Blog 26: Help Erin Holbrook

Well, first I have to say that I thought the class was very effective. I felt more than prepared for the AP exam, and if you, Mr. Logsdon, were to teach the class the same way the next year all of your students would be more than fine. What I found most helpful was all of the practice that we did. From practice multiple choice tests to all of the essays we wrote, every time we did one of these things I felt more confident about the AP test. I especially liked congress. I'm a big fan of constructive criticism, and I think the congresses were a good way for people to hear their strengths and weaknesses. That said, one problem I had with the congresses was inconsistency. It seemed almost like we weren't grading each essay by the same guidelines. Some essays would be berated for small grammatical errors, while others did not have ideal paragraph structure or explanations, but were considered "good enough". I don't think we always stuck to the rubric or graded as though an AP grader would. That might just be my overly-critical self talking, I was often harsher than the class in my grading. Another thing was that I didn't get much out of essay reviews done online. Most people seemed to comment just for the sake of commenting, without actually analyzing the essay. There wasn't much to learn from comments posted online on turnitin. I think that if you have time it might be a good idea to spend more time discussing essays in class near the end of the year. The only other thing I could think of would be to go over and practice multiple choice more often. Questions on the test were often vague, and it would have helped to be more experienced with just what we were looking for.

I hope that's not overly-critical. I tend to criticize more than praise even when I really like something. I hope this is helpful! Have a good summer, Mr. Logsdon.