Personal Narrative: My Experience In AP Literature Class

I have truly enjoyed writing for most of my life and after this class I will continue to enjoy writing hopefully with more skill. I have always viewed myself as a fairly strong writer and this class has reaffirmed that for me, but it has also shown weaknesses in my writing. As an introduction level class this has been one of my favorites; at some point I will take a higher level, even though it is not required for my major. Even though this class is almost over I am continuing to learn. I also love that this class will help me with literally ever other class in my college career. I am not a particularly strong reader, but as my writing skills improve so do the reading skills. While in this class I have learned a lot about everything from what I can improve, to subjects that interest me, and constructing a successful paper.

Unfortunately, I would not be making it to your America history 102 class today, due to some unexpected family situation. Hopefully by next week class I will be somewhat caught up. Also, I recently had a situation with my midterm essay, I spend almost two to three hours typing the essay at Kalamazoo Valley Community College (TTC) in the computer center and when I was about to be finished, I assumed I saved the paper so I exit it out and after my wellness class I had gone back to the computer center and I had noticed my midterm essay was not in my document folder. There was nothing I and the computer staff can do, so now I am currently typing a whole knew midterm essay, and since I have a horrible memory I am not sure what I wrote about the

The final weeks of my first semester in college are coming to an end. My Columbus State english class has written a total of three projects, and a total of four papers. There are a lot of grammatical issues that, at the beginning of the year, I had issues on. However, I have improved on these errors drastically, and have become a better writer because of it. Even though I am still working on many aspects of my writing, I do believe that I have become a better writer. I believe that my biggest issues while writing are run on sentences, making a strong thesis statement, and having quotes stand alone at the beginning of a paragraph.

I walked into room 160 and saw a group of anxious 14 year olds, waiting for the lady we had all heard so much about to walk in. Rumors about her ranged from “she will make you cry daily” to “she’s basically the human form of a fire breathing dragon”. When the bell rang, we all prepared for the worst. The small lady that walked in, with short brown hair and glasses too big for her face did not look nearly as intimidating as all the stories suggested, which was comforting on that first day of class. This was Mrs. Carballo, my AP US History teacher. She started our first day off by talking about the summer reading and our objectives for the year. By the time the second week rolled around, I felt pretty comfortable with the course...that is, until we all received books that were almost bigger than we were!

As my high school years were coming to an end, all anyone could talk about was college. Where they were going, what state they would be a resident in, and what they would major in, what campus they would be visiting that weekend. I, however, thought I had it all under control. I thought that when my Senior year came by it would all fall in to place. That's crazy, right? The shows that I grew up watching did not have to deal with this. That is when expectation went out the window and reality kicked me in the butt. I had five months left to start applying to colleges and looking in to different campuses that offered my dental hygiene program. Lucky for me, my community college had a two year program.

In this class, I have learned many new skills to improve my writing, and I have also learned new grammar rules. In regards to my writing, I have learned the importance of freewriting when beginning to write a paper. Additionally, I now know to allow ample time for revising and editing because I can look at my work critically for mistakes and make necessary changes. Furthermore, I have learned about grammar rules such as pronoun-antecedent agreement. This rule is something that I know subconsciously, but being made aware of it has allowed me to find mistakes I make more often.

I believe I have grown a lot since the beginning of this course. My writing was severely lacking grammar and punctuation. I didn’t use any punctuation other than periods and very few commas spersed throughout my papers. My papers still need help in that area, but I have improved. I now know where they need to go and when it’s appropriate to use them. My papers aren’t exactly flawless but they are better than before. I would write how I speak at times and I knew it wasn’t right, but I would still do it because it allowed my papers to flow better in my mind. I read my papers out loud to help avoid my problem with writing how I speak. I’ve learned my writing style in this course, or lack thereof. I found a program that would benefit me now and

I have learned a lot in just 16 short weeks. I have learned how to organize my thoughts on paper, even when I have a fear of a writing assignment. I learned about pre-writing, outlining, rough draft, and finals. In each of these steps, I have learned to depend on each of them. They also help me find out what I need to do next. I always try to reflect on what I have written, even if it may be terrible. I use every bit of information I have to make sure I keep my thoughts in order. My strengths have increased as a writer. I love to write, and I know what to write about when given a topic. I feel strongly capable of writing more assignments, and essays in the future, especially in my Composition 2 class next semester. Having 2 English classes this semester really helped me with being able to

“Your final exam will be in three parts: multiple choice, primary source analysis, and three major essays. I won’t be allowed within 2 miles of you when you take the exam.” The words of Mr. F, my AP US History teacher, reverberated between my ear drums. He either didn’t notice or didn’t seem to care: “The AP US History exam will be on a Saturday in mid May. It’s graded on a scale of 0 to 5. Zero being the lowest possible score, 5 being the highest.” A student in the front row raises her hand, interrupting our baptism by fire. Mr. F motions for her to speak.

Physics has been both a challenging and deeply beneficial course. The reason this course has been difficult for me isn’t because it is an AP class. It also isn’t because I am only a sophomore, my age has no real impact in this instance. This class has been difficult for me because it presented several ideas in ways I had never challenged before. It has truly made me question my way of thinking and has opened up my eyes to the world around me. Some of the things I’ve learned in class I’ve already observed before but never knew why. Other things I’ve been blind to and finding out the truth gives me a whole new perspective. I have had to retrain my brain out of its misconception of reality. Learning something entirely new is easy. The real challenge occurs when you have to forget what you thought you knew and replace it with something entirely different.

It has been a while since we last spoke in Boston. I hope all is well in America. I have just about had enough of China and am excited on coming home in a few weeks.

I never thought that the years would go by so quickly and I am senior now. For having three years in Western High, I learned a lot of things especially educationally and academically. I experienced many things in this school. There were a great times and bad times as well. English is my least favorite subject, which I struggles many times. When I looked back those essays in my portfolio, I couldn’t believe that I wrote a bunch of essays during my three years. There were some great essays and terrible essays. I noticed that on my essays I struggled on these three focus areas: organization, weak evidence and grammar/spelling.

In English 1, I did not learn material that might be needed in Honors English 2. A few of my friends had your class during the first term. They told me some of the things I should learn, provided I wanted your advice. I was hoping you could tell me what to expect and if I ever need help what I could do. I do not know how to annotate, write pearls or thesis. I am aware it will not be easy, however, I know this could be good for me.

I became interested in English literature and writing when I took two Advanced Placement English classes in high school. Subsequently as an undergraduate student I have taken a variety of English courses that have challenged the conventional approaches I used to explicate and understand texts. Initially I struggled with writing assignments because I had been programmed since high school to follow a formulaic method of writing. It was through Professor Emma’s Stapely’s course on American Literature that I first learned that there are multiple approaches one can take in order to make sense of a text, such as through attention to visual economy. I also learned that when interpreting a text one is not restricted to a single understanding, but that

At Bluefield College I attended the same English class that I am in currently. The credits did not transfer therefore I had to retake the course here at CVCC. At Bluefield I seemed to have the wrong mindset. I passed the course but truthfully did not learn much. Ms. Braun has taught me more in this eight week program than I had learned in a full semester at Bluefield. I feel the main obstacles I encountered in this course were grammar, as well as sentence fragments. I had the tendency you have multiple run-ons, as well as misspelled words.