By Jordyn Fouts
At first glance, it might seem like Honors College at Azusa Pacific University is a little too much like your AP English classes. Some of you might have liked AP English and are thinking, “Great—Honors is right up my alley,” but I’m sure there are also some who are hoping Honors isn’t exactly like AP English. Well, fortunately, you’re all in luck. AP English and Honors do have many great similarities, but they also have some important differences.
AP English is similar to Honors in that both involve:
- Reading Great Texts
- Having Socratic seminar-like discussions about the texts
- Writing papers about the texts
Despite these similarities, the differences between Honors and AP English stem from the fact that the goal of AP English classes is to prepare students to do well on the AP test, whereas the goal of the Honors College is to liberally educate the next generation of disciples and scholars.
- In AP, the goal in analyzing a text is to identify literary elements; in Honors, the goal is to interact with ideas and learn something about truth, beauty, and goodness from the text.
- In AP classes, students are generally provided with a prompt that they have to answer in a certain amount of time or using a specific structure; on the other hand, Honors usually gives you the freedom to address whatever ideas you find most intriguing.
- The types of texts in AP classes are usually all the same genre for each class, but in Honors, you study the greatest texts throughout history in many different disciplines (history, science, political theory, literature, philosophy, theology, etc.).
- While the Socratic seminar is similar to an Honors colloquy, in Honors the focus is much more on free, civil dialogue about the ideas presented in the text, whereas in AP English, the discussion is much more moderated and guided.
Even if you didn’t enjoy your AP classes, current Honors students would say you should still give Honors a shot. So much of the difficulty with AP classes stems from frustration with the teacher, dislike of the material, or boredom with the amount of busywork. In Honors, all the work you do is relevant and requires thought and creativity—it’s never just to fill space. There is a purpose to what you do in Honors beyond just “get a good score on the AP test:” to pursue the true, the beautiful, and the good.