Welcome to an English Experiment!

The purpose of this blog is to allow students in my AP English class to discuss texts, ideas, and concepts outside, as well as inside, the classroom. We're starting now, in an experimental way, as a way to fill the sun-filled gap of time that stretches between the AP exam and graduation.

Our class is mainly going to be discussing a couple of sun-filled (well, as sun-filled as a pair of books that take place in England and Oregon can be) novels, E.M. Forster's A Room With A View and David James Duncan's The River Why. They're about Italy and fishing, respectively. Except they're not.

I chose these texts to end the year because:

A) I really, really like them.
B) We need to return to the cheerful spirit that pervaded our class during Jane Austen, before our psyches were all damaged by Jane Eyre and Hamlet.
C) They have neat and important things to teach you before you go to college.
D) All of the above.

Although I expect most of the comments on here will be from my class, we're happy to hear from other people as well, especially if you've read these books.

So, kids, here's your first prompt. Respond as soon as you've read the first chapter of the Forster. Why is a room with a view so desirable? What do you think it means as metaphor? Does a view really matter or would you be just as happy looking out a window onto a brick wall? Discuss.