Pre-AP Class Taken: Pre-AP English II
Year Taken: 2019-2020
Material Advice: Sparknotes, Books (last year we read Catcher In the Rye, 1984, Doll's House, Life of Pi, and were supposed to read the Stranger and Of Mice and Men)
General Advice: Advanced English II is pretty rigorous course that prepares you for future AP English classes. I really recommend reading books in advance (even during summer!) so that you don't get behind on class reading schedule. Teachers often assign pop quizzes over the reading, so make sure you read the assigned parts before class and understand specific details. I recommend reading Sparknotes summaries and taking section quizzes on Sparknotes as they will prepare you well for the pop quizzes. After reading each book, we do a timed writing over the analysis of that novel. To prepare for the timed writings, annotate the book for motifs of thematic ideas regularly (even if it's not required) so that you can look over these annotations later and get prepared for your timed essay. DON'T rely your entire analysis on Sparknotes or other study sites like Litcharts. Although they provide some good analysis, most of them would be generic (and a lot of your friends will probably read that too) and you won't be able to score high if you are just copying off Sparknotes ideas. Overall, you have to constantly work for this class to improve your writings and analysis skills, but the hard work will pay off you'll enjoy many projects that you do in this class! Good luck! :)