Dear New APELC Student,
Junior year is one of the hardest years in high school. Along with taking a challenging course like this one, it makes the year even harder. But I'm not here to discourage you, in fact I'm glad I took this course because not only has it improved my writing skills but it has also broadened my perspective a little bit. This course really changed my outlook on what a hard class should be like. Before 11th grade, I was somewhat of a lazy student who just sat back in honors English and easily got good grades. The change from that to this year is huge and although I struggled in the beginning I was able to fully understand what kind of effort it took to be in this class.
My main piece of advice in order to do well in this class is to keep up with the work. It's so easy to get behind especially with all the other work from other classes. Said from experience, procrastination will do you no good in this class. I am one of the biggest procrastinators and to be honest I wish I paid more attention to the time that I devoted to my writing. For take home essays, you need to give yourself enough time to re read, proof read, and have others look at your essay. However, if you are able to stay on track and are going into see the teachers with questions or anything you need help on, you will do well. And by well I don't mean getting an A because in an AP course like Language and Composition that is very difficult. If you do get a B in this class don't be upset because it means you worked pretty hard and if you do happen to get an A that's even better. Honestly even a C isn't the end of the world, the class is a lot of work and there are many important things you will learn from it. If you want to get a good grade overall for the year make sure that you try your hardest from the beginning because every essay and assignment counts in the end.
The AP english teachers are very hard graders and although the grade you get on your first essay may be daunting, that's what makes this class such a valuable course because it pushes us as students. This course is meant to challenge us and make an impact on the skills that we have acquired so far. At first glance this course might seem like just a lot of unnecessary work but I am honestly telling you that all of it has helped me improve greatly throughout the year. This is reflected in the scores that I received towards the end of the year compared to my scores from early in the year. When I look back now, this year flew by so fast and it's crazy to think that I've learned and accomplished so much and that it's actually over. Don't dread the course, look forward to it because before you know it, it's going to be over. Enjoy it as much as you can!
Good Luck,
Jahnobi Das
