Brian Boyle

AP Language

Crandall 3rd

17/12/19

Looking Back

When I first signed up to take AP Language, I thought I was taking a risk. It all started

during my sophomore year. One day during the fall semester of 2018, my Honors World

Literature teacher Mrs. Van Bohemen showed us one day the requirements between Honors

American and AP Language. I wanted to prove to my mom that I was a good writer and show

her that my sister was not the only one to do well in the class in the family. So I signed up. Going

into summer, I looked at the prerequisite work that needed to be done, the essay I had to type,

and walked away from that. There was no way I was going to look at that for another moment. I

thought I had made a mistake doing AP Language. Turns out, I was wrong. The class has taught

me way more than what I thought it would be. It’s taught me more than just rhetorical devices

and analysis of passages. It’s done more than prepare me for the SAT and improve my writing.

AP Language has taught me not only how to write better, but it has also developed me into the

scholar and person I want to be.

Writing is something that I considered as a talent in me. I thought I was a good writer- I

knew vocab, sentence structure, parallel structure, and literary devices. I could incorporate them

into an essay or story easily. Looking back, I credit this to my love for reading as I grew up. In

elementary school and middle school, reading was an addiction. I engrossed myself in a story

and would not put it down until I was either finished with it or I was forced to drop it. Reading
was the origin of where my writing comes from. When I write, I envision the countless books,

essays, magazines, and news articles I’ve read and fabricate a draft that I think looks

professional. I truly thought I could not learn anything else about writing. That opinion changed

in AP Language though. In AP Language, I learned how to make my paragraphs flow and

interconnect with each other. My teacher, Mrs. Crandall, told me that sometimes it’s okay to lose

the extravagant words and phrases, and rather keep writing simplistic in order to convey a

message to the audience. Writing was only a portion of what she taught and what impacted me,

though.

Before AP Language, the teacher who most exemplified a real person in my life was my

third grade teacher, from when I lived in Virginia. He had a big impact on my life, and I still

think about him sometimes. Mrs. Crandall is one of those teachers. She was real with every

single one of her students. Her salty but funny personality made the class way more entertaining

than what a person would imagine a language class being. She taught me how to stay on task, not

procrastinate, and she taught me so many life lessons. I learned how to become a better student,

at school and at home because of her. Because of her, writing and analysis has changed from a

class I dread to a class I look forward to. As I go forward in my academic career, I want to

continue that mental pathway I had that Mrs. Crandall gave me. Meet every assignment knowing

that I’ll have to learn, but I can make it fun and at the end of everything, my work will produce

results I like.

This class gave me more than what I put into it. Personally, I’m proud of my work in this

class and I feel like I have grown both as a person and as a scholar. Because my writing

improved and my attitude toward writing improved, I write about random stuff now and it helps

clear my mind. I am prepared for the future more than ever, and I’m ready for it.