Ms. Mary Troxel, whose enthusiasm is infectious, is teaching AP Literature, and she has everyone reading and talking about Meursault’s existentialism and Sethe’s conflict with Beloved and 124. Troxel plans for her class to explore Literature through poetry and prose, and in the first three weeks of school her class has already finished reading two novels: The Stranger by Albert Camus, and Beloved by Toni Morrison (which they finished this week). The class will be taking on Shakespeare’s King Lear in October.

Each week Troxel has “Multiple Choice Mondays,” “Practice Essay Wednesdays,” and “Vocab Fridays.” To help her prepare her students for the exam she is trying out the College Board’s new AP Classroom, where her students can try practice multiple choice and free response questions from previous exams.

“It has been my dream to teach AP Lit!” said Troxel. Longtime instructor Mary Ellen Newcomb previously taught AP lit, but this year she graciously passed the torch to Troxel, who has been teaching 9th and 11th graders. Troxel began her career teaching at Windsor Knolls Middle School.

“The reading and group activities are engaging, and the topics addressed in the books are interesting. I really like reading, and we do a lot of reading in AP Lit. ” said Adam Byrd.

Summer 2019, Troxel, along with Natalie Rebetsky, Susan Peterson and Newcomb teamed up for a Linganore faculty reading challenge. Troxel’s team won, with her having read more than anyone else with minutes. Coming in first above all of the other faculty members, Troxel read 12,000 minutes and 35 books, with Newcomb at second with 9,000 minutes.