School, for lack of better vocabulary, sucks. Although getting an education is not one of my most beloved pastimes, I understand that it is essential to my future of not being a homeless bum on the side of the road. However, I’ve never cared too much about it, since it always came easy to me. I was that one girl who got straight A’s without breaking a sweat. Which is why this year, in English 10 Honors Period 2 Wills, I was genuinely, for one of the first times, bewildered. I grew a lot this year, because of this class, because I finally realized that underachieving and going through the motions isn’t going to get me where I want in life, I have to actually put in a great deal of effort to get results and ultimately reach my goals.
In freshman year I never really had to work hard to get straight A’s and I had figured that good grades would just come naturally to me. Especially in this language arts class, because I had gotten A’s freshman year with Wills. After our grades came back for the first essay we wrote in English 10H, everyone was freaking out because they apparently got bad scores, but I was relatively calm because I thought it was near to impossible for me to score poorly. However, when I received a C, I was completely shocked and it definitely brought me down from my arrogancy with school. Throughout the first semester I was so focused on getting an A, in all of my classes. Whenever I worked on assignments my motivation was always “Ok, how can I make this good so that I get an A?” and when I would talk to teachers about revisions the million dollar question was always “What can I do to make this an A?” In the entire first semester I was only concerned with this one letter, which is why I, most ironically, got a B in this class. This isn’t actually a bad grade but it’s the first B that I had ever gotten in a class before, and the only B presently on my transcript. So, as the perfectionist I am, I was devastated. I knew that I would have to put a lot more effort into this class than I was used to. In my first process essay of the second semester, I decided to take advantage of the resources that are provided at school and took my poetry essay to get help in Knights Write. They helped me fill the holes in my understanding to show better comprehension of the poem. In my revision, I actually got an A which helped me see that in order to be successful in the class, I had to actually learn and understand the depth of each assignment mainly through thorough analysis. I began to work on assignments by making sure I understood the text and developing my ideas. By focusing more on the content and quality of each essay, I was able to grow and learn a lot more than when I was focused on how my GPA would benefit from each assignment. Now, I am attaining more knowledge and actually learning rather than underachieving and using grades as finish lines, and the grades that come along are the icing on top of my self-improvement.
More specifically, in this class, consistently working through difficult texts improved my analytical abilities and comfort levels. The first process essay was on an extremely difficult short story, “Dungeons and Dragons” by Sam Lipsyte, which was a really confusing text for me, and it was generally unknown so there was no way that I could look up other people’s analyses of the story to be able to make sense of what it all meant. All you have to read is my thesis to understand how little I actually knew about this story, “the use of allusions to pop culture phenomenon of the time, Dungeons and Dragons, uncovers the Dungeon Master’s inability to cope with real life”. This thesis is extremely vague and I most likely had no idea what I was writing. My issue was that I needed to find the right answer, and usually the internet provides easy access to other people’s previous thoughts. By trying to “find the right answer” all I could think of doing was consulting my long-time friend Google. Since it was next to impossible, I felt helpless and it was clearly the reason my grade slipped drastically. Throughout the year Wills challenged us constantly with difficult texts, especially with poetry, that we analyzed daily. I came to understand that what I was doing wrong was trying to see the text through one person’s point of view, whereas it can be seen differently with different perspective. For example, recently in the Frankenstein project, I connected the similarities between the Creature and teenage girls like me in the modern world, because we all highly value the opinions of others which wears away at our individual uniqueness and independence. I deeply connected to this argument, since I drew from my own experience and had a lot of passion in what I was writing. Once I was comfortable with not being able to look up easy answers on the web for instant-gratification, I was able to sit down and actually think about the text, even though it took a long, long time for me to understand or grasp a strong idea, I felt accomplished and could argue a cohesive point. Thus, making the quality of my work more unique, in depth, and interesting to me since it was how I viewed the writing rather than how sparknotes or shmoop saw it. As I was able to go through challenging book after book and poem after poem, my dependence on the internet nearly vanished, and I felt better about what I was turning in. This semester, I feel like I finally understood how English works, and first semester I was just wasting time complaining about my “first B”.
I also made significant changes in my personal life which contributed to my ability to achieve academic success by prioritizing my school work and balancing my social life. Distancing myself from social drama and relying on more motivated and competitive friends boosted my work ethic and decreased distractions. Previously, my environment was cultivated largely on the factors of boys and catty gossip, which made school seem less important to these “major dilemmas” and dumb drama. As I strayed from that group, I became closer with my friends that were more driven intellectually and pushed me to do well in school. By associating myself more with this friend group, it motivated me to do well in school just like them. When I actually thought about it, I asked myself, what would impact my future most positively and prepare me for adult life, focusing on childish drama and boy issues whilst disregarding school or focusing on school and disregarding drama? Education was the clear winner, and by putting more energy, effort, and focus into schooling, I noticeably felt myself learning more and getting more out of my classes by being more present mentally.
Throughout this essay, you can examine a common theme of “I always” followed quickly by “but then”. Evidently, a lot had changed for me this year, disrupting continuity which I had been so used to, but I’m glad it did, because that means I am growing as a student and effectively preparing myself for the future rather than plateauing sophomore year. Knowledge to me is no longer earning a letter grade, it’s learning a skill that you continue to apply which improves the quality of your work. Knowing this allows me to value what I learn and understand the true priority of schooling to get an actual education, not to get some letters. I’m definitely not perfect at any means, nor does this mean I excel in intelligence, it just means that I now know more leaving this class than I did entering it. I also know for a fact that I will continue to get more “but thens” changing my perspective as I know it, and I’m excited for what junior year brings me if I got this much out of sophomore year.
