Tip #1

How to Read Efficiently

          If you plan on taking AP Language and Composition in the near future, you are most-likely a high-level student. Congratulations on having the self-worth to think you are ready for this class. But if you are a high-level student, you are most likely taking other advanced, maybe even AP, classes. This means you will not have a lot of time on your hands to waste.
          Unlike other English classes, AP Lang does not assign a lot of book reading; however, there are many documents that you must read throughout the year. Reading these documents, along with the occasional book, and answering any following questions are critical to helping you understand the course curriculum, as they not only exemplify how some of the greatest writers in history, such as Ralph Emerson and Thomas Paine, wrote, they also help you to understand and develop your own form of writing. These readings, when read well enough, can help you to see how different rhetorical strategies are efficiently used to convey an argument.
          But who has time to read every word of every book and document that is handed out? Certainly not a student who is taking other challenging courses besides AP Lang. That is why I quickly learned that being able to read efficiently was going to be critical to keep my grade up.
          Early in the year my AP Lang class had to read the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, by Douglass. While the book was short, I was currently in the middle of many other assignments from my other classes, and some from AP Lang as well. Therefore I resigned to shorten the time I spent reading this book, while still absorbing as much as I could.
          Now, each student will have a different way of reading efficiently; it is important to develop it on your own, because your confidence in your style will help to keep you attentive and effective as you read the book. Personally, I read the first one or two sentences of each paragraph, then moved on to the next. I looked out for speaking lines and action descriptions, but for the most part I decided that the meat of each paragraph happened at the beginning. Of course, there were paragraphs I came across that I had to finish because they were simply vital to the writer's argument. However, using my own method of reading efficiently, I found I finished the book with a fairly thorough understanding of both the content and the meaning.
          Again, this information was vital for my grade. Throughout the reading of the book I was able to glean both how the author was able to convey his argument and how to incorporate bits of his writing style into my own writing. And all the while I was able to maintain my workload both for AP Lang and all of my classes combined.