(Re)introductions

With my first semester of senior year complete, I can’t help but think it may be wise of me to reconfigure the way I’ve been doing things. I’ll be in college in less than eight months, and I’m terrified that my perpetual struggle to manage my own time will get the better of me.  Right before final exams, all AP Lit students were given one last writing assignment: a self-reflection paper. The objective was simple – sit down and evaluate your progress as an AP Lit student over the course of this semester. What I didn’t expect was how useful this paper would be in helping me pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses from both a personal and educational level. I don’t want my last semester of senior year to be inflicted with the infamously viral case of ‘senioritis.’ Instead, I’m taking this semester as a golden opportunity to be aware of my weaknesses, improve upon them, and see if I have what it takes to survive the academic rigor and personal responsibility which come with being a college student.

I think my biggest problem from last semester was a lack of self-discipline; I tend to think more emotionally than logically whenever I start papers or timed-writing exercises. I can get completely carried away during the pre-write period, and I’m realizing now that my meticulous planning hurts the quality of my writing far more than it helps it. My obsession with excessive planning puts me at a disadvantage from the very beginning, because I dedicate more than half of my writing period to only - what appears to be - the first paragraph. Although the self-inflicted time crunch sometimes makes for more fluid, less agonized-over body paragraphs, I see now that the AP Lit exam values deep, clear analysis far more than it does stylistic writing. By making a conscious effort to minimize my planning period, I think I can write more analytical papers which are better-suited for AP Lit.

I’ve also noticed that I don’t always spend enough time developing each individual point in my essays. Oftentimes, I’ll freak out when I realize I don’t have enough time left, and I’ll try to hit all the points I laid out for myself during the planning period. By hastily introducing new points, my arguments seem weak and relatively unsupported. A skill I definitely want to improve upon this semester is keeping my thoughts simple and clear and logical. I tend to preoccupy myself with the tiny details of a passage instead of focusing on the big picture. By keeping my pre-planning stupid-easy, I’ll have more time to expound on my points when I’m actually writing what I’ll turn in.

Overall, I think that having more confidence in myself and my abilities will significantly help me improve my writing this semester. I still think that taking this class is one of the best academic decisions I’ve made in all of high school. It’s put me back into the habit of reading for pleasure, and I feel more intellectually curious than I have in ages. Because of it, I feel motivated and inspired to keep feeding this curiosity and make my final semester of high school one to remember.