Blog Post #2

If one were to look back at the beginnings of my Junior year, now only little more than three hundred and sixty-five days ago, there would obviously be many differences that one might easily notice. Having taken AP Composition and Literature last winter, my ability to structure an essay and have confidence going into any given assignment has risen immensely. I attribute all of my progress to practice, failure, and the knowledge that I can and will get better in all senses of the word. This is all said to say this, my practice test was less than dismal. I felt as if I had adequate if not ample time to finish the test even though the texts were still entirely new to me and the questions all tinged with blood-lust for my scattered thoughts. I had a dreary grade when finished checking, but only fools let that bother them. If one were to look at the sort of grades I was getting when I began these multiple choice tests, they would understand that progress has been made. Especially when taking into account the fact that I become rusty atrociously fast and the whole summer ran at me in one breath, it seems. Its unquestionable that I need to improve. 

The question is, however, how much of the test was my not paying attention, and how much of it was me actually forgetting how to go about taking these tests well. As a Senior in high school, it could be easy for me to forego effort, abstain from my work ethic, and simply relax. Naturally if I had wanted to relax I would've taken easier courses and I understand that I'll be called upon to improve drastically this year. One thing that I definitely would love to improve upon this year, would be the multiple choice tests. I would like to have an average score of 80% in that specific category of work for myself by mid-November. I would love to be getting As, but I like to set realistic standards for myself and I'll survive if I have an average of 75% or so. I think that in general I am fairly good at figuring out what or to whom something is directed in texts, I can relatively easily find which direction a reference was made to. I don't often have trouble deciphering the mood or tone of a piece, the way that an author may have crouched over their paper with their pen, trying not to spill any of the words' meanings on the floor. Attempting to tell you what the author was thinking isn't out of my comfort zone and it isn't an unwelcome task to toss their own thoughts into my mind and see if anything sticks. I love to just soak in what an author was feeling when they wrote, as the textbook said, and let literature teach like its supposed to.

Somethings which are primary concerns for me, personally, are my ability to analyze things such as literary devices. Alright, primarily my horrible lack of effective analytical know-how for literary devices is my problem, both within and out of multiple choice tests. If I could become better at the devices then perhaps I could get better scores and have prettier essays. A good goal for me to have in relation to improvement might be to familiarize myself with literary devices so thoroughly that I can recall eight of them without a doubt. I'd like to be able to do this by the end of September, when I still have a lot of time left in the class to focus on other, more challenging, things. I don't have very much empathy for myself in this area because I've had lots of time to memorize and understand these literary devices that somehow still evade me. I wish there was a logical reason behind my lack of understanding but I think it'll have to be sheer monotonous memorization that solves my query. 


My last goal shall be being able to annotate the piece in question well enough to not need to go back through the text and reread it. This applies to notes, multiple choice tests, novels and more. Its easy enough to come up with your own way to annotate a work, I have come up with a very handy process which suits me fairly well. I do fear, however, that perhaps my way of annotation is not all that suitable for the sorts of writing in multiple choice tests. I understand that its not as measurable as the other two goals, but being able to go through a text in the multiple choice test and not have to keep rereading might give me more time to look over my questions' answers. If I had more time to go through things I might be forced to look at the more questionable questions for longer and thus hopefully allotting myself more time to control my responses. This could lead to helping with my first goal, but it is a goal of its own in that it can work on its own as annotative skill which, when the text is verbal, can be boiled down to taking notes which will help me in all of my other subjects as well as this particular class.