At the end of the fall semester, I felt so relieved that winter break finally arrived, but as break comes to an end, I realize there’s another semester just around the corner. Apart from thinking about the new semester of English III AP, reviewing the fall semester of English III brings back memories.
I found out that I had English III first period the day the juniors got their schedules. To be honest, I dreaded the thought of having English first period for the second time in my high school career. I had immediate flashbacks to freshman year when I had English I first period. English I Pre-AP consisted of the 8 sentence structured essay and memorizing the rules of fix-its. We would go through the rules for fix-its, edit our peers’ papers and look for fix-its, and we would get talks that if we used fix-its that would be one point off our essay.
All in all, having English first period was not at the top of my list; however, after enduring a semester of English III AP, each and every day of first semester, I appreciate having English first. Even though having English first period means that I cannot study throughout the day for the timed writings and book tests, getting the tests over with early in the morning makes up for it because it makes me feel relieved that I won’t have to worry about it for the rest of the day.
The key part of English III being better than English I and II is the discussions we have over each novel we read. I have walked out of the classroom on discussion days in awe when Lindner connects everything in the novel together. Starting with the placement of the three characters during the scaffold scene in the Scarlet Letter to the meaning of colors in The Gatsby with the egg and daisy flower. I am constantly mind blown when the whole novel connects together and makes semi-sense. Honestly during freshman and sophomore years of English I do not really remember why certain events occurred and how it connects with the novel.
Of course this semester I had ups and downs during the fall semester.
Overall, I think I improved with my blog post entries. Initially, I thought I was going to hate writing a blog post every week in fear of thinking that others will judge what I write; however, as more and more blog posts are assigned, I am more comfortable when others read my posts. Now, I like the blog post prompts and writing them; however on certain posts, it takes me hours to write, but once I finish writing one, I feel very accomplished and it makes my night better.
In contrast, I feel like I need to improve my timed writing skills a lot before the AP test in May. Initially, I thought timed writings in English III would be similar to ones we wrote in English II, but once we started discussing rhetorical analysis essays and then argumentation, everything was completely different. There is definitely room for improvement and to improve my timed writing score, I just need to practice more and more and maybe read some sample essays.
The first semester of English III has been a blast. The laid back feel with also getting work done in class made this semester fun. Hopefully next semester will be the same!
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