AP Essay Reflection

It is still so surreal to reflect back on my first semester as an incoming college student in the ENC1101 course, analyzing at my progression as a reader and writer in literacy. Since the first day of class I set in stone my goals for this class: receive a 4.0 GPA, develop my connecting theories skills in writing, and become more aware of objectives for each Unit throughout the course. All of these goals became achievements that not only make others proud but most importantly give me self pride. In order to earn the grades and achieve these goals, I went after every opportunity that I was given as an incoming college student, such as office hours and extra credit. By taking this course I have gained confidence with the utilization of literacy, and made an addition to my group of impactful literacy sponsors. Once students are finished with high school they assume that there is nothing else to learn beyond the stereotypical five paragraph essay, but they are so wrong. I was able to obtain so much knowledge about numerous course concepts from Writing about Writing, articles, and my professor. These concepts will carry on with me throughout a bright future of writing courses, job interviews, and any other skills that require literacy. The four outcomes listed below will help illuminate how I improved as a writer, by being a driven college student and going out of the way to earn my achievements in this course. In the first outcome I improved comprehending scholar texts,

Throughout the course of this semester in AP Lang, my eyes have been opened to many of the weaknesses I never knew I had in writing. Coming into this semester, I had heard about the difficulty of this class, but was not unduly worried about not receiving an A; I have always considered myself as a competent if not strong writer. However, after failing to attain desired grades on several important essays, I was devastated, and realized that although I had mastered the basics of grammar and writing, there was still much for me to work on. Also, I did not understand that much of my grade in AP Lang would be determined by speaking in front of others, which is not my strong suit. What I have come to find is that writing essays containing all of the new information we have learned throughout the semester, such as requirements for different types of essays and good writing strategies, takes a lot of work, time, and thinking. Unfortunately, my procrastination caused me to only get done what had to be done instead of putting in the extra work and truly understanding everything.

After taking honors English for the past three school years, I now want the challenge of taking a higher level course: AP literature and composition. At this point in my high-school career, I’ve been able to take three advanced classes, and I want this class on my belt as well.

The grade that I think that I should receive for the first semester of AP Seminar is an A. I believe that I should get an A for multiple reasons, such as I complete all my work, I have always given my full effort throughout the class, and I work well in group scenarios. Throughout the first semester, I consistently finish my assignments. While we were doing the practice PT1 I had finished the individual research report and the drafts that went along with it on time. Additionally, I found and read research to help myself prepare for the socratic seminar. During the course of the class I have constantly completed my tasks to the best of my ability. The second day of school we were to prepare a short presentation about a picture. In the beginning

As the semester was coming to a beginning I honestly thought I was ready for this course. I say this because senior year high school I took an advanced placement English class. I also, say I was ready to start this course because I have had practice with English and writing essays during my summer before beginning Fall year. I would get good grades on my essays both my AP English class and my Summer English class. So with that being said I thought I was going to do good in this course. As I began this course and saw that we were only going to be doing three essays and a portfolio for the whole year, I thought I was so ready for the semester. I thought this class was going to be one of my easiest class. As assignments were coming up I thought

When I began working in this class I was fearful that it would be a waste of my time. In high school, I took two AP English classes: administration at my school cancelled the first one in the middle of the year and I did not excell in the second. However, because of my educational background I am used to being challeneged and I did not see this course doing that for me. I never characterized myself as a great writer but I was already very familiar with the skills being reviewed so I did not believe that this course would add much value to my writing skills.

Starting this class, I’ll be honest, I was afraid when I heard about AP Seminar. I didn’t really know how I got into the class because I know my writing isn’t as great as most kids in my class. AP Seminar involves a lot of hard work, and I felt as if my writing wasn’t good enough. Out of my 5 essays from last year, I only got one A. That one A didn’t make me feel smart though, and I didn’t understand why. Writing this now is difficult for me because I don’t know how to explain things in my own words. I heard a lot about how hard this class is and about the speeches. I can’t stand talking about speeches because that is my greatest fear. I still haven’t figured out my main writing strength, but what I do know is I am taking small steps into

