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Normal V Honors V AP
Normal vs Honors vs AP. It’s the worst kind of intellectual sibling rivalry. The normal classes are looked at as slackers. Perhaps as even the troublemakers. The Honors kids are middle of the road, not wanting the work of AP and wanting some kind of intellectual prestige and to escape the ‘trouble’ of the normal classes. The AP kids? The super achievers, the good kids, the college bound ones, the advanced kids… Alright, sure, I’ll bite. Now can you tell me why my class acts so (delightfully) insane?
I’ve been in all three kinds. In English at least. 9th grade English with Mrs. Schrader, to be truthful, was probably the most fun English I’ve had in high school, outside Creative Writing but that’s a different story. The class wasn’t that incredibly bad, student wise. Sure, they acted up. What class doesn’t? It was a class, necessary for graduation that none of them had a choice about picking, it was a credit. I happened to be there, happened to enjoy English, but these kids were just trying to get by and maybe make class a little less boring for themselves. I didn’t have a problem with it. We still got to watch the ridiculous new version of Romeo and Juliet and to read the Odyssey.
The first thing I have to say about Honors 10 was that we got yelled at a lot more. If memory serves, privileges taken away, seats carefully assigned, groups separated. It didn’t work, though, the kids who wouldn’t stop talking when sitting next to one another weren’t about to let the length of a room stop them. The thing about the AP/Honors kids? There aren’t that many, and they tend to be in a lot of the same classes throughout their years of high school, and that either makes for close friendships throughout a class or for strong hatred. I’m not sure which can be worse. Regardless, we harassed Ms. Restrick through the year of stumbling through Hamlet and The Joy Luck Club. I haven’t seen her again to ask, but I don’t think we did so bad, even though the class, on a whole, behaved a lot worse than the freshman class. I’ll admit, too, that the work was more challenging in Honors, more interesting than the simple worksheets from 9th grade that took me all of three to five minutes to do, but took the class almost half the period. Not sure if that was because of their goofing around or not. On the downside? There was a lot more group work. Like when we teamed up to do skits and presentations from Hamlet. Personally, I’m not a group work person, so I didn’t like that about Honors.
So, here I am this year in AP English 11. Yet again, it’s a very different class structure. Mostly the same kids from last year though, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Yupp, they seem to talk more than ever, but, really, if that’s what works for them, I’m still okay with that. I also like having a class that knows what I’m like, that won’t take my sarcasm to heart. (Right guys?) Also classmates that will challenge what I say, force me to be a better writer, to explain and argue better, I like that. That’s how you learn fast and well, being goaded along. Getting practice. The class is all about language and composition, how to use your words to effectively persuade a point. As the teacher can’t be hovering over each student’s shoulder and pointing things out, having a room full of classmates that’ve known you for a couple of years isn’t such a bad thing. And, let’s face it, there are just some things that other students can say better than a teacher ever can. Yes, the class gets yelled at for talking, especially since that chatting isn’t usually about the writing, we’ve gotten split up in every way imaginable throughout the year, but what do they say? There’re only some things that are certain: death, taxes, and that teenagers will talk.
And though, again, the work is done more freely, making you feel just a little more like a responsible college student (hope you’re up to it), it doesn’t strike me as very hard. I thought AP would be a harder challenge. Yes, it’s more in depth, but I think that’s all there is to it. Do I feel tested? Mostly by the looming AP test and the fact that my teacher knows what kind of stuff I can turn out and gets on me if I’m performing below standard or being lazy. And I do have to hand it to Ms. Christ, she catches me.
School paper.
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