End of Year Writing Reflection

My Origin:

"Furthermore, Fey uses allusions to help tie together her opinions and the message she wants to come across to the reader. She effectively uses an allusion to the "Sesame Street film piece 'Over! Under! Through!'" (131) by allowing the simplicity of the children show's message to clarify her ideas. Fey urges her readers to realize that personal opinions are the only ones that truly matter, "Don't care if they like it," so find a way "Over! Under! [or] Through!" (131) to make it to your goal. Readers are enticed by the parallels between Fey's message and Sesame Street's teachings. Therefore, this allusion adds to the credibility of Fey's argument. The parallels found between the two sources also appeal to the logic of her readers as the two messages are both teaching them that a single task can be done a multitude of ways, the important thing is you find a way that will help you achieve your goals."

This passage accurately represented my origin as it contains two major challenges I had at the beginning of the year. The first flaw in my writing is that I choose too specific of a rhetorical term. I chose to analyze allusions in Tina Fey's, Bossypants, but I was only able to provide one example of an allusion. When analyzing language and purpose in an entire book, the two language devices should have been overwhelmingly prevalent, yet I wrote about a device I only had one example of. The second major challenge I encountered at the beginning of the year was being too general in my analysis. In the first sentence of this passage, I talk about Fey's "opinions and the message that she wants to come across," yet I never clarify what these opinions or message are. I needed to be more specific in analyzing what her opinions were and then how the allusions effectively displayed that to her audience. Later in the passage, I state that the allusion "adds to the credibility of Fey's argument" but I never talk about how it strengthens her credibility. This passage demonstrates that at the beginning of the year I struggled with depth of thought and adding specific details and pieces of analysis.

My Evolution:

"While "owning" Charity week leads to each individual student "owning" a positive sense of self and generosity during the week, it is also possible to take ownership of a negative characteristic. In the book, The Kite Runner, by Khalid Hosseini, the main character Amar watches his best friend get raped and he does not do or say anything to stop it from happening. He immediately begins to possess guilt for freezing and not helping his friend. He takes ownership of this guilt and allows it to consume all his physical and mental energy, adjusting his behavior. Ownership of this negative quality ultimately destroys his moral character altering his identity in his own eyes and in the eyes of the people he encounters. Therefore, owning negative things, whether tangible or intangible can keep you from being the best possible version of yourself."

This passage demonstrates my ability to pick supportive evidence, provide specific analysis and argue a single side of an argument. I have grown in my ability to pick specific and relevant evidence to support my claim. Unlike the underwhelming example of allusions, I was able to use a situation from a previous book I have read to back the specific claim that negative ownership is possible which supported my overall thesis/argument. Through this I was able to analyze the novel with specific details and then apply it to my claim. I have also grown in writing argumentative essays. In this essay, I was able to specifically define my definition of ownership and provide examples supporting that ownership of both the tangible and the intangible and an individual's sense of self are directly correlated. In this passage, I showcased my ability to use prior knowledge to prove that I am the informed citizen and student the College Board expects me to be.

Writing Log:

Date	Topic	AP Score	Strength	Challenge
2/1/18	Library Synthesis Essay	7	Clear claims and good use of source material	Continue to expand on the “so what” to offer a greater depth of analysis
3/1/18	Polite Speech Argumentative Essay	5	Clear argument	Examples used were vague (need to be more concrete)
3/13/18	Emerson and Wallace Short Response	14/15	Clear argument and strong analysis	Spelling and grammar errors weakened argument
3/22/18	Creativity Argumentative Essay	5	Good examples to support claims	Need to disprove counter and fix simple spelling mistakes
4/16/18	Ownership & Self-Identity Argument Essay	7	Strong argument and concrete examples	Work on disproving counter argument
4/21/18	Sustainable Eating Synthesis Essay	7	Good use of source material	Further disprove counter
4/30/18	Leonardo DiCaprio to the UN Rhetorical Analysis	6	Major features are address and well analyzed	Need to consider context of speech in analysis
5/8/18	Disobedience and Societal Progress Argumentative Essay	6	Clear argument supported with many examples	Factual inaccuracy weakened argument

Multiple Choice Log:

Date	Topic/Occasion	Score	Strength	Challenge
1/23/18	First Full AP Practice Test	27/52 = 52%	Rhetoric	Main Idea
2/12/18	Farmer AP Practice Passage	5/10% = 50%	Purpose	Rhetoric & Vocabulary
3/5/18	“The Law of Great Peace” Practice Passage	4/10 = 40%	Main Idea	Rhetoric
3/19/18	New York Herald Passage	7/10 = 70%	Main Idea & Mode	Vocabulary
4/9/18	Second Full AP test	35/54 = 65%	Rhetoric	Vocabulary & Main Idea
4/23/18	“A Modest Proposal” AP Practice Test	6/10 = 60%	Vocabulary	Modes of Discourse & Purpose
5/1/18	Multiple Choice Practice Exam 1 3 passages	21/32 = 66%	Main Idea/Purpose	Rhetoric
5/9/18	The American Scholar AP Practice Passage	7/11 = 64%	Rhetoric	Main Idea
5/10/18	Emerson’s Oration Practice Passage	7/11 = 64%	Main Idea	Rhetoric
5/14/18	Final Practice 5 passages 39 questions	23/38 = 61%	Main Idea/Purpose	Vocabulary

Reflection:

This year I feel I have significantly grown in my writing abilities. Everyone always says that the more you read and write, the better you become and I feel that I have really felt the effects of this truth. This year we have written a lot of essays in order to prepare for the AP test, and each time we wrote in class, I gained confidence in my writing and began to see improvements. Since the College Board expects AP language students to be informed citizens, I subscribed to a news service called Need2Know that sends you an email each day with ten major news headlines. This resource helped me stay connected with what was going on in the world politically, economically and socially making me a more informed citizen and resulting in me having an easier time writing as I had more evidence to pull from. I do not feel as though I am a naturally talented writer, and essays tend to be on the harder side for me, so preparing for a test with a two hour block to write three full essays very difficult. However, I feel I have grown in my ability to pick a side of an argument and my speed when planning how to organize an essay. My biggest challenge in my writing is providing great depths of analysis. I am proud that have improved my ability to specify and use greater detail, but I still had, and to some extent continue to have trouble providing the connection as to why whatever I am analyzing is important to the audience and the world. In the future, I plan on continuing to grow in analyzing different problems and literature and connecting them back to why they are important. The ability to analyze is a great life skill to have so I will continue to fine tune my writing in hopes of also finding my own voice.