This year, AP English 3 has been my favorite class because of the wide variety of topics that we covered and the essay writing skills that we learned. By providing a large educational basis to students' writing, this class expands the learner's ability to communicate in a profesional, educational manner, a skill with which they will use for the rest of their life. As well as scoring eights (on a nine-point scale) on several English papers, the skills that I have grown and nurtured throughout the semester have helped me score fives or sixes on my AP US History essays (on a six-point scale). Through learning how to go in-depth and synthesize a topic, AP English 3 has taught me how to consistently score high grades on AP essays, as well as communicate

Growing up, my sister and I would each write birthday cards to our mother, as our method of showing gratitude. My sister, now an author, would repeatedly bring my mother to tears after reading her birthday card, yet I would only receive a “Oh, that’s very nice Ryan.” Living in the shadow of my sister the writing behemoth being a math and science oriented person tainted my views on writing. I may not have put the necessary effort into becoming a better writer because I figured it was just an innate quality. In other words, I basically accepted that I was born left brained, and there was no realistic chance to drastically improve my writing. Consequently, I opted out of taking challenging AP English courses and instead breezed through my high

Ever since I was a child, I never really enjoyed the subject of English. Aside from me considering the subject to be boring my vocabulary always seemed to be lacking compared to my peers, and the time I spent on reading passages and answering questions about those passages was much longer than my classmates’. However, my literacy skills started to slowly develop, and I ended up appreciating English in my junior and senior years of high school.

I believe that I have a good understanding of the law in general which is a good start for APS. On the other hand, I was struggling with the files at first. I then decide to always work, review, ask someone different for help with my file. This way, I see different ways to do my file and have a larger knowledge of the file work. I also always bring my previous file to work on my current file. Doing this, I don’t do the same mistakes twice and quickly improve. When I receive the correction of my file, I take time to read and understand my mistakes and ask questions if needed. I consider report writing one of the most important skills you can have as a police officer because you will use it a lot. Bad files can have big repercussions on a suspect

I have taken two AP classes throughout my high school career: US History sophomore year and American Government junior year. These classes have expanded my skill set to include a vast knowledge of interpreting passages that has translated into an advanced concept of comprehension in my other coursework. Even though these classes were not my favorite, the struggle I faced redefined my character as a student; the challenges caused me to work harder in order to succeed, and to me, that is an invaluable lesson that I could have learned nowhere else.

It was my first day in Mr. Howard’s AP Literature Class. There were approximately thirty of us sitting in rows of six in a dim classroom. Low background music was playing and light projectors beamed colorful bright lights that traveled dizzying paths across the room. I sat beside and chatted with my close friend Andrea about our concerns regarding our new English teacher. Based on our English department’s poor reputation, we were afraid that Mr. Howard would contribute to that conception by being another poor instructor. However, many of our friends, who had him as a teacher during middle school, stated that he was an exceptional teacher. The bell then rang, indicating that passing period had come to an end and Mr. Howard flicked on the lights, muted the music, and began to introduce his course to us. He stated that we would write one or two essays a

“Extrapolation is bad.” Well, that’s great Mr. Gould. The moment I stepped into AP Statistics, I was hit with boredom and a tinge of confusion. I thought my teacher was an absolute dork. Who finds data and graphs interesting? However, as I progressed further into the depths of the statistical universe, I started to change. I began to find the research studies in my book fascinating; I thought constructing tree diagrams and box plots was thrilling. Until one day it hit me. “Oh gosh, I think I’m falling in love,” I told myself. There wasn’t an instant moment where I developed my passion for numbers. It was a slow and gradual journey in my statistics class. Listening and taking notes is what I ordinarily do in AP classes. Yet, this one was different.

All the preparation we did for the AP exam, the timed writes, the vocabulary quizzes, and the required annotating, enabled me to hone my skills and realize my weaknesses so I could critically revise my paper. Considering the new and the old disciplinary conventions I learned in the past years, applying them to different parts of my life will prove beneficial to not only my school career but my future career and social skills. Placing a pen to the paper has never been easier and static no longer fills my head, rather I cannot stifle the ideas bouncing around in my head.