June 10, 2014
Dear Incoming APELC Student,
I’ll
be brutally honest. APELC is not for the faint of heart. You’ll start
out with worse grades than most of you have ever had. You’ll work really
hard just to increase one
score on the essay scale, not necessarily even for the A. You’ll stress
over presentations and over perfecting essays. You’ll have some weeks
where you’re swamped with readings. That being said, I have learned more
from this class than any other in my life. Don’t let the talk scare
you. You can most definitely do it. Not only will you learn how to
really write, but you will learn how to approach harder school work.
This class is a true AP in that it prepares you for college like no
other. In finishing this course, I have an advantage over students in
honors or academic classes. My writing has improved in leaps and bounds
and I have a new-found confidence in my abilities as a student. I want
you to leave this year with that confidence as well. My experiences are
as follows:
I
started coming into the year with a summer essay that I thought was
amazing. I had both my parents edit it and I must’ve made at least 4
different drafts of it. I ended up getting a 74%. As of that moment,
that was the worst grade I had ever received on an essay. And I worked so hard,
at least ten times as hard as I had ever worked in honors. That scared
me a lot. In the next weeks we learned about how to rhetorically
analyze, something that was completely new to me. However, I was finding
it was applicable in almost every other subject area. As the middle of
the year approached, I was stuck at getting a 5 on the AP scale. All of
my essays received the same score, which was extremely frustrating.
Finally, (and I’m not even sure which essay this was), I got a 6. I was
honestly so happy, and a 6 isn’t even an A. I really felt like my
writing was improving. As the year went along, we learned different
styles, we analyzed different pieces and we discussed advertisements.
Later, we learned about constructing arguments, and fallacies not to
commit. The Socrates symposium was intellectually challenging but fun.
The timed essays got easier. Honestly, a lot of it is a blur now.
When
I finally sat for my AP English Exam, I was confident there was nothing
more Mr. Yost could have done to prepare us. We knew exactly how the
exam was going to work, we had done countless practice multiple choice
passages, and we had written a timed essay almost every other week for
the entire duration of the school year. I’m here at the end of my year
in APELC knowing that I learned so much. Yes, I am still concerned with
getting an A, and I’m right on the border between an A and a B. I got an
84 first marking period, so, it can be done. But, even if I get the B,
I’m proud of myself for enduring the challenge that is APELC.
I
know people who dropped APELC in the first few weeks because they let
the talk and the beginning of their year stress them out. Incoming APELC
Student, please don’t make the stupid (for lack of a better word)
mistake that they did. If you quit now, you’ll be giving up a year full
of improvement and college preparation. You’ll be giving up an
infinitely more beneficial year than another year of Honors English (and
who wants to read books like Like Water for Chocolate
and analyze for themes for a whole other year). If you quit now, you’ll
regret not taking AP. Because everyone can do it, but only some people
have the heart and perseverance to.
Good luck,
Julie Silverman
P.S. Please find me come to me with any questions!
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