My teacher, it is obvious, loves William Safire’s column On Language. She gave us an article entitled “Tautophrases,” which discusses the horrible habit we as humans seemed to have gotten ourselves into as far as redundancy is concerned.

I found it thought provoking. We don’t consciously think about what we say sometimes, and how the redundancy may or may not make sense. We definitely don’t think about of this redundant phrase modifies the subject about which we are speaking. Bring this up with your teacher; she’ll give you a gold star.

The goals of an AP English Language and Composition course are diverse because the college composition course is one of the most varied in the curriculum. The college course provides students with opportunities to write about a variety of subjects and to demonstrate an awareness of audience and purpose. The overarching objective is to enable students to write effectively and confidently in their college courses across the curriculum. Most composition courses teach students that what they must do in college is based on reading, no solely on personal experience and observation. Students will learn to read complex texts with understanding and to write prose of richness and complexity.

HELP ME!

The above was quoted from a handout my teacher distributed on the first day of school. While this statement does not sound so incredibly horrible, I can assure you that I have absolutely no confidence whatsoever in my ability to write, analyze (content or language) or even verbally express my thoughts in a clear and mature manner. I feel like my teacher is going to ask me to drop the course any second now. Tick tock goes the clock. Simply, this blog is a result of my insecurities and personally felt inadequacies even though I am a language lover. One may even be inclined to call me a language dork. I think it’s ingenious what some have done with words; manipulating and forming them to not only express a thought or tell a story, but to simultaneously provide thought provoking presentation and creative form. I can only hope to be as good of a writer as many whose works I have read.

Now on to the rest of the handout:

Upon completing the AP English Language and Composition course, then, students should be able to:

• analyze and interpret samples of good writing, identifying and explaining an author’s use of rhetorical strategies and techniques;
• apply effective strategies and techniques in their own writing;
• create and sustain arguments based on readings, research, and/or personal experience;
• write for a variety of purposes;
• produce expository, analytical, and argumentative compositions that introduce a complex central idea and develop it with appropriate evidence drawn from primary and/or secondary sources, cogent explanations, and clear transitions;
• demonstrate understanding and mastery of standard written English as well as stylistic maturity in their own writings;
• demonstrate understanding of the conventions of citing primary and secondary sources;
• move effectively through the stages of the writing process, with careful attention to inquiry and research, drafting, revising, editing, and review;
• write thoughtfully about their own process of composition;
• revise a work to make it suitable for a different audience;
• analyze image as text; and
• evaluate and incorporate reference documents into researched papers.

I’m scared. So scared, in fact, that I have resolved to blog here as often as my horribly crammed high school schedule will allow, hopefully forcing myself to further analyze and contemplate the works we are studying in AP Lang. If you are a fellow high school student who is scared and/or pulling his or her hair out, then please join me on my quest in this college level course. If you are fortunate enough to have survived the college admissions process and are currently enrolled in the Language and Composition course at your university, I ask for your knowledge and wisdom on this long and tormenting road I have ahead as I venture into the world of words.