Lit & More with Gina Kortuem

I haven't had much motivation to write lately, since I broke my leg back in March. Today marks the first blog post I've written in two months, and it was so much fun to write!
This is the last week of school for me, where I finish up my 20th year of teaching, both in general and teaching AP Lit. I took this opportunity to reflect on the changes I've seen in teaching AP Lit, as well as the ways the course has stayed very much the same. (Some of you got personal shout outs in here, so check for your name!)
It's been fun, let's do 20 more years! (or maybe just 10...)

What I've Learned in 20 Years of AP Lit - Lit & More In this blog post, I pause for a brief career retrospective on what I've seen change--and stay the same--after 20 years of teaching AP Lit.

Haven’t done these in a while.

Round 2 of end of year memes

My AP Lit students had to create memes about the year for their last assignment. Some are based on the exam, but most are based memories and “incidents” from the school year. I have more I’ll share tomorrow!

Here’s another weekly recap of what we’ve been learning in room 252! One more week of full classes until finals!

Why use ___ when you can use AI?

Why? Because humans did the work, humans like me. And other content creators who made blogs, resources, YouTube videos, and other free resources. Our free resources, which we pay for in time and (at least in my case) money to post for free for others, gets scanned automatically by AI bots like Gemini, ChatGPT, and other LLMs to populate answers to your search queries. These are screenshots of a search I did into Google. It was my first attempt and, as expected, there I am in the top websites to populate answers for an AI summary. Before you sweep us under the rug for the sake of convenience, remember that it’s our labor they’re taking and using, without permission and without much credit. Next time you do a search like this, PLEASE scroll down and click into the websites that populated the bot’s answer!

AI profits billionaire owners on the backs of hard-working people. Just sayin’.

I had a rare moment of sentimentality and went through all the thank you cards I’ve saved from students over the years. This year has been wonderful but challenging, and my injury has clouded my mindset lately. Thank you to my students for these words of appreciation (whether prompted or unprompted) and know this—I never throw them away. ❤️

Happy AP Lit exam day, everyone. May our students be awake, aware, and locked in!

Here’s a weekly snapshot at what my students are learning this week! It was also my first full week back at after the leg surgery. Just three weeks left and even fewer with the seniors!