AP English Language Reviews

A personal experience (The best English class I've take yet)

Posted by Rachel Chen on 05/02/2024

I will be quite personal with this review as I have struggled to really feel like writing was meaningful for some time. You see, I was in 6th grade when my English teacher at the time told the entire class to raise their hand to symbolize how everyone needed to improve their writing and analysis skills, but she singled me out and told me to put mine down. She said I was the only one who didn't need improvement. I think that is the problem with public schooling. They make it seem like there is not really anywhere forward to go if you already have it down. But because of that to be honest, I ended up really loving writing because I was told I was good at it and I guess because of self fulfilling prophecy ever since then I've just knocked out straight As in English class like it was nothing. The problem was though that there was no substance. All of the teaching and assignments were simply just shallow. It was the same thing over and over again. "What did the birds symbolize?" or "what did the metaphor mean?" .....it was just the same thing over and over again. With that, by the time I reached freshman year, I didn't love writing so much anymore and was struggling to actually want to write. Before, I would constantly wait for it to be English class, but then because of English class just being the same things and not so challenging, I dreaded it. Imagine that. It was quite sad to think I ended up loathing something I once loved. It is quite painful because you feel like you have done so much but accomplished nothing. The compliments mean nothing at one point and you really end up loathing the subject. 

But then I did this class in my junior year. 

I really did learn a lot this year and of things I was never ever aware about before. I now have a full understanding of appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos. Also just rhetorical analysis in general. That has become actually fun for me because I like to apply to everyday life...like with commercials and ads and all that. This class helped me also question things around me and try not to just believe whatever I see. I learned the skill of looking over everything to then come to my conclusion and also how to defend my stance. I also learned so much on how to actually answer essays. I think my own personal problem before was being on autopilot since I felt like I didn't need to try much with essays. With this class, you will definitely need to use your deep thinking skills and you will learn to use it effectively. This class overall just taught me "how to do it!" I just love how what you learn in this class can be applied to many other things and I do find it an amazing experience I will never have again. 

• Are there any particularly favorite assignments that you found especially valuable?
• What I especially like about Mrs Reed is that she lets you choose whatever topic you like for your major papers. My favorite assignments include the major papers and our own personal nonfiction piece that we got to write. I felt that because she let us choose what we wanted, my writing became more meaningful, personal, and just fun. But my favorite essay ended up being the argumentative essay and I feel like I can tackle any question thrown at me now. Mrs Reed will share lots of tips on how to tackle these questions and her own experience will help so much. She understands mainstream things and she understands that being culturally literate matters. Another assignment I forgot to mention was the debate one where we had a class debate. I think that one is actually the most fun of them all! 
• Did this class enhance your interest in the subject?
• Of course it did. How is this a question. I mean before I was literally feeling like English class and papers were a burden because of my experiences before. Literally teachers would just make it boring and not meaningful. Now I feel like I finally like writing again and can do it. This class helped restore my love for it. I know for sure this class will help you feel like writing is meaningful. You won't be writing papers for the sake of it, but writing for something you actually care about (like for instance I genuinely cared about the importance of IQ and genetics and I got to do my final major paper on that). I also learned about so many interesting people thanks to this class. I think this class is great because it kinda involves everything. I like how it even involved history since context is everything. 
• Did you find your communications with other students to be interesting or valuable?
• I loved hearing everyone else's opinions on things and I think it's more important to be able to. I think life would be pointless if you just surrounded yourself around a bunch of yapping yess men. Also Mrs Reed taught everyone to communicate in a manner where they could fully express themselves while being clear. With that, everyone is able to disagree in a civil manner. 
• • What sort of student would do well in this class? Would you recommend this class to other students (if they are willing to work hard!)?
  • I would recommend it because I think it's extremely important to communicate clearly and effectively. Nobody will ever agree with each other and that's fine, but we are allowed to have an opinion and explain why we think that way. This class will help you get a real opinion and stop being an NPC. I think if you genuinely want to learn how to write....take this class. If you want to learn how to handle hot topics...take this class. If you want to know how to question things....take this class. I found it worth it and I had so much fun. I hope that others will love this class as much as I did. This class has changed my perception and view on the English subject and I can't thank Mrs. Reed enough for making this year's learning feel meaningful. It's not about how you started, but how you finish. You will come out of this class feeling like you learned so much. 

A Frustrating Experience

Posted by Wei En Leo on 05/17/2023

Did you feel this class prepared you for the AP exam?

Unfortunately​, no​, because of a variety of reasons​. ​Firstly, ​​Mrs. Reed is very slow with grading and it can take her months to grade our work. This lack of feedback/grading made it difficult to figure out how I was faring and what I needed to improve on to prepare for the exam. There was also a lack of exam preparation. We were supposed to have a 3-week-long boot camp with (recorded) live sessions but the recordings were never posted and when I emailed to ask about it, I never received a response. Moreover, we were never actually taught how to write the different types of essays for the exam. (No practice, no assignments etc.)  The only opportunity we had to practice was during the boot camp, which was just three weeks before the exam, and even then, the practice was insufficient. We were only assigned to write 2-3 essays of each type during that time, and it was the first time we were shown what the actual exam questions would look like. To make matters worse, we had to grade them ourselves using the scoring rubric despite this being the first time we've written these specific types of essays. As a student writing this for the first time, I was already struggling to write the essay well. How would I have the knowledge to grade it myself? What's the point of signing up for an AP Lang course if we're not being taught how to write the essays for the AP Lang exam? Instead, I had to rely on external sources on YouTube like Coach Hall Writes and Garden of English to understand the exam format, exam tips and how to write the essays. 

How many hours of work per day or per week did you generally put into this class?

I put in a lot of work into this class, but it was frustrating to do so without much support ​or guidance from Mrs. Reed. It can be summarized with this one quote by Taylor Swift: "You're on your own, kid."

​​​​What sort of student would do well in this class? Would you recommend this class to other students (if they are willing to work hard!)?

Based on my experience, I think that this class did not add any value, and I feel like I wasted my time, effort and money. I wouldn't recommend this class to anyone and I think that you will be better off looking for another class with a more supportive and engaged teacher.