#hamlit

Hamlet (2.2.295-302)

Five Stories Ya Gotta Read – June 2020 Horror stories I've discovered recently that you should check out.

This is the start of a brand-new series of blog posts. Each month I will share with you five stories that I’ve read recently that you should look into.

‘Wilderness’ by Letitia Trent from Exigencies ed. Richard Thomas

Recently I took a course on contemporary dark fiction, and this is the first short story we read for discussion. Letitia does a great job of building a nightmare…

I took HAmLit during my junior year, but from what I’ve heard, your experience largely depends on which teacher you get. Nava tends to grade more harshly with written assignments and fishbowl discussion, while Carpenter and Anderson are both a little more lenient. I think Carpenter tends to use a peer grading system more often too.

Participate a lot in discussions and share your ideas! A lot of classroom time (I had Anderson) was dedicated to discussion of whatever we read, and while a most of them weren’t graded, it’s good practice for when the graded ones come around. Also, a lot of the writing in this class tended to focus more on analyzing the style and rhetorical devices of the writing itself, instead of overall theme, so that’s something to definitely pay attention to while reading. Ask your teacher for help if you’re having trouble with written assignments or just want them to look over your work.

I found that the reading/workload wasn’t too overwhelming, as it often came in chunks where we had nothing or very little homework for a couple of weeks, and then manageable reading assignments every time we started a new book. We also had semester-long projects – Factoid Friday first semester and Author Study second semester,but as long as you keep to the reading schedule and work on the projects throughout the semester, you’ll be good to go with the workload!

I think only one of us has taken both HAmLit and APUSH (Little Miss Sunshine)! She has more time management tips regarding how she handled junior year. You’ll just have to scroll down a bit. 

It will be a lot of reading—much, much more than what you had in sophomore year. I opted out of HAmLit to balance my course load. I’d also advise you to weigh how many AP courses you plan on taking junior year (and how you’ll manage it with SAT’s). 

If you’re thinking in terms of AP tests, then I’d definitely say AP English Language is easier to self-study for. I don’t know if HAmLit prepares you that well for AP Lit in senior year, but there are quite a few HAmLit veterans in my AP Lit class who aren’t faring as well as they expected. I’d still recommend taking at least one honors/AP literature class during your high school career though. Good luck!