<p>I basically signed up for it cuz a bunch of my friends told me that its easy, all you do is read and discuss books. But for some reason i started to think that it might be a really tough class for me, since english is not my first language, and i'm not that diligent at all. How hard is it really? I've actually never taken an honors or ap lang class before. Stupid, i know, but its too late to step back at least for me. Can i start oiling the rope, or is it not all that bad?
PS sorry ... kinda spontaneous ... freaking out</p>
<p>I think my AP Literature class was the most useful class that I've ever taken, and I would recommend it if you were at my school just because the teacher is just amazing even though she's a little crazy. But I know of a bunch of kids who were in my class who struggled because they had never been in any APs or honors, so I guess it's just up to how much you want to put into it. APs are cool though :)</p>
<p>It really depends on your teacher. At my school it was probably the HARDEST course in the school. The teacher expected a lot out of the students. We would write 3-4 essays every week and her grading was tough.</p>
<p>I did learn a lot, so I know that will go with me. If English isn't a stong subject for you then I wouldn't recommend it. You get out of it what you put in it.</p>
<p>For me it was pretty impossible, but that's because we had the most ridiculous teacher ever. We only read six books and plays [The Joy Luck Club, Crime and Punishment, Metamorphosis, Hamlet, Song of Solomon, and The Storyteller], and she was very keen on showing us, get this, three different movie versions of Hamlet [Kenneth Branagh, Ethan Hawke, and the really old one filmed on stage] and she based many of the tests on the last chapter of the books [so after a while everyone just read the last chapter [or spark notes] and that was it]. Plus, she filled much of the class conversation with ridiculous tangents about pass stories which she claimed had relevance to the topic at hand. Also, there had been two AP classes, and she had totally favored the 4th peroid class, thus we pretty much hated her. So pretty much it was a horrible experience, though it should be funny to see how we fare on the AP test, though I expect most of the class to get good grades since many of them are very strong in english/lit [seven perfect sat scores in verbal and four in writing in the two AP classes]</p>
<p>On the other hand, I found it incredibly easy. My teacher had us read 8 books (Othello, The Awakening, A Doll's House, Bartleby, 1984, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Great Gatsby, plus one out of class book.) I know my teacher, at least, would pretty much give us the symbols and everything, and we would tell him what we thought the significance was, and what it meant. So we really didn't have to do much nitpicking like that. Our tests were based off of either one discussion we'd had in class or the entire book, so it was kind of unpredictable and we actually would have to read most of the book (though I do admit to having stopped reading halfway through a lot of the books I mentioned before and still managed to get an A+ all 4 marking periods.) But again, it really depends on the teacher. Considering that english isn't your first language, you might have a bit of trouble if you're not 100% comfortable with older works, but I think you should be fine.</p>
<p>AP Lit is by far the hardest class in my school, but it is also the most rewarding. For the first two months we had essays either every night or every other night (it was called essay bootcamp). After that we had a longer essay every other week after reading a book. Even though it requires a lot of effort, I loved the class and when you compare my writing before and after the class there really is a huge difference. For my class we read tons of short stories(essay bootcamp material), then a bunch of poetry (we had poetry bootcamp too), Hamlet, Crime and Punishment, David Copperfield, The Secret Life of Bees, The Importance of Being Earnest, Candide, Beloved, Turn of the Screw, Emma, and I think there were a few others that I cant remember right now. Personally I think you could do fine in the class, you just have to be willing to work hard and put in all the effort you can.</p>
<p>So slacking off even a little bit in this class generally means failing it? Well, i'm sure i could use some self-determination training, so to say, before college :)
About reading. Did you guys read a lot of stuff written by russian authors? if any at all. I know Dostoevskiy wrote Crime and Punishment.</p>
<p>Uh we sort of ad to read a lot of Russian authors, but it was only for a summer thesis. Because I know that I had to read Gogol's Dead Souls and Doestoevsky's Notes from Underground, and others had to read Doestoevsky's Brothers Karamazov and Doestovesky's The Idiot, so..</p>
<p>Dead Souls = the most boring book that has a good idea. Bu the way, Gogol is Ukrainian ;)</p>
<p>dima, in my class we didn't read anything by russian authors.</p>
<p>Ah, why don't you guys read Bulgakov? Master and Margarita, Dog's Heart -- very interesting books. I read them in Russian, not sure about quality of English translations.</p>
<p>well the one thing you can do to help yourself is do the reading. do the reading in advance if possible. it'll help you. and if you ever have problems don't hesitate to go to your teacher, english teachers are usually the kinds who are willing to talk to you</p>
<p>Oh sorry, very true though, the premise of Dead Souls is pretty interesting, but it's pretty bad, especially the 2nd book.</p>
<p>Dog's Heart is awesome! I'm pretty sure a lot of sayings and phrases cannot be traslated at all. Read it in russian too, multiple times - its one of my favorite classic books.
In Dead Souls he drags a lot of one-sentence things for pages. Its just the way most of the old russian authors are, especially Tolstoy</p>
<p>Tolstoy also has lots of inclusions in French in his compositions such as the "War and Peace." Bulgakov, however, is showing his love to German culture. Not to mention numbers of German quotations and speech, the whole "Master and Margarita" is very similar to Goethe's "Faust."</p>
<p>From other Russian literature I strongly recommend Ilf and Petrov's books; Respublika SHKID; and many others, it's very hard to remember all of them right away.</p>
<p>the class was tough, the exam was tough but it works out in the end. if you put in the effort and enjoy the course you'll end up with a good grade and a 5. it was by far my favourite class this year.</p>
<p>Ilf and Petrov's two most famous and, well, two best books are The Twelve Chairs and The Golden Calf :) lets not forget the two masterpieces of russian comic novel</p>
<p>yeah, you can throw in some of Chekhov's works too :)</p>
<p>Well, I forgot other authors, not the books :) It is nearly impossible to forget those books as I've read them many times. Quotations from those books are also very popular.
Another, very interesting exemplar of Ilf and Petrov's compositions is Little Golden America, in literal translation: One-storeyed America.</p>