Blog Post #13: Semester One Reflection

Cumulative AP English Literature Semester One Reflection:

In this first semester of AP English Literature, we practiced, revised, and reviewed specific elements that will be on the AP Exam. These included the Prose Passage Essay, the Poetry Passage Essay, and the Open Essay. I set individual goals for each of these three essays after our first experiences with them, but all three lined up in that I set a goal for myself to consistently score at least sevens on the essays by this point in the year - the end of semester one. Hopefully, along this same path of improvement, I would be scoring sevens, eights, or nines consistently through the rest of the year, with my own "average" essays still falling in this upper-range area.

Although I have not yet reached my goal, I know that I have made significant improvements on my writing and my approach to the essays. More specifically, our work on the thesis statements this semester has allowed me to better understand how the thoughts, arguments, and notions put forth in an essay should be organized and related. A strong AP Literature essay does not hit on imagery, diction, and tone in a five-paragraph essay format - it can, but by no means does that make a strong essay. A strong essay is supported not only by a depth of analysis and understanding of the text and/or prompt, but also by the complexities that are addressed in the thesis and in the rest of the essay. Now, it seems easy enough to say "find the complexities in the text," but this is no easy task. Understanding in depth what it is that makes everything the writer does - figurative language, rhetorical devices, attitude towards the subject, etc - more than what it is; in other terms, finding this complexity means understanding what it is that these choices do to add to the unique, complex, and nuanced nature of the text and argument of the author. My essays, including my most recent "paired-poetry" essay from the Poetry test, have improved; each thesis I write grows a little more nuanced, a little more aware of the complexities in the text, and a little shorter - which, for me, is a good thing.

Looking back at what I've produced this semester, I would not say that I am disappointed in myself. I would not say that I have missed the mark (even though I didn't quite reach my goal), and I would not say that I have missed the opportunity to learn from my past essays. I would, though, say that I have grown as a writer. Although my most recent essay from the poetry test scored only a 5.5, I know that it is significantly better than the essays I was putting out at the beginning of the semester. Looking back at my blog, I almost have difficulty recognizing some of my writing; while this is true, I can still say that my mark as a writer hasn't been lost and my voice hasn't been distorted, just refined and improved. Ultimately, I would call this semester a success; there is, however, much more room for improvement, and I want to make use of the second semester to further refine my writing in these essays as much as possible. I am holding myself to the same goals I initially set, but I am adding one more: I want to go above and beyond the call of the classroom in improving my writing and preparing for this exam. I plan to find old AP prompts for the open, poetry, and prose essays and practice, on my own, writing in appropriate testing conditions. I would say that one of my greatest challenges in writing is time, and I have all the resources I need already available to me to prepare even further for the second semester and for the AP Exam.