Before AP Lang, I didn't consider myself much of a writer, and I didn't know if I could handle this so called "AP Writing Class". But, bravely jumping in anyway despite my worries, I discovered the wonderful world of rhetoric and the most amazing teacher of all time, Mrs. Zavitz. By now, I realize that there was nothing to be worried about, and that, as I'm clearly typing this right now, I obviously survived what I thought would be my downfall.
At the start of this year, I was an extremely unconfident writer. I was so unconfident in my writing ability that I constantly made fun of myself and my "crappy" writing. It turns out that this hurt, yet also somehow helped me at the same time. As I learned this year, confidence is a huge factor in writing, and simply having confidence in your own abilities can instantly boost your success in the area. As I now know, this unconfident nature of mine was part of what was holding me back. But there was a bright side to this characteristic. At the beginning of the year, we were told that we would have to completely forget everything we had ever been taught about writing in our lives and start over. For me, this was a plus. Even though I felt like my writing ability was behind everyone else's, the fact that we were all starting over as writers together put me back on an even playing field. With the realization that confidence was a huge factor in stellar writing, as well as learning all about the wonderful world of rhetoric, I feel like my writing has drastically improved this year. I started off the year totally unconfident in my writing ability, and now I feel as if a whole new world of opportunity has opened itself up for me. The fact that I can write now has made me a happier person, as it is imperative to be a good writer for the careers that I'm interested in. In just nine months, AP Lang has transformed me from a sluggish caterpillar into a soaring butterfly.
As much as I hate to say it, the most important tool to my improvement this year was the timed writings. The fact that we could write two of them but pick only one to be graded was a huge confidence booster. With only writing one to be graded, there would be so much more pressure to write the best essay possible, and we all know what horrors pressure can work on us. But that second chance was huge, because it took a vast amount of pressure off of our shoulders. It allowed us a bad essay here and there (because of a day with a cold or some other annoying outside circumstance) without totally destroying our hard-earned grades. Plus, writing several a month exposed us to all sorts of writing we would need to do in the future. So as much as I hate to say it, the timed writings were the key to success. However, if I could change one thing, I would make vocabulary a more central theme to the class, as I'm a firm believer that a diverse vocabulary is one of the most important things to have when writing. AP Lang has been huge in my development as a writer, and I'm ready to take on the world with my newfound skill.
