My former English professor would always say “find a way 101”, whenever a student found themselves struggling in her class. At first I did not understand why she was so rude to her students, this was until after I graduated high school when I realized I was wrong. She was not rude, she was not mean, she was preparing her students for college level English classes. Reflecting on my past encounter with the toughest teacher at my former high school, I can say I feel prepared for a college level class.
Although I may have taken the most rigorous class in high school, that does not mean I am expected to pass without falling short. However, I am certain that I am ready for the challenges that my professor will assign me in the fall. To start off with, the overall environment of being part of an AP/IB English class all throughout high school has made a positive affect on me. This has not only affected my familiarization with college level essays but I know what is expected from a higher level english course. As I have mentioned in my previous essay, I have written papers that were up to seventeen pages long.
When I was in high school I often thought, why do I have to write so much, it would annoy me that every month was a new essay, now the idea of writing a lengthy paper has become a norm. Also, my encounter with a honors English class has helped me when it came to oral presentations. One the difficult presentations I encountered was the interactive oral commentary. This was also a stressful assignment because I had to talk for 10 continuous minutes on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and another 10 minutes on a randomly selected poem on John Donne.
In addition, the route of an AP english class for two years also meant reading a great amount of literature from prose, short stories, and poetry. What was perhaps the difficult part of that class was, analyzing or as my former teacher would call it “getting down to the nitty gritty details”. In this class we were not allowed to scratch the surface of a book, but rather go deep into its core. My former teacher would have us analyze so much detail in such a limited time, that there were days when the class only covered 3 pages of a novel.
There were times when the class was assigned to read a portion of the current read by ourselves for homework and have ideas ready to discuss the next day. Every so often, a grand part of the homework included reading two novels for homework, while reading a third novel in class. Reflecting back on my encounter with my previous english class, I feel that that it has really helped prepare me, but I still need areas for improvement. For example, even though I was part of a rigorous course, I realized over the past few years that I need to improve my writing as well as my analytical skills.
I will admit that I was not the strongest writer in my class, but I have shown potential to grow in my work. As for my analytical skills I need to read in between the lines more and pick up more rhetorical devices to back up my ideas. At first during my junior year in my AP English class I thought what I presented was enough to pass the course. During my senior year, I came to the conclusion that, the minimum is never enough when it came to an IB literature class, because great literature does not answer questions, it raises questions.
To sum up, my past encounter with reading and writing has prepared me for what is expected from a college level course. Over the past two years I have learned first hand experience of what tasks arise from such a course. I feel that I am prepared for what my professor intends to do because I have written essays at a college level, spoken about literature at an advanced level in a long period of time and analyzed novels that will be read though out my first years of college. However, this has made me understand that when I enter for the fall quarter I must improve my writing and analytical skills as well to excel in the future.
