Throughout my four years in high school, I’ve experienced every subject at several different levels, and even more styles of teaching. Of all of the academic courses, though, English has taught me the most, specifically AP Language and Composition (AP Lang.) and AP Literature and Composition (AP Lit.).
These two English courses have incredibly shaped my education in many areas, not only in my academics but also in my daily thinking strategies. In AP Lang., learning to read texts in a way of deeply analyzing every rhetorical strategy to understand the author’s purpose was all new to me. My thinking was changed in such a way that I began to analyze any situation, whether it was an algebra problem or a real life problem, very deeply. Assignments in any class became simpler, allowing me to excel greater than ever in school. Ultimately, this benefited me in my pursuit of going to college. Not only were my reading capabilities taken to the next level, writing was more advanced than I had ever experienced before. For example, argumentative essays taught me to thoroughly analyze both sides of an argument to allow my argument to cover every aspect of the problem at hand. This greatly helped with debates I participated in at school and with disagreements I encountered in everyday life. Rhetorical analysis prompts often included historical speeches and information I otherwise would not have learned, much less analyzed and written a well developed essay on.
AP Lit., which I am currently taking, takes a different approach than AP Lang. did in terms of both reading and writing. While reading in AP Lang. was meant to teach the reader the purpose of the text through the author’s use of rhetorical devices, AP Lit. teaches the reader to thoroughly analyze the author’s literary devices to identify the meaning of the work. In addition, AP Lit. writing includes writing on novels and novellas, and writing on given prose passages and poems. When writing on the novels or novellas, the writer must write on a given prompt any novel or novella of the writer’s choice, and an overall theme should be included. This type of writing has shown me that a lesson should always be looked for in any situation to better understand exactly why certain situations occur. The poem and prose writings have really demonstrated to me that college absolutely requires hard work in and out of the classroom. These two essays are extremely advanced in that studying the text given and writing an essay must be done in a very short period of time. AP Lit. has given me a good idea of what college classes will be like, which is obviously the ideal result of high school.
Because of AP Lang. and AP Lit., I have become more aware, better prepared, and a little surprised of my future in college, and even beyond. Throughout my four years in high school, I’ve experienced every subject at several different levels, and even more styles of teaching. Of all of the academic courses, though, English has taught me the most, specifically AP Language and Composition (AP Lang.) and AP Literature and Composition (AP Lit.).
These two English courses have incredibly shaped my education in many areas, not only in my academics but also in my daily thinking strategies. In AP Lang., learning to deeply analyze text’s rhetorical strategies to understand the author’s purpose changed my thinking so that I began to analyze any situation very deeply. Assignments in every class became simpler, allowing me to excel greater than ever in school. Ultimately, this benefited me in my pursuit of going to college. The writing was also more advanced than I had ever experienced. Argumentative essays taught me to thoroughly analyze both sides of an argument to allow my thoughts to cover every aspect of the problem at hand. This greatly developed my debate skills. Rhetorical analysis prompts often included historical speeches and information I otherwise would not have learned, much less analyzed and written a well developed essay on.
AP Lit., which I am currently taking, takes a different approach. Reading in AP Lit. teaches the reader to thoroughly analyze the author’s literary devices to identify the meaning of the work. In addition, AP Lit. writing includes writing that looks at texts as a whole to develop meaning through a theme. This type of writing has shown me that a lesson should always be looked for in any situation to better understand exactly why certain situations occur. The poem and prose writings have really demonstrated to me that college absolutely requires hard work in and out of the classroom. These two essays are extremely advanced in that studying the text given and writing an essay must be done in a very short period of time. AP Lit. has given me a good idea of what college classes will be like, which is obviously the ideal result of any high school course.
Because of AP Lang. and AP Lit., I have become more aware, better prepared, and a more intelligent for my future at college and beyond.
