All week long I have been carrying 23 years worth of high school teaching paraphernalia to the trash, to my car, to my house and to the thrift store. I have carried books and papers, student notes and George Foreman grills, paper plates, cough drops and Post-Its.
This is Sparta! — Facebook prank or political statement?
- Test takers strike back. A funny thing happened at the annual mass grading of Advanced Placement English literature exams. The exclamation “This Is Sparta!” popped up daily in exam booklets.
The world’s largest Gryffindor reunion
- Last week, J.K. Rowling startled many, including her audience, by delivering the commencement address at Harvard University. I had an invitation to that momentous event, but I chose instead to grade Advanced Placement exams in English Literature.
The last high school goodbye
- Thursday and Friday I saw my high school students for the last time, with very mixed emotions. I won't miss arriving before sunrise, or repeating the daily computer drill of recording absences for four classes of students. I am glad to be rid of the silly rules limiting times when students can go to the bathroom, and am especially thrilled I will never have to attend another faculty meeting.
A student’s Memorial Day legacy
- Students often remember their teachers, but teachers remember students just as vividly. This is the case with a student from George Mason University whom I haven’t seen in nearly 25 years, but whose words on the Vietnam War I read every year to my classes.
Erica Jacobs: A Procession of ‘Lasts’
- Long before students hear the processional from Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” at graduation, they have experienced a procession of events, each one of them for the last time.
What happens after the test?
- Starting in March, students in Advanced Placement classes with May exams begin to ask, “What are we doing with the five weeks after the test?” Often it’s phrased more bluntly: “Are we doing anything after the test?”
Short-order food for thought
- Recently I have been a short-order cook in a high school classroom. It all began with the scheduling of five Advanced Placement English review sessions after school. I had a notion that maybe they’d be more fun with food, but didn’t announce that ahead of time.
Teachers turned monsters: It’s test time!
- One week from today my 148 Senior Seminar students will take the Advanced Placement government test, and three days later they will take the AP Literature test. It's crunch time, and teachers are feeling the pressure.
The Accidental Blogger
- For the past week, I have been a student. It’s an all-important role every teacher should embrace as often as possible, because if you are no longer a student, I don’t think you can be an empathetic teacher.
Education —Wasted on the young?
- On one of my seniors’ last days in high school, they heard a world-renowned scholar of James Joyce lecture on “Dubliners.” He took an afternoon off from his immersion in Joyce’s first work to speak to them about two of the stories they were studying. Most found it interesting, and a few responded enthusiastically, but in several ways his talk was wasted on the young.