One assignment I am most proud of is a tie between two of my TBD group presentations on the Marxist Perspective and the Myth of Tiresias (Blog posts #5 & 6, respectfully), and my Summer Reading "Identity" Prompt essay. For the group presentations, not only did my group get A+'s on both of these projects, but for the Marxist perspective PowerPoint we walked in with the most difficult perspective to analyze "Where Have You Been, Where Are You Going" by Joyce Carol Oates, and we pulled it off; with a witty tweet and a clear, step-by-step explanation of an extremely difficult story from an even more difficult (and seemingly impossible, at first) perspective, we earned our A+. The mythological PowerPoint was downright fun - the hilarity of the myth of Tiresias itself that we had to research to see how it enhanced the meaning of Carol Ann Duffy's dramatic monologue poem "Mrs. Tiresias" made it impossible not to enjoy (plus we had another amazing tweet to top it off) - but the most enjoyable part of the presentation had to be the grade. Overall, I think my group did an amazing job slaving over these two particular presentations to make them as good as they could be.
The other assignment I am personally most proud of was my Summer Reading Prompt essay, which became an 8/9 paper. But more than the grade, I feel that my writing that is exemplified in that paper was writing I was particularly proud of, as I felt like it was sophisticated, but I didn't sound too formulaic or bland, and that you could tell it was still me and my writing. The best part was I truly felt as though I was making sense; that small detail may seem petty, but for me I tend to lose myself in my writing, and completely forget/disregard the prompt at hand. I am too conditioned for freestyle writing, so I still struggle quite a bit with structured, prompt-based essays. So knowing I executed one well was a great feeling.
My strengths in both (technically all 3) assignments were my thesis statements, but my biggest weakness also lied in them. I know my thesis statements are strong and always answer the prompt at hand, but they are always very wordy, as I am a very wordy writer. If my thesis statements were sharper and to the point, they would be much more effective in not only conveying what I am trying to explain, but help me overcome my difficulties in brainstorming the structure of my essay in the first place. Overall, I've learned how to work in a group and be patient in a group (as when we were working on the presentations, all of my group members, including myself, had different work schedules that we each needed to work around and delegate duties to), become less protective of my writing so I can let others skills and strengths shine through and let me improve for myself, and I've learned to start writing more "economic" theses.
When it comes to the dynamic of the entire class, I am very hesitant to participate, for the fear of being wrong. Even though I consciously know that it is ok to be wrong in interpreting literature, and in fact it is perfectly normal and (socially) acceptable. But part of me puts a lot of pressure on myself to be right more often than I find myself being in that class, therefore when a question is presented to the entire class, my first instinct is to hold back, not "give it a go."
However, when it comes to smaller group dynamics, I am a very active participant - I like discussion, I like building off of other peoples' ideas, and collaborating to create an amazing product that was the work of many people, not just one. For our group presentations back in September, my strengths were writing theses and conclusions, Amulya's strengths were making writing more economic and creating topic sentences to match the thesis, Rachel's strengths were pulling quotes of the given text to support the topic sentences, and Will's strengths were creativity and research abilities to qualify our presentation. But even though those were our individual strengths, we each reviewed each other's work and had lengthy discussions with each other before we changed any of each other's work, so that we were all on the same page and everyone in the group agreed with the final presentation. Besides actual group projects, I have always been available to read over theses of other people for various class papers (such as the Comparison/Contrast essay), and give my opinion(s), only when requested. I believe that in classes such as Literature & Composition, the positive feedback that grows from building off of other peoples' strengths and weaknesses is the best (and quite frankly the only) way to succeed in the class.
By biggest goal is to be able to write an open-ended prompted essay with a score of 8 by the end of the 2nd Trimester (March 2014). I seem to do ok with structured prompted essays (ex. identifying literary devices and how they enhance the piece), but with open-ended prompts, I never seem to be able to decide on a direction for the essay, much less pick the correct direction the essay should be heading. Another goal would be to complete at least 2 practice essays prior to the AP exam in May 2014 - last year for Language & Composition I walked in completely blind with no preparation, and I relied a little bit too much on sheer luck to get me through the exam and receive a good score.
Another goal I would like to accomplish would be to get a 90% or above on an AP Multiple Choice (practice) test we take in class (after test corrections), by the end of 2nd Trimester (March 2014). A minor (but still important and doable goal) would be to create AP Lit flashcards by the end of Winter Break (early January 2014). I want to accommodate information learned first trimester (literary periods, significant vocab to know, types of pieces, tone words, etc.), and build on material from second trimester, so for the multiple choice AP exam in May, I will have a study tool that is convenient and I will have easy access to.
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