AP Eng. 11

[Freak]

I have AP 11 6th hour and it's taught by a rather notorious teacher -- she's more of less known for being a bitch. I mainly posted because Skype isn't working, so I can't talk to Xcriteria, and I needed to place to semi-organize my thoughts. If the points aren't clear that's primarily because I was writing for me and not really for someone else to understand. If anyone mentions the irony I'm going to virtually kick them.

History:
All AP English classes have summer homework and for ours we had to write an essay about the book we read. In her analysis and criticism of my essay she stated that I have a tendency to write in a very convoluted* (definition below) manner, so I tend to lose my readers in overcomplicated sentence structure and the way I articulate my thoughts aren't always clear. So for my next essay I tried to simplify my sentences for more effectiveness and concision (I was focusing on how I was writing and not really what yet, so it's still possible that I wasn't concise but I'm sure my sentence structures were much better).

A readability test is used primarily for education: it grades textbooks and other works for readability or how easy it is for someone to read it. It primarily analyzes how long words and sentences are. Longer words mean larger vocabulary and longer sentences mean... well, longer sentences. Larger vocabulary makes it more difficult to understand and longer, complicated sentences mean it's easy for points to get lost (for example: in the book we read the author used only compound-complex sentences and students said they needed to read the sentence more then once to get the meaning). So my connection: long, complicated sentences make it more difficult to make my point clear, making my point clear was my objective, readability scores test how long and complicated my sentence is, thus the higher the score the less clear more point is likely to be.

After we wrote our second essay for the class we were asked to analyze it and describe what we did different, etc.
So, since it was my main problem in my last essay, I said that I attempted to simplify my essay and I said my readability score went from 14.3 something to 11 something (the scoring was based on years of education). So, my sentences were less complicated and thus is should have made my general points clearer (coming from the logic above).

Ok, finally the story:

Today we went to the computer lab for sixth hour and as we started entering the room my teacher says, "Amber, can I talk to you?"
"Yeah, sure."
"In the hallway"
So I go into the hallway and she says, "I can't believe a smug little junior would ever say something to me like this."
(Note: these quotes are along the lines of what was said, not exact quotes.)
And she said something about her being stupid, or that she thought I perceived her that way. Then she mentioned something about the readability scores that I wrote about and how, again, she was so stupid something something, I try to explain that's not what I meant, something something, she refuses to listen to what I'm trying to explain and says something and I angrily say "Fine, do that" or "Fine, do whatever you want" -- something like that. It's probably a good time to say she wasn't speaking in a normal tone or volume.
So, I walk into the computer lab and she slams the door and does something. I sit at the computer. She comes back in and even though I wasn't looking at her, she yells to me in the front of the entire class, "Maybe I should take your essays to a college professor, because I'm so stupid to correct them. Or maybe I should go and talk to (one of the counselors) so you can go to a (more advanced? better? class)" and storms out and slams the door again. So, a couple of seconds later I walk out of the lab, seeing that talking to a counselor would probably be a good idea, though not about switching classes (to hell if I'm going to make it easy for that teacher). So... well firstly, I talk to my boyfriend (he has commons that hour) to calm down considering I was extremely angry. He already knew what happened because another girl (not in the class) had been there and she was in commons with him. Then I go off and find the counselor and explain what happened, she was sympathetic to me and later went and got my books. She attempted to talk to my English teacher but she only suggested to drop the class or have my essays graded by someone else. Then I had to wonderful privilege of trying extremely hard to make my cheeks less red, my eyelids less swollen, and my eyes less bloodshot (I was very angry) and still having to walk into 7th hour (which had some of the kids from my English class in it). That was probably the worst part of the day
For the next two hours a couple people talked to me, and more then a few stories were that I blew up on her... then again they're rumors. There was a fight last year and a rumor circulated that some kid jumped from the second floor balcony and started in on the fight... and some kids believed them.

She has a reputation for a her notorious lack of social skills and compassion. Kids have been saying she's been on a particular bitch-streak lately.

My perception:
she completely misread what I was saying. My best guess is that her train of thought might have been: she's implying that her essay needs a smarter person to read it, she's calling her reader unintelligent, I'm her reader. Maybe something like that? It's possibly she thought that because she specifically mentioned that readability score, maybe the fact it was scored based on years of education gave her the idea I was saying you need to be smart to read my essay? But to me it's more like: the reason they used years of education is because a college professor can find it much easier to read a disorganized, unintelligible essay than a 7th grader. A run-on sentence doesn't imply good writing because it makes it a longer sentence, it only works with correct grammar.

Also, I wasn't even talking specifically to her in my analysis, even if I used the word "you" it was implied in a general sense, so I have no idea where she got such a personal meaning out of it. Even if there was an overwhelming tone that implied I meant that I was calling her stupid, I still attempted to explain that was not how I felt at all. She was picking a fight: she's smart enough to know that if there was any disrespectful meaning in an analysis that it was probably a mistake and we had different perceptions of what I was saying. She should have given me the benefit of the doubt that I had no disrespectful tone at all, or at least attempted to listen to what I had to say. But she did none of that, and any sincere teacher would have actually discussed it with me instead of sticking only to their conclusions.
Therefore, I firmly believe I did nothing wrong... even though I feel guilty and unsure for some reason. :/






1. twisted; coiled.
2. complicated; intricately involved: a convoluted way of describing a simple device.