First Trimester Final Reflection

One of my strange simple pleasures in High School is turning a textbook back in after I have finished a class.  Whenever I am about to turn one in, I always feel like I have gained so much knowledge from it, and while I am glad to have successfully finished the class, I sometimes want to keep the book just for future reference if I ever wanted to look back on it one day.  Though only the first half of my AP English Literature class has come to a close and we are keeping our books for next trimester, a simple reflection is easy with the virtually all of my works from the whole trimester right here on this blog.

My favorite assignment, the American Drama project, is also the assignment that stressed me the most, but also yielded the most pristine project.  For it was a great and quite professional short story with Hollywood style graphics, great editing, and great acting.  We all channeled our inner little boy fantasies as we played ruthless gangsters, and had plenty of shoot-out scenes.  All the fun was not without some worries.  With a big film project with so many characters, having everyone present to work together was something that was integral to our success, but also something that we struggled with.  For many people had conflicts and could not work over the weekend, and directly after school proved problematic as well.  When we were finally able together, we were very rushed and all stressed.  We all learned that when participating in large groups, it is important for everyone to clear a time to work.  Perhaps in the future, we will choose to work more efficiently in a small group setting.

A second lesson that I learned came from my creative project for the Life of Pi.  I designed an image of what appeared to be abstract art at first.  This custom image though, had specially formulated colors to allow the observer to see a hidden image of a tiger.  This tied into the book theme as when the observer looked through the “rose-colored glasses” (a common metaphor for looking with favorable bias) they saw a tiger, just as Pi saw himself as a tiger instead of a ruthless killer.  This project took considerable thought, and a great amount of effort to complete.  When presenting this though, I feel that this was not conveyed to the best of my ability.  I learned that while working on a project is very important, the presentation requires serious work as well.  For even with a stellar project, a poor presentation will not earn you a good grade.

While many of the pieces that we have worked on thus far such as Hamlet, Ode to the West Wind, or The Life of Pi, are memorable and poignant pieces, I believe that what I will glean the most from this class is an improved work ethic.  With the beginning of the trimester we were directly split into groups to work with.  Together we analyzed poetry, looked at different methods of literary criticism, studied predominant time periods of literature, and I thrived.  For every powerpoint presentation that we designed, I was usually the chief architect.  I generally wrote an interpretation of each piece for my group members, wrote a thesis, and set out strong topic sentences for each one of my other group members to ingvestigate, and then wrote a conclusion as well.  One particular project, I remember, was due on Monday and it was 9:00pm on Sunday night and I was still the only group member that had done any work at all.  It is evident to me, and to my group that I had put forth a strong effort through each of our group assignments.

That night that I was the only one that did work for the whole weekend, I did not panic.  I left the other slides which others had agreed to work on for them overnight, and two out of three group members did them.  I remember vividly that the next day we were all quite angry at the fourth member of our group, for he hadn’t done any work at all.  Although he let the rest of the group down, for me, he proved the strength of the group project.  It is this dependency on one another that really is a great model for work ethic.  I did my work on the powerpoint each night not for my own grade, but because I felt that I owed it to the rest of my group.  This is perhaps one of the most powerful lessons that I have learned in High School, and I am sure that it would be put to good use as I will someday be motivated to provide for my own family.

After all these abstract, but valuable lessons that I learned, the most tangible proof of improvement in the class is the comparison of the diagnostic exam with the final exam.  I had two great, and quantifiable goals that I set out to achieve at the beginning of the trimester: to score just as high on the lengthy prose passages as the poetry passages on the multiple choice, and never to miss a question based on vocabulary.  And after some hard work, I am proud to announce that I met both of these goals.

The first goal, to score as high on the prose as the poetry on multiple choice was quite difficult to achieve.  After I took a second, shorter diagnostic exam at home mid-trimester I was able to pinpoint my problem when it came to the prose section: lack of focus.  When I read the lengthy passage, I would sometimes lose myself in the settings or the situations described.  I found myself wondering what I would do in the described circumstance or any other number of tangents that I could lose myself with.  While this may be good for an in depth, analytic reading, it is not the most ideal approach for a timed AP exam.  With a renewed focus on staying true to the task at hand, I was able to get a much higher score on the prose section.

My second goal, to never miss a question based on a lack of vocabulary was also achieved.  After I was handed a sheet with “tone” words on it, I was amazed at the number of words that I did not know.  I highlight each of them, and looked up their definition once I got home.  This helped immensely on the exam as I specifically recognized two words that I would not have known had I not looked up their definitions.  Although I am unable to turn in my textbooks yet, after achieving all of my goals and learning valuable lessons, I would say that I made great progress in my first half of my AP Emglish Literature and Composition class.