[Coda]

It's not wholly unwise to be skeptical of advice from someone whose job it is to give advice. You don't know how up-to-date their information is and their own personal experiences are now YEARS in the past. (Admittedly, so is my own experience -- I graduated from high school before you were even born. And that feels weird.)

One of the classes is a language-study course (like French). The other is a literature course that happens to focus on works written in English.

If you struggle with writing that's all the MORE reason to take care of it while you're in high school. You will get less help in college. And one of those AP English classes is going to be heavily structured around TEACHING you composition. It made a big difference for me.

Given how expensive college is compared to the cost of an AP test, I do recommend getting out of high school with as many AP credits as you can. I was technically a sophomore on my first day of college, and I STILL ended up having to take a ninth semester thanks to my counselor giving me bad advice and screwing up my prerequisite chain. :/