<p>I'd just like to take a little informal survey. Right now I'm taking AP English, which at my high school is supposed to prepare you for both the Language and Literature exams. The teacher is great, really enthusiastic and probably brilliant, and we sometimes have some pretty mind blowing discussions. The problem is, we do that everyday. It's beginning to feel like Sunday afternoon book club everyday, and I can't help but feeling like I haven't learned anything the whole year. </p>
<p>Now, we do read books and analyze poetry. I get something out of the class even if we don't "learn" in the traditional sense. But in many ways I think I could get more out of it if I just read the books and talked about with my friend or the teacher once a week. My writing hasn't improved. I haven't taken notes. I have no idea what is we cover that could possibly fill two exams. (Unless the exams mention a book title and say, "So, what do you think?")</p>
<p>I'm just curious if this is to be expected from AP English or not. Are you supposed to "learn" material in the class? Again, I'd be happy getting out of it what I do know, but I'd hate to be missing something valuable if it's in the curriculum.</p>
<p>you are definitely supposed to learn certain material for the Language exam - terms and whatnot - but those are things you can learn on your own. you should be fine, i think, as long as you get a review book.</p>
<p>if it makes you feel better, we just finished our first book in AP lit.</p>
<p>You should request that your teacher give you some old AP English exams so you can see for yourself what type of questions to expect.</p>
<p>Having a keen aptitude for literary analysis is of course helpful, though there are some "technical" things you'll need to know, such as literary devices like synecdoche and metonymy, as well perhaps recognizing the traits of different literary periods.</p>
<p>I took AP language last year and all we did was write a paper about once or twice a month (all outside of class). I didn't learn a thing. Before the test we worked on vocabulary, but most days in class was a complete waste of time. I would recommend definitely practicing the multiple choice questions on your own for the Language test if you don't cover it in class, and learn the structure of the synthesis essay. As for AP Literature, I'm in that class this yet. At my school it is much more intense than any other English class, mostly because of the sheer volume of reading. Since I haven't taken the Literature test I can't make too many recommendations, but I'd say be sure to read some of the books that come up frequently on the essays and take a practice test or two.</p>
<p>I took AP Lang. last year. I feel I didn't learn anything. In class, we ordered pizza, watched Lion King, did homework for other classes. We wrote essays once in a while, but I don't think my teacher ever even looked at them. And this year in AP Lit, we haven't really done anything so far. Most of the time we just sit around and play cards, and my teacher reads random books to us sometimes. </p>
<p>So yeah, it sounds like you are actually learning stuff in English AP. But if you feel like you are missing out on something, get a review book and do some practice tests.</p>
<p>I took AP Language last year and I'm taking Lit this year.
Last year we worked a lot with rhetorical strategies, devices, etc. The MC section of the Language exam was basically a more intense version of the SAT's critical reading, I thought, so as long as you're covering that kind of analysis/terms-type deal in your reading, you should be fine. Are you writing open responses? I found that those helped a lot - maybe ask your teacher if he/she could give some out in a while.</p>
<p>As for Lit, I haven't taken that exam yet, but right now we're reading Joseph Andrews (why I'm not sure, but I trust my teacher) and we finished Othello maybe a couple weeks ago. We talk about the books, but again, I don't really know how it might help except it makes us become more astute readers and we (at least, I do) pick up on things in the books. I don't know how to explain it, sorry. Like, we did poetry too, and we talked about what authors were trying to get across and hidden meanings, and we did a lot of explications too (like, X author brings up Y literary feature in order to deliver Z meaning and X does so by using Q rhetorical strategy).</p>
<p>Ugh, that was a bad explanation. I'm sorry; I'm a little tired and my brain can't form a clear description. Hope this helped anyway :/</p>
<p>At my school, there are two English Lang. AP teachers. One makes students write essays almost everyday, they read a ton of books and discuss them intensely. The other one (mine) makes her students do pretty much nothing. Both groups of students pass the AP at the same (very high) rate. I think most of the people who would do badly are weeded out by self-selection and the fact that for entry into my school, one must pass a test and even out of those who do, many are kicked out in the first few years (6 year high school). Even though I have a crap teacher, I'm not worried about the AP, nor is anyone else in my class. I think that if you know you're going to do well, you know you're going to do well, no matter what your teacher does.</p>
<p>So it sounds like other people's classes are similar. It's a little unsettling spending 45 minutes in a class to not learn anything, but hey, it's a good time and I'm not complaining about the lack of work.</p>
<p>This seems like something I've noticed in all my English classes. The goals of English classes are so undefined, that it just ends up being a book chat. That's fine, but I sometimes come out of the class feeling no smarter than when I walked in. Does anybody else get frustrated with this?</p>
<p>I think even if you don't feel smarter at the end of the class, it doesn't mean that in the long run you won't be a better English student. Sometimes I leave class with nothing but a few interesting insights, but I think that's useful too - and perhaps even more so than learning 10 new vocab words or something of that sort.</p>