Reflection Paper

Entering my AP English class in September, I felt mixed emotions. I was coming into the class with my best friend and I was able to have a teacher that I was already comfortable with when I had her sophomore year. On the other hand, I was also coming into the class with some of the top students in my grade with was a huge intimidation factor. This class gave me much stress and late nights doing homework, but it also gave my many laughs and the ability to learn many things about myself.
I was always very confident in my reading and writing skills coming into my senior year, but when I was not able to find the deeper meaning like in my Literary Analysis papers such as "The Chrysanthemums", "Greasy Lake", "Metamorphosis" and the many others we had throughout the year. In the beggining of the year, every single paper I had passed in had come back with the same four words every time "Too Much Plot Summary." Over the year, I have learned to use the plot of the story and find a way to connect it to a bigger theme. Plot summary definately stills shows up in all of my writing, but I am able to even it out with speaking about some literary techniques that the writer uses.
Another part of the AP English class that I had diffuculties with was the class discussions that occurred daily. Whenever I heard anyone else in the class talk, I never felt that I could say anything close to that level of knowledge. I also thought that everytime I tried to express my ideas in class, that my classmates looked at me with a look of amazement that I could ever say something that stupid. This kept me from speaking at all for almost a whole quarter until a talk with Ms. Clapp made me realize that everyone in the class has sounded stupid once and that I should not be hurting my grade any more just because I was feeling self-concious about what my classmates would think of my thoughts. Overcoming this obstacle in class helped not only my grade, but my self esteem and how I felt walking into the classroom every day.
The things that I did enjoy and excel in AP English was the poetry writing which helped me express many of my different thoughts and feelings. I also was able to do well with writing assignments in which I expressed my own stories such as my college essay "Stepping out of the Shadow" and my research paper on my mom "Valerie Rossi: A Loud Spirit in a Silent World" which are the works that I am the most proud of because one of them got me into my number one college and the other one showed my mom that I do appreciate her and understand everything that she had went through.
To me, this AP English Class helped me get into my number one school, Marist College which told me that they would not accept a student who had less than all A's and B's their whole high school career. Since I did not have that I thought that getting it was a long shot, but I used my developing writing skills to complete all the necessary essays and I got in as an early decision student. I believe that the things that I have learned in this AP English class definately persuaded Marist College to accept me into their schools even though my grades were less than what they needed.
Even though I had my own drive to do well in my senior year, I definitely developed my own case of senioritis when I was accepted to my number one college. Ms. Clapp was able to keep me from slacking off by being one of the only teachers that could make me feel comfortable around her but also instill a sense of fear in me whenever I did not do an assignment or not participate in a class discussion. Ms. Clapp was the perfect AP teacher because she was lenient on some of her rules but would never take a slacker's excuses so she was always able to keep all of her students in check.
This class completely helped me this year with my reading skills, writing skills, self-esteem and it also helped me try to keep the number of times I said "like" in a class discussion. I feel that by taking this class, I am definitely ready for college for the workload, the heavy reading materials and the many different personalities of my classmates.