LOS ALAMITOS, CA — Through their hard work and determination, all Los Alamitos High School students have officially closed their AP exams and have been continuing their class regime throughout the last few weeks before school ends. Some classes are partaking in creative and entertaining activities meant to build a fun environment, others are doing nothing, and a few classes are still choosing to continue basic classwork.

AP English Language and Composition

Within the AP Lang department, juniors are reading the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, “The Great Gatsby,” while analyzing the symbolism surrounding the characters and colors. The story takes place on the East Coast during the 1920s, emphasizing the American Dream and exploring the complexities that surround the main character, Jay Gatsby, and his wealth.

“I really enjoyed reading ‘The Great Gatsby’ because I’m a fan of the movie and it’s always fun to read a book together in class,” said junior, Andrea Dao.

As a final assignment, students in Ms. Marechal’s class are assigned to pre-write their recommendation letters required for the senior year through the voice of their teacher. These recommendation letters are meant to praise the student regarding their talent and what can manage to set themselves apart compared to their peers.

AP U.S. History

In Ms. Meider’s AP U.S. History class, students have had the opportunity to watch the 1994 movie starring Tom Hanks, “Forrest Gump,” and the 2000 football movie starring Denzel Washington, “Remember the Titans.” Due to the historical innuendos in the movie such as the Watergate scandal and the desegregation of the 1970s, many of the students enjoyed the movies shown.

Along with watching two movies, students were assigned the project of making an Ugly Christmas History Sweater, in which the students chose a specific topic they had learned in APUSH and illustrated and wrote about it. All students were required to present their creations and read aloud their written paragraphs. 

“I did [my project] on the Soviet Union and American Space Race because it was the topic that I enjoyed learning about the most in APUSH,” said sophomore Reese Poe.

AP Physics C

Mr. Harmon’s AP Physics C class partook in a fun project of paper airplane mini golf. The competition started with four-person teams starting one by one. Mr. Harmon had already set up the golf course on the second floor of the STEM building and had decorated the course with little signs such as “Hole #1.” Each group had score sheets that were directly correlated with the amount of parts they had managed to get.

Students would throw down their paper airplanes in hopes of landing them inside or near the boxes to give themselves enough points. The project by Mr. Harmon was met with positive reviews as many of the students in AP Physics C found the project enjoyable.

AP World History

In AP World History, classes are taking the time to learn about the more recent historical events that likely have not been taught yet. Mr. Moy’s class has participated in this activity to fill their minds with recent events so they are engaged with what has happened in the world recently. 

Another activity that the AP World History classes have done is they have watched historical movies. The classes do this to view the historical inaccuracies that are in the movies. Movies can portray a good example of history while others tend to have big differences from what truly happened in the past. 

“I think it is great because all we are doing is watching historical movies like ‘Pearl Harbor.’ I thought that movie was super good and intriguing,” said sophomore Camryn Flores.

AP Calc BC

AP Calc BC. put together music videos for the end of the year. Students were able to work together as a class and use their creativity to make a music video. The students made a parody of popular songs and used the knowledge they gained this year of calculus to write math-inspired lyrics.  

The parody of the song by Mrs. Fox’s class was “TikTok” by Kesha. Math students choreographed dances, came up with unique lyrics, and used props to get as creative as possible.  

Mrs. Bright’s class did a parody of “Shut up and Drive” by Rihanna. Mrs. Bright even sang for the music video. The unique lyrics also fit the song perfectly.  The class had great choreography and a lot of emotion.  The students had a freestyle dance and ended the video by jumping into the high school’s pool.

Mrs. Bright’s class also did a parody of “Hot N Cold”  by Katy Perry. The choreography matched the song and the uniqueness of this video was hilarious. Students jumped in the pool for one part of the video, and in another part of the video, students danced wearing a mask of a photo Mrs. Bright’s face, which was the most spontaneous thing to see out of all these videos. 

Mrs. Fox’s class also did a parody of “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers. This video definitely holds the winning for lyrics, and the choreography in the video was perfectly hilarious. The most unique part were the drone shots throughout the video.

As the 2023-2024 school year wraps up, Los Al has performed tremendously well by putting all their effort into performing their  best on the AP tests and we hope that all Griffins are able to successfully end school with a bang in their finals!