Tips To Survive: A.P. English

This school year has been filled with many great experiences. I have learned a great amount of things that will benefit me in my educational career. Throughout this school year I have matured as a writer and as a thinker. This class has taught me to think and write critically in all of my writing. When the school year first began I had a difficult time adjusting to the curriculum of the class. It was a challenge to rearrange my style of writing to that of rhetoric. I had to develop skills such as using a more mature pro style, being able to analyze documents effectively, to think critically while reading documents and much more. As I think back to the beginning of the year my writing has improved greatly. At the beginning of the year my scores on essays were mainly 2’s and 3’s but as I developed my critical writing skills and perfected the style of rhetoric, I saw an increase in my score to 4’s and 5’s. The increase in my scores was a result of practicing my writing on essay prompts, taking the time to learn the style of rhetoric, increasing my vocabulary and using a more mature pros style in my writing. The writing and thinking skills I have learned this school year will benefit me in the rest of my college and educational career.

The things I enjoyed most about the class are that we had a chance to participate in Socratic seminars and had a chance to read a great selection of books. The Socratic seminars were an effective way for the class to share their opinions and ideas on texts and books in a professional way. It sometimes helped to understand the texts and books better, given we had variety of interpretations from classmates. The seminars also sparked up world connections which were very interesting to discuss. I also enjoyed the books we read throughout the year. My favorite book this year was In Cold Blood. The book was very intriguing and mind blowing… (I won’t ruin it for next year’s class).

Besides the academic aspect of the class, our class got the chance to know a great teacher; Ms. Fogarty. To the incoming students of A.P. English you guys have a wonderful teacher. Ms.Fogarty is one of the most “down to earth” English teachers I know. She is very fair and has a great personality. She also has a lot of corny “English teacher” jokes, but you will get used to it; we did. At times she will play classical music when working on assignments; hopefully it won’t put you to sleep. The way Ms. Fogarty runs the classroom is very productive and effective. She gives a great amount of time to finish assignments, she explains the assignment thoroughly, and is available for extra help at any time.

To the incoming students of A.P. English I advise you to take this class seriously. It might seem like a vigorous course at first, but if you pace yourself and allow yourself enough time to finish assignment you will be good. The worst thing you can do with any A.P. class is to procrastinate on assignments; because the class is run at a fast pace it is very easy to get behind. If you try your hardest in the class it will benefit you in the long run. Also take the A.P. exam seriously it will give you the opportunity to gain college credit which is very beneficial. Overall A.P. English is a great class. It will challenge you to think a little harder, but at the end the things you will gain from this class will benefit you, not just educational wise but also in your life journey. I wish you the best of luck in A.P. English and try not to give Fogarty a hard time.