Close Enough.

The closest class I have had to a college composition class was AP Literature and Language in high school. She had us writing timed essays almost every day. She also graded our papers pretty hard as well. She used the grading scale for the AP test and gave us feedback to help us pinpoint where we could improve.

The reading in the class was structured very well. The teacher gave us a selection of books with similar themes that we could possibly be writing on for the test and allowed us to choose between them which ones we wanted to read. I quite enjoyed this because that meant I could bypass all the stuff I didn't want to be exposed to. We were put into discussions groups based on books and went through and talked about all the different themes and patterns we noticed throughout the novel.

We also took loads of practice tests. They were all based on the grading scale of the AP test, and from what I remember (I'm not sure if I'm making this up or not) the lessons we had in classes were all based on the things that we struggled with on our practice tests and essays. She taught us ways not to start an essay, ways to help keep bull crap out of essays and replace it with supportable evidence and thought.

I really enjoyed that class a ton because it brought my writing and English comprehension up several notches.  Because of that class, I was adequately prepared for college. The only piece of the puzzle that was left was adapting to the different desires of each professor I wrote for, and lucky for me that didn't take a super long time to figure out.