Administrators at one North Florida school had the courage to assign “The Courage to be Free.”
The Ron DeSantis tome, released ahead of his 2024 presidential campaign, is on the summer reading list for AP Language and Composition, as first spotted by Peter Schorsch.
The course, per Lawton Chiles High in Leon County, is “designed to be the equivalent in rigor to a college course in rhetoric, literature studies, and composition.”
“Special attention will be devoted to preparing students for the AP Language and Composition examination. We will be working with this assignment from the first day of class, so have the novel (SIC) read and annotated by the first day of class,” the list says.
Readers “need to show an active reading strategy throughout the entire book and should have no fewer than 40 annotations (on post-its, margin notes, etc.), with an eye towards “word choice (diction) … tone (What is the author’s tone towards the subject? How do you know? Does the tone shift?), sentence structure, audience, context, purpose, appeals.”
Students should consider: “Does the writer appeal to a reader’s sense of emotion? Which emotions? Is it effective? Does the writer appeal to a reader’s sense of logic? How does a writer use their credibility to appeal to the reader? Anything else that interests you as you read (Is there a particularly effective description? A beautiful or powerful image?)”
Students should be able to “complete a close reading assessment and rhetorical analysis assignment that shows your understanding of your selected text.”
Ironically, DeSantis has criticized AP offerings in the past, including the College Board’s Advanced Placement class in African American studies, a pilot course banned by the state last year.
“When you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory,” DeSantis said, “you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes.”
–A.G. Gancarski, Florida Politics
beachcomberT says
By now, the governor’s “novel” should be marked down to $1 or less on the remainder tables.
Laurel says
“When you try to use Black history to shoehorn in queer theory,” DeSantis said, “you are clearly trying to use that for political purposes.”
Okay, so I’m on a rant this morning. One of my biggest pet peeves is what I call “the willfully stupid.” DeSantis, and his culture wars, is a perfect example of this pet peeve. If someone is not that smart, for one reason or another, that’s one thing. But being willfully stupid, well there is no excuse for that.
Charles says
Not interested.