Assignment 26 - Maddie Klumb

I think that writing the essays and the scripts (beginning of the year for Writing With Style) were the most effective parts of class. They had a clear purpose, and I feel that my writing over both long and short periods of time has improved drastically because of this. That being said, I preferred to grade the essays in small groups because they were done faster, there were less essays to read, you could have a more in-depth discussion, and you were forced to engage more rather than just zoning out because you received a fair grade for it (the drawback to this system being less feedback on your essays). I think much of the stress I had about this class stemmed from unclear, or too little explanation of assignments. For example, I liked and appreciated most of the visual literacy projects, but most of them were never clearly explained in class and the rubrics were a little confusing to understand. I think the Socratic seminars (especially the later ones) were interesting and helpful, but the explanation on procedure and scoring we received in the beginning was a little confusing (not your fault) and some of the articles were long and dry. I liked the later ones both because they were shorter and because I could connect to them more and they were more controversial topics with more opportunities for discussion. Overall, I had a good experience in this class and and happy with my ACT, PSAT, and SAT scores; and most importantly, I feel prepared for the AP test.