Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and the' Old Testament “Book of

Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and the' Old Testament “Book of Job. ”

Many of the classes feature students taking the course in otherschools in the state. Their pictures* are shown on the screen while the’ teacher tells something about them based on their autobiographies. Ms' Gibson is assisted on the program by; a Ms Worley, whose main purposeseems to be to grin into the camera.

One day last week Ms Gibson* asked the students to call in and talk about which character in last summer’s popular movie “Dead Poets’ Society” demonstrated the classic hero saga. She waited quite a while, killing time on the set, until Rappahannock’s David Moser called in to comment. The next day David was - the featured student. Ms Worley also made some comments about the film. “Maybe Ms Worley isn’t as dumb as she looks,” Chris Moyles commented.

For the six students in the AP English class, the course has meant a different scheduling challenge. The class is taught during the last half of fifth period and the first half of sixth period. Most have chosen to use the first half of fifth period as a study hall and the last half of sixth period to work on either the school newspaper or yearbook, giving up on the chance to take seven classes in the seven-period day.

But Elizabeth Oliver was determined to take architectural drawing, which is only taught sixth period. So she goes to that class 20 minutes late. She said that hadn’t been much of a problem so far, “but we haven’t really started drawing projects yet.” She was concerned that she would have trouble keeping up with the drawing with only 26 minutes in class.

Elizabeth was volunteered to tell the School Board about AP English. “The thrust of the class is to teach us to criticize literature in a way approved by the College Boards,” she said. “We will take the AP exams, and hopefully all will pass. Our teachers definitely have Wise County accents,” she concluded, using her own version of a Wise County accent.

Laurel Van Horn, the facilitator for the AP English class, is enjoying her relationship with the students in the class. “It’s fun being their mentor rather than their teacher,” she said. She said she has also gotten ideas for things she wants to try with her academic senior English classes.

She acknowledged that there are problems with the “articifiality of TV,” the forced cheerfulness of the teachers talking to a television camera without eye contact with the students, unable to see when they are turning the students off.

But she is convinced that those six students are better off taking the class. “They are so far ahead of the other academic seniors, there is no way they wouldn’t be bored in the regular class.”

Senior Karen Payne isn’t so sure. “I wish I was taking academic English,” she said. “There is no way to have a real class discussion. You just have to take her (Ms Gibson’s) word for it. I don’t like just taking someone’s word for it.”