November 14, 2018

Welcome back to the High School Corner!

This year in the High School we have been given the opportunity to take Advanced Placement classes in order to prepare for AP tests in subjects including environmental science, Spanish, and human geography. Most recently, we have been preparing for the AP English test. Earlier in the year, we learned about the tools used in rhetoric such as diction, appeals, and parallel structure. More recently, we analyzed different literary works, identified the rhetorical strategies used, and discussed their effect. Being able to compose a rhetorical analysis is an essential skill in AP English, and this is what we have been working on in class for the past two weeks. When presented with a piece of rhetoric, the student needs to be able to examine and write in-depth commentary on the speaker’s choices. During the test itself, the essay needs to be written in 40 minutes.

This past week, we read pieces other high schoolers wrote during the AP test and used them in order to understand the scoring system and what sets an essay apart. We have also written essays that analyze speeches given by John F. Kennedy, Madeleine Albright, and Mark Antony. So far, this has proved to be a challenge (analyzing an argument in such depth is no easy feat), but we will get there!

Thanks for reading; we’ll be back next week!