Quarter 4 Reflection

I am proud to have taken AP Literature this year. I succeeded in the course and received the ‘Most Likely to Get a 5’ award to symbolize my hard work. When I first started the course I was not sure that I could handle the coursework, but after taking the course I have discovered the work is doable.

The quarterly essays tested my ability to plan a successful paper and think outside the box. I was taught the most helpful tool, OCEC, which has greatly improved my writing. By starting by getting back to back sevens on the essays and then getting an eight on the final paper, I know my writing has improved. Developing a new idea in the conclusion is also a new tool I learned throughout the course. The new idea leaves the reader thinking about the content of the paper, unlike if the paper’s conclusion only restated the thesis. One final tool I learned that better my writing this year is changing my passive, past tense voice to an active, present tense voice. Using the passive voice is something I did unconsciously before and by making the revision I have noticed that the writing reads better. Other than learning new writing tools, I like the Socratic seminars, where I could discuss my thoughts about a novel or play and gain new ideas from my peers. This ultimately helped my papers because I had more than one mind writing the final paper.

Despite the likes of improving my writing this year, I have dislikes. The biggest dislike is the books being copied on paper to form what looks like a stack of copy paper. The copied books are uninviting and do not allow the comfort that a regular book does. My pages often got mixed up or I would read the pages out of order. This is what should be changed in the course. Even though I know that forty minute timed writes help with the AP Exam, I didn’t like them. By the end of the timed write I would my thoughts we’re jumbled even with the adequate planning. I also wished I could rewrite it to add in more details I thought of after reading the writing back. I know that the timed writes cannot be changed to be taken out of the course; I can only learn to improve my timed writes by writing more of them.

The AP Literature course has prepared me for college writing and reading. The entire course is a tool I will continue to use in the imminent future.