Weekly Blog #4: AP Composition So Far

To start, I feel it very necessary to note that the idea for the topic of this post should be completely credited to Elise Gehrke. I do not, by any means, want to be considered a copier, but I really enjoyed her blog (read it!), and it got me thinking a lot about how I feel about this course thus far. Plus, it's been a really rough weekend (/week/month/season/year), and my brain is just out of creative juices at the moment.

Still, making weekly blog posts like this has actually been one of my favorite parts about this class. Aside from this week, a part of me is always a little bit eager to get the chance to come up with my own topic to discuss on here. I get excited everytime I see that I have a new blog comment, but it's a relief to know that no one can interrupt me when I'm actually typing and that I have time to think about what I want to say instead of feeling rushed to come up with something before the point I want to make becomes irrelevant. I also like reading everyone else's thoughts too! In a way, it makes me feel closer to everyone because I know that people outside our class don't get the chance to read these things.

I also really like reading the articles for this class. It's been an interesting way for me to see all the different writing styles that are out there while also getting a look at a wide range of topics. The only thing that sometimes bums me out with that is that I'll get really interested in one of the ideas or events discussed in an essay only to find that we don't really talk about it, go back to it, or build off of it. Nevertheless, I know the class is supposed to be about reading and writing, so I will just have to be grateful for the lead into a subject that this class allows and leave the deeper learning for my free time.

Discussions have been. . .a little nuts. That's alright though. I like them that way, and we have gotten better with them (or maybe it was just Peter's article. . .ha). One thing I'm still a little iffy about as far as discussing essays goes is how what other people say affects me. It seems like a lot of the time I go into class thinking about one thing and come out thinking about a completely different thing. It's not necessarily that I change my mind as much as it is that I have found out that other people in the class notice different things in articles than I do, and I'm still deciding how I feel about that. Part of me likes hearing about what other people picked up on, but, at the same time, part of me gets concerned about why I missed things in the first place.

However, the thing that is quite possibly the most concerning thing I deal with in AP Composition is doing timed writings. So far in this blog I'm mentioned the things about the class that I like, but I am definitely leaving timed writings out of that mix. We've only done two of those bad boys, and already I can see that they're going to continue to give me trouble. I have yet to finish one within the forty minutes we're supposed to be allowed, and, similarly, I have yet to find out if I'm doing them correctly. I just hope I don't have to wait to find that out until he grades one!