Assignment 26 - Lia Jacobs

I should start by saying that I wasn't a huge fan of the content of this course, but I still think that overall you did a good job teaching it. Writing essays has never been my cup of tea, though I'd like to think I'm not completely terrible at doing so. I much prefer English classes that focus more on the technical details like Mr. Lentz's class. With that being said, take my advice lightly because I'm probably not the best representation of the popular opinion.

I'll start off with the things I liked. Definitely an unpopular opinion, but I actually really enjoyed the summer reading you assigned us. Usually I dread reading any book that I don't choose to on my own, but I found the content really interesting. I enjoyed how laid back the class was, it wasn't crazily structured and even though I didn't participate as often as I probably should've, I enjoyed listening to the endless banter between my classmates. Though not my favorite activity, the timed writings and subsequent group peer reviews were really helpful and helped me gain a better understanding of what the rubrics actually meant. I also liked most of the visual literacy projects, though I never really understood the connection to the class's content.

Now things I didn't like so much. I feel like parts of the class are structured in a way that benefits talkative people the most. During most of the Socratic seminars, I had plenty to say but was frequently talked over or felt like my opinions would be met with a bit too much criticism to be worth those extra points. Also, I feel like there's a more productive way to help students understand what they need to do to write a good essay for each of the three categories. We spent a lot of time going over the AP rubric and sample responses, but that was a little too repetitive, and I honestly still couldn't tell you what it means to have your evidence support a line of reasoning. Before the AP test, I was asking some friends who aren't in the academy how their teachers explained it to them and it seemed more direct and structured which I think could've helped a lot of people. I think the way you taught us gave us more freedom while we wrote which was appreciated, but when peer-reviewing some essays (including my own) it seemed like sometimes there was a bit too much freedom and a more direct explanation of what we actually needed to be writing would've helped.

I hope that didn't come off as harsh as I'm now seeing my suggestions were a bit longer than I anticipated. Overall I enjoyed your class, it's relaxed nature, and your many attempts to make our year a bit less stressful were much appreciated. (Side note: Sorry I'm turning these in late, I did not realize there were blog posts I had missed until you told us about this last one)