Summer Blog #2

After going through the poetry practice section in Peterson's AP English, I now have 5 poetry goals for the future:
1. Read the poem several times until I understand what is going on specifically and the overall message.
2. Learn more vocabulary
3. Practice identifying different literary devices.
4. Learn what defines different layouts of poems.
5. Try and make notes while reading the poem to save time when going back to passages.

Often, I worry about the time constraints and rush through the poem before I understand it fully. However, this makes me even slower than before. I looked through all of the questions for the poems and realized that I hadn't absorbed much of the poem at all. Fully understanding it first will help save time, as well as taking notes so I don't forget what I just learned from the poem. I also didn't understand what words meant in both the poem and the multiple choice answers, which is why I want to learn more vocab, literary terms, and poetry terms. This will help eliminate answers much more accurately than before.

Summer Blog #1

I wasn't sure exactly what to expect before taking the Diagnostic Test, but after taking it, I wasn't too surprised about the types of questions and the layout of the test, but it was much harder than I was expecting. It reminded me of the reading portion of the ACT, but it was harder. I often had to read parts of the work several times before understanding it. In order to do well on the final exam, I need to increase my speed of understanding the passages. There were also many different types of literature that I had to read instead of just book excerpts. Now, I understand that we are reading certain books to practice analyzing new texts, not to know about those books specifically for the test. I didn't do as well as I hoped the first time, and I hope to improve this year.