Personal Narrative: Straight A Student

I remember the beginning of sixth grade, just like it was yesterday. Walking through the doors I had my backpack and lunchbox in hand excited to pass all classes with no problem.Unfortanately that thought was just a thought. Over the course of the year I failed tremendously by receiving my very first unsatisfactory grade. Before I have never received anything lower than a “B”, so to see a “C” it was heartbreaking for me. I know most students would love to see a “C” on their report card, satisfied with the feeling of not failing. Every report card I kept getting that same feeling of disappointment of seeing that “C” on my report card.

Throughout a majority of my academic career, I was a straight-A student. My grades were an extremely important thing to me; I reasoned that my grades were representative of my success and if I didn’t earn an A, then I was a failure. I cried and called myself a failure when I received my very first B. Catching my first glimpse of the B for the first time, my heart sank. ‘All of my hard work - for nothing!’, I thought to myself. I didn’t believe that I could have done better. After the second B, I considered that perhaps grades weren’t as important as I had originally thought. As time went on from my first B to my fourth, my heart sank less and the tears dried up. I began to notice the things I was doing wrong and used that information to turn

My palms were sweating, my heart was racing, I had no idea what to expect or who I was going to meet. I was never the type of girl to embrace new situations, I hated change and I wasn’t very good with meeting new people. I figured once I got to high school it would be my chance to start all over, turn the page in my book of life, and flip over a new leaf. I wanted to finally be the girl that fit in with everyone. I had imagined myself going to parties with big groups of my new friends, having sleepovers and doing all of the things cool high school kids normally do. I was certain that my high school career would be just like one of those really corny teen movies and I would live happily ever after with the homecoming crown and the boy of my

For the duration of my high school years I have had my fair share of bad grades, just as any student has. An “F” on a vocabulary test, “D” on a math quiz, or even getting a “C” on my midterm exams is all failures to me. I will be the first to admit that I have never been the top- ranked 4.0 student, but getting a

I was used to getting A’s. In fact, it never came that hard for me if I listened a bit and didn’t barrel through my work. As did several others in 5th grade. I mean, doing a quarter-page worth of single-digit multiplication problems doesn’t come all hard to anyone if they’ve been gifted, so why work hard when you can just get 100’s without doing your best? This was sort of my mindset in elementary school. And then middle school happened. (Insert bomb-whistle and explosion here.) I started to struggle to keep my grades above B’s, and I was up until midnight doing my homework sometimes. A megaton-weight was dropped on my shoulders as soon as I moved up, or down, if you will, to middle school. I’m Ethan

I failed AP English. I had missed the second quarter of the school year, almost completely, due to… technical difficulties. I got discharged from the hospital mid-February, and for the remainder of junior year, the majority of my waking thoughts revolved around passing 11th grade. With motivational speeches coming at me from my parents, friends, and teachers, I began to believe I had a chance of passing the year. I did my best, which apparently was not enough. My teacher had picked up on my tremendous amount of effort, and on the last day of school, bumped my grade up to a low D — just enough to pass. I was not exactly about to put my grade on display or anything, but I passed! Technically. This is not one of the underdog-who-succeeded stories. The real success for me was (look away, it’s cliché) realizing my best was enough. I sound disgusting.

When I first received a C on a math test, I was devastated. Throughout my entire life, I was always an A student and getting a C was unimaginable for me. I was so ashamed of this grade, I felt as if I had failed myself and I was beyond disappointed in myself. Thinking that this one grade was the end of my academic success, I had no more motivation to study harder or work to recover my grade. Thankfully, my mother showed me that getting one bad grade will not be the end of me getting good grades.

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.

I am a sophomore at Hamilton Southeastern High school, and currently plan to graduate in 2018. My GPA as of this moment is a 3.33, and I am an A, B honor roll student. Inside school I am a part of the Harry Potter Club, and play quidditch which is a sport having to do with Harry Potter. My aim in high school is to graduate with academic honors. Last school year I was not as involved with the school rather, I got involved with outside of school things. In 8th grade I was a part of the Junior high national honors society.

When I was in elementary school, my grandparents would give me and my siblings twenty dollars if we made A-B Honor Roll. In 4th grade, we decided to treat our family by going to the movies, as we had not been to the movies in almost two years. Our idea was my sister and I would combine our forty dollars and buy the tickets and snacks, and we would have some nice family bonding. Until we met The Bike Woman, a homeless woman we encountered in the parking lot. She walked up to us, rolling her old blue bicycle alongside her and asked if we had any spare change. Without even thinking of it, we handed all forty dollars to her, along with three bottles of water we had in a cooler in the car. She thanked us profusely and even tried to give the money

Let me tell you about two students. Student A attends Brooklyn Technical High School. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and loves to play sports such as basketball and football. He’s part owner of a clothing brand, and has a passion for video games and computer software; having hopes that one day he will own a software company. Student B has been working since the age of fifteen; at one point having to work two jobs in the same day. He’s been surrounded by gang violence most of his life, and the biggest fear he has is failure. To both my detriment and benefit, I am student A and student B.                                                                                        For most of my life, I’ve been caught in between

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.

Your parents want to see A’s and B’s because that means that you understand what’s being taught. It means you are smart and will have a very bright future. But when you work for the grade and don’t actually learn anything, how will that help you become successful in the future? Educators don’t care whether you understand the material as long as they’re

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

Knowing I didn’t study, I held in my breath and closed my eyes as he handed me the three sheets of scribbles and sloppily circled answers. Slowly I opened my eyes and looked down at my grade, and there it was, 49%. My first failing grade. My cheeks turned as red as the sharpie the teacher used to mark my paper. Embarrassment and shame crashed over me. Page flip after page flip, I scanned my mistakes and then immediately shoved the papers into my folder. Other classmates were gawking at their success and I didn’t want them to see my failure. That grade haunted my mind for forever, it seemed.