KC&AF: What should we do?

We miss you so much! And we hope you are feeling healthy and strong.  Keep washing those hands and sneezing into your sleeve.  Don't rub your eyes!  Don't pick your nose!  

We are in a strange pickle here.  We cannot assign work that will take a grade because we cannot know for sure that everyone has access to the internet, and that everyone has a computer to use.  Access and equity are the issues, as Superintendent McSparren pointed out in her email, and phone call home.

Although ACT and SAT tests have been cancelled for now, and Governor Gavin Newsom says we won't be taking the SBAC standardized tests this year, there is every indication that the College Board will find a way to administer the AP exam, either at home, or in a public place like a gymnasium, with a 6-foot perimeter around every seat.

And so we are here to encourage you to write.  We will not be able to GRADE it and put it in a grade book, but we can score it and give feedback...why not?  

Neither of us feel right just leaving you on your own until May 13.

So we will come out here to the blog and give you semi-regular reading and writing assignments.  You DO NOT have to do them, but we recommend that you do.  We are not grading them or keeping track of whether or not you do them.  But you are wise and self-motivated people, and you know that the practice could help you earn full college credit for taking only 75% of a class.  

Let's try this:  We will collect anything you write through Turnitin.com under assignments named by the date.  For example, we'll create an assignment called March 23-27, and anything you write and want feedback on that week will be uploaded there.  

So starting on Monday, March 23, we'll post something to read, and provide a prompt.  The reading and the writing may be connected, but they might not.  Perhaps we just want you to read something for the heck of it.  But sometimes, it might be an AP question, with something to read and respond to.  And in May, if we're still not together, we'll work on your personal statements remotely.

We can rise to this moment.  Be sure you are keeping a daily journal of your thoughts and what is going on in your day-to-day life; in 100 years, your writing will be among the primary sources people use to understand this catastrophic moment in our history.  Maybe it's time for you to start your own blog.  You don't have to make it public until you're good and ready.

Stay healthy!