Becoming A Straight-A Student Analysis

Education is a long-term investment. We, as students, work hard to acquire knowledge and to hone our skills so that we may use them one day. The effort we put into a single assignment should be considered as both for that specific assignment and for our rounding as complete, educated individuals. And with this mindset, students should be motivated even more to put more effort and hard work into academics, with the goal of bettering themselves for the future and advancing their prospects as individuals. And with this hard work and effort will come progress, and this progress should be reflected in the grading—not necessarily on individual assignments, but on the student’s education as a

I walked into classes several times to witness teachers with their head in their hands, stressed from the previous class. They shake their heads when the next class begins, collecting themselves and doing their best to not let their frustrations show. Students don’t cooperate. They are unwilling to learn because they are aware that the teacher will pass them anyways. There is no real incentive for them to work hard for a high grade. The students know the teacher has to pass them or risk their job. This is an all too common scene in today’s public high schools. Unfortunately, the efforts of teachers are shoved aside and covered by pressures to churn out passing students and high test scores.

There, glaring up at me in bold, red ink against the crisp white paper was a C- . Comparing my grades to those of my classmates, it was revealed that they too had received these grades. What had we done wrong?

One example demonstrating that grades lead to limited learning of material, can be illustrated by a study that was conducted of students, some of whom were graded. One group of students was told about being graded and the other group was not. The group who was “told they’d be graded on how well they learned a social studies lesson had more trouble understanding the main point of the text than did students who were told that no grades would be involved” (Kohn). This experiment shows how students concerned getting a good grade detracts from the students overall understanding. In my experience, students have so much homework, activities, and pressure to excel that it becomes challenging to learn topics outside of those being assigned. For example, in order to complete history worksheets, students do not always read the passages to find the answers, but rather skim the passage for keywords

assignments. There was a brief moment when I felt like giving up and dropping the class, but then I remembered an old

In high school, my English teacher gave me one very important piece of advice about effort: “When you invest your time, you make a goal and a decision of something that you want to accomplish.” Ever since I was given this advice, I began to put forth a much more substantial amount of effort into the goals I want to achieve. In this case, my goal is to receive an A on the rhetorical analysis presentation. In my group, I took on many leadership roles, I invested a lot of time and effort and overall, I was an active and supportive team member. For these reasons, I believe that I deserve the A that I worked towards.

I am a Second Generation African-American Student, and I’m proud to say that my eagerness to learn is one of the many reasons for my academic success. Growing up in an African immigrant family, education has always been my prime focus due to the inspiration I’ve received from my parents. Because of that, all through my middle school journey at Sky Vista, I have set and accomplished many goals for myself. From the baseline of having a 3.5 GPA in 6th grade to always having a 4.0 GPA each quarter in the 7th and 8th grade. Now that my middle school years are slowly coming to an end, my eyes have been shifted to look forward to achieving greater academic things. As I am about to enter high school this year in August, I hope to be faced with many

A gold plaque glistened on the stage, written on it was “Straight A’s All Three Years of Junior High”. Attending the academic ceremony as a 6th grader, I watched in awe as a few 8th-graders received this prestigious plaque. I thought to myself that I would work hard so that one day I could be on that stage and receive that award. For the rest of my Junior High career, I strove to get straight A’s in all of my classes. I remained persistent, focused, and dedicated.

To begin with, you are going to get straight A's and to do that is to go get your homework and start on it. After that you now need to get prepared for your classes. For Example, if I didn’t do my homework, I would probably fail and if I didn’t get prepare or organized that would be failing too. And if I didn’t do all that a straight F in a class.

Over the last week, I've been able to look at all the progress that I have made since I started the semester and I feel I have earned an A+. I remember the first unit of the semester was on how to write a proper sentence. I thought it was a joke. Learning how to write a sentence? Is this first grade all over again? Everybody knows how to do that. I recall the quote that Mrs.Brown shared really changed my mind and showed me that there was much to learn. It was from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby:

Let us start by considering this: Awarding students higher grades helps to develop more self-esteem and greater feelings of pride if they have something to work for. Whereas if they are continuously receiving low grades this could lead to pupils thinking they’re not ‘good enough’ or ‘smart enough.’

Why do I deserve an A as a grade? I deserve an A as a grade for this class for many reasons. I think I deserve this grade because for one it’s a good grade period and teachers tell me they appreciate me doing their work they give me. Then I try to get all my assignments in, and most of the time I try my hardest, that’s what makes what my grades are now, and lastly I try to pay attention even when something isn’t interesting because I want to show my younger brother that life is hard but it doesn’t hurt to try in school and to not give up.

When I was in high school, I received mostly A’s and B’s. High school and college are not the same. In college, earning an A is not always easy. When work becomes harder, good grades become harder to earn. In “ From A to B ” Mark Goldblattt talks about the differences between getting A’s in high school and in college. Goldblaatt states, “ They might guess right 75 percent of the time, which still leaves a quarter of their sentences with mechanical and elementary errors. In college, these errors translate into an F ” (Goldblatt, paragraph 11). If most of the students in high school make elementary mistakes, in college these mistakes result in a failing grade. Students can make the same mistakes and still earn an A in high school. When

Then I began writing like never before, so to get an understanding on the inside of me that I too could do this. Attend college at my age and learn to write. I have to admit that when I received a grade of B, on my paper; I was thrilled not to mention exhausted. Needless to say, I was not looking forward to writing any more essays because there was so much work involved in receiving a passing grade. Then all of a sudden I was faced with the next English 111 assignment, which definitely was not going to be any easier. As in my promise to myself, I remained faithful not only to the commitment of college but to the fact that I still believe I was worth every effort that it was going to take to receive a passing grade of confidence which I so desired.

Receiving a B has taught me that as long as I try my best, no matter the outcome I should proud of what I did or accomplished. Now when I do something that I do my best on and it doesn't work out the way I want it to I shouldn’t think that I failed, I should be happy because I worked hard on it.