TOW Post #30- Letter to a New APELC Student

Tuesday June 5, 2014

        Dear New APELC Student,

                  Welcome to the hardest year of high school, and one of the hardest classes in the school! Nah I'm just kidding, although not about Junior year being pretty difficult...but don't worry, I'll at least be able to give you a few tips about APELC. Oh, let me just get this out of the way. I had many APUSH friends this year who were not taking AP English and would call this course "APENG" as in Advanced Placement English. It makes sense, yeah, but we don't call it that. It's actually called APELC, standing for Advanced Placement English Literature and Composition (the APUSH kids don't know any better). But anyway, say goodbye to fiction everything; you will be reading non-fiction 99.99% of the time during this course, even your IRB will need to be non-fiction. To tell you the truth I hated non-fiction books ever since elementary school, but now that I was older I got to explore more books of my interest, and I actually fell in love with reading non-fiction; that's all I read now! Not only will you be reading non-fiction, you will be reading a lot in general. I'm talking about pages of non-fiction pieces, sometimes they are boring but sometimes they aren't. The key thing here is to not wait until the last minute to read these assignments...because you won't be able to do it! Everyone says, "Oh AP English is so hard and just an unmanageable amount of work is given, I'm not taking that!" Whoever says that is wrong, and obviously you are not one of those people because you are here now reading my letter! But actually Mr. Yost gives you three meetings sometimes more (depending on the length) to read these assignments, so please break up the assignment into sections, leaving an extra day to re-read the assignment. Yes, RE-READ the assignment. Although this is not a requirement but it's a very important skill and suggestion. Considering that not all of the readings will be easy to get on the first read, you should re-read it so you have a better understanding and can contribute to class discussions. Also take meaningful notes. For everything you read, besides your IRB, you are going to be note-making. Note-making can be consisted of highlighting, underlining, and writing important things that come to mind while reading, such as the Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone....that's going to be your most important acronym and is the backbone throughout this course. You can also note-make on rhetorical devices. It was funny because in other classes whenever I was reading something I was note-making even though it wasn't a requirement; it becomes a very helpful skill.

                  Besides reading, you will be doing a lot of writing! If you don't like writing you better get used to it. On the APELC Exam you will be writing three essays: Analysis, Argument, and Synthesis. If you have no idea on how one of these or any of these essays work, don't fret Mr. Yost will be teaching a whole marking period for each kind of essay, and you do a lot of practices. Oh by the way these are timed essays; you must finish in 40 minutes! Honestly when I heard about these timed essay that we were going to do, I was so nervous. But after the third one it's a breeze, you will be well prepared and have had a lot of practice before the exam. Sometimes your timed essays will be graded; although it made me really nervous, Mr. Yost and Ms. Pronko give back great advice! Mr. Yost even has office hours (just like college professor) if you want to talk about your essay or any other classwork. And when Mr. Yost and Ms. Pronko tell you that they are available to talk about and make some suggestions about your T.H.E (Take Home Essay..self explanatory) do not hesitate nor waste time!!! I wish I took advantage of that I opportunity much more. Also another thing about hesitation... you will often have a lot of class discussion where you can raise your hand to participate...don't be the person to never raise your hand, because they will call on you eventually. Don't be afraid to share your thought or answer, the nice thing is that Mr. Yost is not like a lot of teachers where if you are wrong they will say a blunt "No." Mr. Yost will let you down easy and try to swerve you in the right direction or even sometimes tie in your answer... somehow. So don't be afraid!

                 So this letter was one of our last assignments for this class; a TOW Post writing a letter to next year's APELC student. TOW stands for Text Of the Week, and this is something you will be doing every week and needs to be up on your blog by Sunday night at 11:59pm. These post may seem like a drag, because they were often annoying throughout the year, but they allow you to practice your rhetorical analysis skills through out the year, so you wouldn't have lost that skill by the time the APELC Exam, considering Analysis is what you most likely will be focusing on now/beginning of the year. Since I have referred to it a couple of times I'll tell you a little about it. The APELC Exam is going to be in May and you will be answering about 50-60 isn questions on reading passages and then write three timed essays. That's it. It may seem like a lot but what prepares you the most for that day is this entire course and the MOCK Exam...what's that? Well it's what it sounds like. This exam "mocks" or copies the APELC Exam format, accept it is accounted towards your grade. I was more nervous for the MOCK than for the actual APELC Exam. It will be referenced to throughout this entire course and it will be here before you know it, yet both of them fly by pretty fast. 

