I'm so excited for the 2011/2012 school year.  This will be a year of many achievements and surprises for you!  This AP course centers in the art of composition, and you will be doing plenty of writing over the school year to help maximize your learning.  To get started, please take some time this summer to pay attention to how authors craft their pieces of writing.  Consider the author's intended message.  Who is the speaker?  Who is the audience?  And finally, consider what it is that made that particular piece of writing effective to you.  These are the questions and considerations with which you will approach every reading selection assigned during this course.   Over the next two months, please select 1 writing sample that you have connected with for some reason.  This may be an essay, newspaper article, editorial, poem, or even a novel.  In written form (blog post is fine), answer the questions I posed above and be prepared on the first day of class to discuss the strategies that you have identified that make your selected written piece effective to you.   You may post your reflection on this blog so that others (including myself) can share in your reflection and thinking.   Please remember to mention the piece of written text to which you are responding--include the title of the piece and the author's name.  You may include a link to the written text if it is available online.