A.G. Gancarski
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.”
11 comments
Danny E White
August 3, 2024 at 5:49 pm
Par for the hypocritical course!
Bill Pollard
August 3, 2024 at 5:57 pm
A Ron DeSantis memoir in an AP Language and Composition course? Give me a break!
MH/Duuuval
August 3, 2024 at 6:17 pm
The ol’ he-coon Lawton Chiles would be amused.
MH/Duuuval
August 3, 2024 at 6:17 pm
The ol’ he-coon Lawton Chiles would be amused.
Ocean Joe
August 3, 2024 at 6:29 pm
Desantis’ Memoir: “How I ruined Florida” hopefully reads better than he like speaks you know.
Ninety Three
August 3, 2024 at 6:42 pm
So here we have the left loonies taking shots at our fine Governor. The guy attended Yale University and was Captain of the baseball team. He then received his law degree from Harvard University and became an officer in the USN. He is now a two term governor for Florida. The lefty loons instead worship Ka Mana. Sleeping with the mayor of San Francisco to get ahead in life The first candidate out of the Demo Presidential primaries in 2019. She gets picked as Biden”s VP nominee for one reason and one reason only. Now suddenly she is the savior of the Democratic Party This is a story in contrast. One worked hard , served this country. The other manipulated her way in by favors and identity politics.
Ocean Joe
August 3, 2024 at 7:03 pm
Have lived through 11 governors starting with Haydon Burns. Desantis is the absolute worst, with Rick Scott a close second. You like the explosive, unchecked growth, the skyrocketing insurance rates making homes unaffordable, the clogged roads, and all the weird involvement in our school system, the culture wars on masks, and trannies and drag queens…you can have it.
He sold us out to the insurance industry, he put an I-95 exit where it would help a developer buddy, he screwed around with New College like it was a toy. Oh yeah, he was captain of the baseball team at some Ivy League college he pretends to despise in order to appeal to the yahoos.
Cheesy Floridian
August 3, 2024 at 7:43 pm
You can’t sit here and say he went to Yale and Harvard while he says those institutions breed the woke mind virus. Nope. DeSantis is not great at all and those students shouldn’t have to read that garbage. Oh wait he likes indoctrination
MH/Duuuval
August 3, 2024 at 7:23 pm
“Sleeping with the mayor of San Francisco to get ahead in life.”
Yep, that was sure to have swayed the electoral majorities Karma got in her various election contests.
Michael K
August 3, 2024 at 7:30 pm
You do know that Ron was a DEI admission – non-academic.
Ninety Three
August 3, 2024 at 8:06 pm
DEI doesn’t apply to Anglo’s. You should know that.