One of the greatest challenges of my high school teaching career was being assigned to teach AP English Language and Composition to a class of juniors —- a college level course that was now being offered to the students for the first time.
So, on the first day of school while I was outside of my classroom door greeting the students as they were entering, the English department head (who for years was the AP Literature and Composition teacher for seniors) pulled me aside and commanded me to go in there are read the riot act to the students. “You tell them that if they are not willing to put in the two to three hours of homework a night that this difficult course requires, then they should go…
