So I’m a freshman at the moment, and my next years’ classes are:
French II, Honors Pre Calculus, Honors Biology, Honors Algebra II, Holocaust, Making and Marketing, and AP Language
(I’m taking algebra II semester 1 and pre-calc semester 2 since you have to finish algebra II in order to do pre-calc)
I’m a little worried about my AP class. I’ve heard a lot of people say AP Language is really hard, but others say it’s super easy with the right teacher. I’m usually good at English classes, but I’m scared it will stress me out a bunch with all the honors classes as well.
In any of your guys’ experience, what is AP Language like? If you were in my position, would you take it or switch into the regular English 10 (which they’re skipping me from in order to do AP Lang.)?
If it affects anything, I’m a high honors student and have straight A’s so I should be smart enough.
If you skip English 10 to take AP English language and literature early, will you be able to take higher level English electives in 12th grade in order to get “4 years of English” that some colleges look for? English is not as strongly level-based as math or foreign language, so colleges are more likely to want to see an actual 4 years of course work rather than assuming that completing the highest level implies knowing the lower levels.
Our school requires 4 years of English, and AP Language is what most students who do well in English (almost half the class) take in 10th grade. Based on what you wrote, this would be your placement.
The workload probably depends on the teacher, it wasn’t overwhelming but there was a lot of reading and writing. I think most students got 4s and 5s, so it was certainly adequate prep for the exam. FWIW, colleges differ greatly in the credit they give for this with most of the more selective offering none. If that’s a consideration, it may not matter if you take it.
I would say that you should do it. Your other reading classes don’t look like they will take a lot out of you.
I’m a junior in AP English Lang right now, and I actually didn’t even know you were allowed to take this course in sophomore year at some schools (you have to be a junior to take it at mine), but I highly recommend it as long as you have college level or really advanced English electives after AP English Lit in junior year. I’m definitely biased because I have wanted to major in English and Creative Writing since I was a little kid, but I have a blast with it. It’s very different from other classes of English that you are used to because there is a lot of non-fiction reading, studying of strategies of persuasion, and a lot of philosophy involved, but because it is supposed to be a college composition class, you get to write very often, which definitely improves your writing skill. On top of this, the differences of this course compared to other English courses make it exciting and interesting at every moment.
The only thing I would add that you need to watch out for is that AP Lang’s difficulty varies highly with the teacher. If we use my school as an example, one of the Lang teachers has severe grade deflation, giving nearly all students a B or C on writings with incredibly low As (writing is 50% of our grade) and gives very challenging tests (40%). He also almost never gives extra credit. As someone who has had him this year, he has given extra credit only three times this year, and all of them except one were of very minuscule value. The other Lang teacher does grade as harshly as this teacher, but she offers a lot of in-class debates as a test and quiz grade and a lot of extra credit creative writings which significantly boost all the students’ grades. This made it so that the amount of kids with the first scenario teacher almost never have As in the course while there are more than five people I can name on the top of my head who have really high As with second scenario teacher. If you are cautious about the difficulty, I would ask around about how a teacher grades writings, what he/she looks for in a piece, the style of testing, and how likely they are to give grade boosts. To be fair, this applies to pretty much any course, but I feel that a lot of humanities courses tend to have this sort of issue.
Because you’re doing well in past English courses, I highly recommend this course in 11th grade if you realize that you will not be able to take any extra English courses after AP English Lit in 11th grade.
Have a nice day.
It really depends on the school and the teacher. For example in AP Lit in our school the teacher assigns 22 essays and 35 1 page literary analysis in 1 school year and like majority of the class don’t tend to get As on the essays. Ask upperclassmen about the topic. I know a local magnet high school (Troy) that also allows you to do that, but it just depends on the teacher.
Why take AP Lang as a sophomore? Why not take Honors English and then take AP lang as a junior year?
No college expects you to “get ahead” in English.