Assignment 26 - Hannah Pulley

Essays are arguably the most important part of preparation for the AP exam, and I think the in-class congresses helped with improving our essays. However, by the time the first half of the essays are graded (about 12 for our class), the structure required to sufficiently answer the question and the common pitfalls have become apparent and the essays become tedious and boring to read. A better solution when grading would be to have congress read from a packet that has about 12 essays for the first timed writing, and for the next timed writing, all of the students whose essay was not read in congress would be included in the packet, and so on.

I do feel like the online peer review works just as well as grading paper copies, and the students still take it seriously. I particularly liked the fact that I could read and annotate at my own pace, not having to worry about speaking in class a minimum number of times. Not only that, paper copies can be lost or thrown away, but Turnitin allows students to refer back to reviews of their essays at any time.

Maybe it was because of the time constraints we had because of snow days, but I would have been more confident if we had more time to spend on the argument and synthesis essays. The amount of work between spring break and AP exams is challenging, and spending a more equal amount of time on each of the three essays and spreading the socratic seminars throughout the year would have lessened the pressure that is put on us. Overall, I believe I am a stronger writer, and the benefit of time constraints is that I have learned to write clearly and concisely.