No honors English before but AP English?

[Anonymous]

My son has always taken normal English classes. He does ok and gets an A but I also can’t say the classes are hard.

He came home today and told us he’s considering taking AP English for next year (11th). I’ll be honest, I don’t think writing has been his strong suit.

On one hand I think it would be good for him to strengthen his writing. On the other hand I’m nervous that he will struggle jumping into an AP English language class without doing any honors English class in the past.

Did any of your kids take AP English and can share work load? He may take another 2 AP science classes as well.

[Anonymous]

AP Lang or AP Lit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:AP Lang or AP Lit?

AP Language. Lit would be offered 12th grade for us.

[Anonymous]

Can he easily drop down if the workload is too much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can he easily drop down if the workload is too much?

I think so, usually in first 3 weeks of school.

[Anonymous]

Is that allowed? My son could only take an AP class if he got an A in the previous honors class. Even then, it wasn’t an automatic admission into the AP class.

[Anonymous]

He should be fine. There isn’t a significant difference between honors and regular English, other than the students themselves. I think he it is great he is motivated to take the AP class. I’d let him but I’d also look for a summer high school writing class to give him some more confidence. I’ve found all public school ELA classes to be deficient in teaching students how to write, even honors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:He should be fine. There isn’t a significant difference between honors and regular English, other than the students themselves. I think he it is great he is motivated to take the AP class. I’d let him but I’d also look for a summer high school writing class to give him some more confidence. I’ve found all public school ELA classes to be deficient in teaching students how to write, even honors.

Are you sure about that? At least, at our MS they said that regular English all reading would be done in school and the Teacher would read aloud to the students. In Honors students would be assigned some reading at home. In AAP there would be more reading at home and more writing. If the HS is the same, jumping from the Teacher reading to the student to reading on your own at home would be a huge leap.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s worth the challenge. He’ll be better prepared for college if he is in a challenging English class. I bet he will surprise you.

[Anonymous]

My sister did that on her way to failing out of school

[Anonymous]

What's the back story on avoiding 2 (or more?) years of honors English?

He's missed a lot.

[Anonymous]

Have you discussed it with his teacher? At my kid’s school, they have to get a teacher recommendation to move up to AP, and you typically wouldn’t jump from regular English to AP.

[Anonymous]

I teach AP English. I've seen it go both ways for students in this situation. Ask yourself how likely your son is to do homework. In my district standard classes pretty much never assign it so that is the biggest challenge these kids face. Students get read to in standard classes. He will be expected to read at home in AP.