About This Series
Our families want to know what’s new in local schools. So we’ve created the Our Students Have Class feature series. We will visit classrooms and ask educators what they are teaching. We will also ask students to reflect on what they’re learning and what it means to them. The first installment in the series revolves around Teacher Jennifer Livingston’s Advanced Placement Language and Composition class.
An AP Class
Newberg High School Teacher Jennifer Livingston encourages her students to be argumentative — in a carefully crafted essay.
In Livingston’s Advanced Placement (AP) Language and Composition class, she explains how to compose an argumentative essay. That means asserting a position on an issue and supporting that position with nonfiction materials.
“They learn how to persuade and how to analyze the persuasive arguments of others,” Livingston explained.
In AP Language and Composition, Livingston encourages her students to weigh the many sides of an issue to create the best possible argument. The idea sounds simple, but while it’s easy to make a claim, it’s a lot harder to reason why that claim makes sense and find relevant evidence. But it’s meant to be hard. An AP class is a college-level class.
Students take these classes in high school, and the class will prepare students to take an AP exam. If they score high enough on the exam, a student can then skip a similar course in college and proceed to a more advanced course, saving time and money. This advantage helps make AP classes popular, even though they tend to be more challenging than similar high-school courses.
However, juniors Liam Williams and Shivan Bosco did not think of the college credit first when asked what inspired them to enroll in the class.
An Inspiration
“Her [Livingston] being the teacher is one of the biggest reasons I took the class,” Williams said.
Williams said that Livingston is a good teacher who encourages students to appreciate their talents, rather than being overly critical of themselves. He added that she is a talented speaker.
Bosco said that Livingston’s ability as a speaker helps keep students engaged. She’s not a flashy speaker but says what she means in a brief, clear manner, without extra chatter. The way she feels about the topic she teaches also helps hold students’ interest.
“She’s awesome,” Bosco said. “She’s just so passionate about what she does; you can tell she really enjoys talking about English composition.”
An Assignment
To engage her students, Livingston also offers creative assignments. In fact, their current assignment is to argue whether creativity still exists or has been drying up in this modern world.
Arguing against the existence of original ideas:
- Junior Nikita Mingalov says the lack of originality in art and music indicates that most concepts had been used and then frequently reused.
- Bosco’s piece states that original ideas may not exist, but how each individual approaches these old ideas makes them fresh again because every one of us is unique.
Arguing for the existence of new ideas:
- Williams asserts that “modding” is a great example of the continuation of originality. Modding is a way of altering a video game, such as Minecraft, to introduce your own content, such as a different setting or character.
- Junior Sasha Musall says that creative ideas can be found in the science and technology of the modern world, citing the Higgs boson theory (about why some particles have mass), string theory (there are tiny vibrating strings instead of particles like electrons), multiverse theory (related to the formation and construction of the universe), and cyber-feminism (interpreting feminist concepts in cyberspace).
An Education
Whether students argue their ideas with a discussion about string theory, Minecraft, or music, a well-reasoned, well-supported argument takes time to build. Bosco said Livingston encourages her students to reflect on their assignments carefully.
“It’s one of those classes where you can’t just do the work: You have to really think about it,” Bosco noted.
She said that even though it isn’t a light class, Livingston somehow makes her lessons accessible to all her students.
“No matter your writing skill, she makes it so anyone can come in and learn,” Bosco said.
Is Bosco’s assertion true: Livingston’s students can’t help but learn? It would seem that Bosco, Mingalov, Musall, and Williams are terrific, nonfiction evidence of that claim.