First Semester

AP English Literature and Composition has been one of my favorite classes this year by far. One of the parts I loved from the first semester of AP Lit was the discussion on philosophy that spanned several class periods. I have always been interested in philosophy, but I didn't know anything about existentialism, and I found it a very enthralling topic. I found the short story unit to be surprisingly fun. I didn't think I liked short stories, but this unit definitely changed my mind about that. Also, I love all of the reading that we do. I know that should kind of be a given with the whole AP "Literature" thing, but reading is one of my passions, and this class certainly fulfills that to a great extent.

I have been frustrated by something this semester, however: the outside reading essays/assignments. I love reading, and I happily read many books on my own outside of school, so the fact that reading was assigned was not a big deal to me. However, I was not a big fan of the essays that came with it. I understand that we need to practice writing, but I think we should be trusted to read our books without having to be tested over them (though I see the obvious problem with this).

We have already been informed that next semester the outside reading has changed, and I like the new format more than the last one. I still dislike the fact that we are being tested over our books by writing an essay, but I like the idea of reading books in order to answer some kind of discussion question. I very much look forward to the unit on novels next semester as well.

As a final note, I really love the blog posts idea. It can be hard to come up with good topics every week, but I like writing like this for fun on a topic of our choice. It's relaxing and a fun exercise.

This video is unrelated, but awesome. So here ya go!