                  Grades grades grades. I'm sure grades are, well have been, the most important thing to you especially if you are a student taking an advanced class. I will tell you this, on the first unit test you take, do not be upset if you get a C or even a low B. It's okay. I am sure you will end up with a B for the marking period because that test is one of the many grades that will be put into sapphire. I will be honest this is a challenging course, but as long as you are organized, manage your time will, and (this should even be a problem but..) complete your work, your grades will be fine! Two more things...projects and grammar. At the end of each unit you will be assigned a group project. And this is not your ordinary group project, you most likely will be analyzing and SOAPStoning a piece of writing as a group. Then you are responsible for presenting to the class with a powerpoint presentation on what you have read and analyzed. These are not so bad they have to be around 8 to 10 minute long, this will get easier as the year goes on. Lastly you will be doing grammar. Ms. Pronko is in charge of this. She will come to do grammar about every block day and you will have homework, but it won't be do until the next block day. That pretty much sums up this course. The most import things to remember is: manage your time, go for help when needed and when offered, re- read, everything you do in class is going to help you for the exam (it's not just busy work), and in the end your grade will be an A or a B...if you listened to all of what I just told you. I wish you luck, not only for this course, but for your junior year overall...you are almost done!!! Don't give up!

Sincerely Your Experienced Ex- APELC Student,

Jessica Thelemaque

TOW Post #29- Documentary Rhetorical Analysis

            There are many problems in the world today, including hunger, the middle class, debt, and many other problems. Yet luckily the United States is not suffering with many of these problems unlike third world countries. So one might think that the United States doesn't have many or close to any problems. Yet there is one problem that is lurking under the American soil, and this happens to be educations. It may seem like our education system is perfect, yet truth be told it certainly is not.  In the documentary Waiting for Superman the director explains just this problem; the education system in America is not the best that it can be. Hence the title "Waiting for Superman" it is as if the children and students of America are waiting for a hero and or a solution to fixing this education system, thus ultimately leading to graduating successful and prosperous students. The argument that the American education school system needs to be fixed is precise considering the many problems that have came up in the news, data shown in the documentary, and personal experience.
              On the news unfortunately, finding good new is rare, most of the time the news is bad or sad and just plain upsetting. Recently on the news there was a school where teachers were caught cheating. The were four female teachers that had changed many answers to many students tests and had kept this among themselves. the Education system regarding the hiring, needs to reevaluate how teachers are chosen and what should be looked for. Because these teachers were clearly not acceptable as a teacher, affected many students grades and perhaps even their process and confidence in learning. Teachers like those women need to be weeded out of schools in order for the students to receive and honest and quality education.
              Shocking data was used to support the director of the documentary's argument that the education system in America needs to be fixed. When talking about the actually benefits of charter schools and public schools they mentioned that “only 17% of charter schools have better test scores than traditional public schools, 46% had gains that were no different than their district counterparts, and 37% were significantly worse.” The fact that this statistic exists, it is ashamed. Not only is our education not broken up for what makes sense, many students are getting cheated. This can be the cause of lack of effort by an employee/teacher, not equal attention, and lack of supplies. Also the documentary brings to light that many of the children who go through “dropout factories” are more likely to drop out and head to a prison than graduate form high school. 

               Unfortunately I have experienced one of the flaws in the American education. No where near some of the bigger problems but it sure a contribution. In high school, one of the most critical stage of the education track before college, every class counts and every grade counts, especially if one wants to get in to a good college. I have witnessed some teachers though out my high school years who  do not care enough when they are teaching. In some cases teachers only care about those who are on track and give up on the one who might need an extra push. Teachers who don't go the extra mile is small problem in the system yet can lead to bad affects down the road, such as students going through the "dropout factory."

                Data has shown that America has begun to fall behind in the education process. Many countries are ahead of many of the students in America, one country being China. I such a competitive world that we live in today, where education is one of the most important keys to success, America needs to reevaluate and take the appropriate actions to fixing the education system.