Being in AP English

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I'm actually in AP English Language class, when I think I shouldn't be. But in preparations for college, I've got some of the experience.

First off, this book is basically the life of my AP class. It's always read two essays, do SOAPSTs on them, and talk about them during the class.

These essays aren't just in one category. There's multiple, of course. From Narration to Research.

Attention span can wear out pretty easily with these. I don't find most of them entertaining, but apparently, they don't have a specific purpose of entertaining, so I'm not going to win on this one. Some of these are genuinely interesting; but only the sarcastic ones or the people you can make fun of.

But what are SOAPSTs?

I'll never know if other schools do this, but my teacher does. He teaches AP Language at my school and College English classes, so obviously, the guy knows what he's doing and should be listened to.

(But we all know we get lazy and don't listen.)

SOAPSTs is an acronym.

Speaker

Occasion

Audience

Purpose

Subject

Tone

You have to write these down and identify them in each essay, and we get two essays at a time (or all six if you do them last minute. All of us in the classes are guilty of it). Audience, Purpose, and Tone need to be fully developed essay, in which support of the text is needed.

My teacher calls it a triangle: In any order, in a corner, there's Audience, Purpose, and Tone. Each of these relate to each other so it's supposedly supposed to help you determine each.

Personally, sometimes it works and most the time I'm just as clueless as the next.

But it's not really hard. SOAPSTs are really just to teach you that you need to start recognizing these categories within a text; so you're prepared for essay week, or you AP exams/essays.

These teach you how to develop what you think; examples are everything. Don't ever plagarize or just state something. When you use examples, state the source, state who the author is, and/or use quotations. Quotations are your best friend, in my opinion. It's the actual text; all you have to do is explain.

Then there's essay week.

The whole week is dedicated to writing three essays of a certain category. I can't remember the category of my first essay week, and I don't want to. I had major panic attacks during the period that I could barely manage to get through them. I still get those attacks now, but at least I develop something. So far, last marking period was synthesis essays and this marking period's analytical. My teacher's right; the analytical ones are actually really hard to do, well, in my case. I didn't do so hot on them.

On your essays, your score ranges from 0 (which seems literally impossible. I wrote an intro and half a first paragraph and got a 3) all the way to nine. And to get a nine is like "DEAR GOD PRAISE THE JESUS." I've gotten an 8, and I'm proud of it. It was talking about the government so... a lot of sass and sarcasm went into it. Usually a five is okay but a six and higher is better. 

Did I mention you have to write in pen only?

If your teacher is fantastic enough to give you packets and papers of info on your essay's category, READ UP ON THEM. ESPECIALLY the use of rhetorical devices. Those come in handy so much, it'll be your bible. Then you'd have NO excuse NOT to get a six or higher. (But not all of us like to read. . .)

When it comes to AP, it's mostly discussion. Heck yeah, our classes lack this! Some of us feel intimidated to talk; identifying audience, purpose, and tone and sharing it scared ME if I'm wrong. The thesis as well. The thesis is the main idea plus claim. Sometimes in these essays they're stated and you have to find them, otherwise, you have to take the essay and make up what you think it is. A lot of us don't have this skill when we should because lots of us don't read often. Seriously. It's not much, read it. Discussing can be hard, especially with anxiety and intimidation, but soon you'll realize once the teacher looks at you, talk. Or the whole class could suffer with extra work you have no knowledge of and all fail.

You also have those essay-projects. Has your normal English teachers ever told you to write a story? Basically that's what you do in a sense . . . Just follow the category. So far, we've written a Narrative and a Compare Contrast. 88% on my Narrative and a big fat IDK for my Compare Contrast. If your teacher offers to read it over, go ahead and get embarrassed, but let them do it.

(For my Compare Contrast, he just looked at me and said, "I have no idea what this is."
... so I went "I have no idea, either." and changed my topic before deadline... DID YOU KNOW THE FIRST CELL PHONE BACK THEN IS EQUIVALENT TO THE COST OF $10,000 TODAY?!)

Really, the class is not hardworking at all. It's AP. You need to work it all out yourself and manage your own time.

I think a lot of people can go into AP Language from my experience. But with rumours of AP Lit... no thanks.

Anyway, if this was helpful to anyone, good luck!

~FlaMinhoe