In freshman year I never really had to work hard to get straight A’s and I had figured that good grades would just come naturally to me. Especially in this language arts class, because I had gotten A’s freshman year with Wills. After our grades came back for the first essay we wrote in English 10H, everyone was freaking out because they apparently got bad scores, but I was relatively calm because I thought it was near to impossible for me to score poorly. However, when I received a C, I was completely shocked and it definitely brought me down from my arrogancy with school. Throughout the first semester I was so focused on getting an A, in all of my classes. Whenever I worked on assignments my motivation was always “Ok, how can I make this good so that I get an A?” and when I would talk to teachers about revisions the million dollar question was always “What can I do to make this an A?” In the entire first semester I was only concerned with this one letter, which is why I, most ironically, got a B in this class. This isn’t actually a bad grade but it’s the first B that I had ever gotten in a class before, and the only B presently on my transcript. So, as the perfectionist I am, I was devastated. I knew that I would have to put a lot more effort into this class than I was used to. In my first process essay of the second semester, I decided to take advantage of the resources that are provided at school and took my poetry essay to get help in Knights Write. They helped me fill the holes in my understanding to show better comprehension of the poem. In my revision, I actually got an A which helped me see that in order to be successful in the class, I had to actually learn and understand the depth of each assignment mainly through thorough analysis. I began to work on assignments by making sure I understood the text and developing my ideas. By focusing more on the content and quality of each essay, I was able to grow and learn a lot more than when I was focused on how my GPA would benefit from each assignment. Now, I am attaining more knowledge and actually learning rather than underachieving and using grades as finish lines, and the grades that come along are the icing on top of my self-improvement.
More specifically, in this class, consistently working through difficult texts improved my analytical abilities and comfort levels. The first process essay was on an extremely difficult short story, “Dungeons and Dragons” by Sam Lipsyte, which was a really confusing text for me, and it was generally unknown so there was no way that I could look up other people’s analyses of the story to be able to make sense of what it all meant. All you have to read is my thesis to understand how little I actually knew about this story, “the use of allusions to pop culture phenomenon of the time, Dungeons and Dragons, uncovers the Dungeon Master’s inability to cope with real life”. This thesis is extremely vague and I most likely had no idea what I was writing. My issue was that I needed to find the right answer, and usually the internet provides easy access to other people’s previous thoughts. By trying to “find the right answer” all I could think of doing was consulting my long-time friend Google. Since it was next to impossible, I felt helpless and it was clearly the reason my grade slipped drastically. Throughout the year Wills challenged us constantly with difficult texts, especially with poetry, that we analyzed daily. I came to understand that what I was doing wrong was trying to see the text through one person’s point of view, whereas it can be seen differently with different perspective. For example, recently in the Frankenstein project, I connected the similarities between the Creature and teenage girls like me in the modern world, because we all highly value the opinions of others which wears away at our individual uniqueness and independence. I deeply connected to this argument, since I drew from my own experience and had a lot of passion in what I was writing. Once I was comfortable with not being able to look up easy answers on the web for instant-gratification, I was able to sit down and actually think about the text, even though it took a long, long time for me to understand or grasp a strong idea, I felt accomplished and could argue a cohesive point. Thus, making the quality of my work more unique, in depth, and interesting to me since it was how I viewed the writing rather than how sparknotes or shmoop saw it. As I was able to go through challenging book after book and poem after poem, my dependence on the internet nearly vanished, and I felt better about what I was turning in. This semester, I feel like I finally understood how English works, and first semester I was just wasting time complaining about my “first B”.
I also made significant changes in my personal life which contributed to my ability to achieve academic success by prioritizing my school work and balancing my social life. Distancing myself from social drama and relying on more motivated and competitive friends boosted my work ethic and decreased distractions. Previously, my environment was cultivated largely on the factors of boys and catty gossip, which made school seem less important to these “major dilemmas” and dumb drama. As I strayed from that group, I became closer with my friends that were more driven intellectually and pushed me to do well in school. By associating myself more with this friend group, it motivated me to do well in school just like them. When I actually thought about it, I asked myself, what would impact my future most positively and prepare me for adult life, focusing on childish drama and boy issues whilst disregarding school or focusing on school and disregarding drama? Education was the clear winner, and by putting more energy, effort, and focus into schooling, I noticeably felt myself learning more and getting more out of my classes by being more present mentally.
Throughout this essay, you can examine a common theme of “I always” followed quickly by “but then”. Evidently, a lot had changed for me this year, disrupting continuity which I had been so used to, but I’m glad it did, because that means I am growing as a student and effectively preparing myself for the future rather than plateauing sophomore year. Knowledge to me is no longer earning a letter grade, it’s learning a skill that you continue to apply which improves the quality of your work. Knowing this allows me to value what I learn and understand the true priority of schooling to get an actual education, not to get some letters. I’m definitely not perfect at any means, nor does this mean I excel in intelligence, it just means that I now know more leaving this class than I did entering it. I also know for a fact that I will continue to get more “but thens” changing my perspective as I know it, and I’m excited for what junior year brings me if I got this much out of sophomore year.
Photo used under Creative Commons from Infomastern