AP Classes

Ha Ha…my AP classes. Since the writing portion of the AP test counts for so much of your grade, my high school teachers harped on this idea. Over and over again we would write thesis statements. This was particularly brutal. I, for reasons unknown to me had…trouble keeping my thesis sentence under four lines long. Instead of generally summarizing, I tried to take my topic sentences and combine them into one huge unrecognizable sentence. I don’t think these classes were as significant as my Honors English class in ninth grade. I do not know how I made it in to honors, but I wanted the “honors” part for my transcripts, so I was happy. My teacher, Mr. DeHass made me fall in love with writing. He allowed the class the freedom to be creative and actually (from the Murray reading) find our voice. It was after this that I began (and still am) learning to control what I say and how I say it so my point comes across. I really liked his class. Anyways, I really learned that whole structure thing through the AP classes I was taking, but my whole thesis issue became more apparent in my junior year with my AP Language teacher, whose name I am blanking on. He was also the play director each semester. I was never sure he liked me. But man he tore apart my essays, in particular my thesis. My friends would congregate and lunch and talk about how miserable his grading made us. I must have done…seven rewrites before he okayed my thesis to move on to the rest of the ten page paper covering Atlas Shrugged. He must have loved the book because every year you would see these miserable students walking around with their faces in this massive book. I remember thinking “My turn”. Learning how to write an essay in that stupid format, though; that thesis, points, conclusion layout, is only useful for certain classes. I remember being so…bored with the entire process. How many times can a person stick to that boring format, which was so drilled into my head that when I moved to Utah I remember my AP European History teacher having another format and it seeming so bizarre. It was awful because I could not think in his terms on what an essay should be and I did not always scored so well.