My Progress as an AP Writer

With the last AP essay of my 11th grade year over with, I look back on my previous essays and notice... nothing. My writings skills have more or less stagnated, with minimal improvement based on my writing logs. Does this mean I didn't learn anything? On the contrary, I gained a lot of writing knowledge throughout the year, even if my writing log doesn't reflect that.

Let's look at my writing from the very beginning of the year: the summer reading nonfiction rewrite. This is the first essay with an AP grade of 11 AP, albeit not the first essay written. This is a perfect reflection of the skills I gained from 10 Honors, as we had yet to learn or develop writing skills specific to the semester. I wrote on Quiet by Susan Cain, and the prompt was on how the author used specific devices to convey her purpose. I consider rhetorical analysis my worst skill and topic to write about, but this was not the lowest score I received throughout the year. I got a 6 (which is honestly pretty typical for me); my strength was a "good observation of [the] author's purpose and tone discussion," and my challenges were being "[un]specific with language analysis/devices" and "need[ing] to explain more." I quote this from the previous writing log, so it's my own writing. ...That sounds like me: having a good claim, but not having much explanation or development. (As you'll soon see, I write "good claim" or something similar in the "Strength" column of my writing log for practically all of them. Clearly, I don't know my own strengths.) At the beginning of the year, I often included extra information and I failed to expand my analysis. This was mostly due to me failing to truly comprehend the texts I was given, so I just gave "padding" on what I felt was a correct interpretation. It was good enough, but I needed to do better.

For the second full AP test, I turned in the rhetorical analysis. I felt it was my weakest out of the three and poorly written (before the rewrite). Unlike everything else, the strength I wrote here is slightly different: "clean analysis of excerpt." Well, it's not just the claim that's clear; the section that matters the most—the analysis—was clear. At this point in the year, I gained a lot more experience writing rhetorical analysis than at the start of the year. I read a lot of sample papers, and my mind was refreshed on particular strategies to use and ways to do rhetorical analysis (for example, tracing the argument). I got a 7 on this essay, which doesn't seem like much of an improvement. The fact that it was rhetorical analysis in and of itself, however, is already proof that something has improved. I was able to find stronger and more specific rhetorical devices, and I expanded my analysis to account for implications and deeper meaning. Of course, that was a result of reading the essays of other people and learning the skills in class.

As is evident in my writing logs, my strengths, weaknesses, and scores are pretty much the same. Like last year, they go up and down with no real pattern. Nevertheless, I still feel like I grew as a writer. I feel like I already know my style, so reading someone else's essay for guidance wasn't a big influence. Those essays, alongside lessons during class, helped teach me what I should look for in a prompt and in text. Both of these taught me how to delve deeper in the text and have greater understanding of the author's purpose. The only thing that was holding me back was actually reading more texts and essays for practice and advice. I definitely faced other roadblocks: often times I had no idea what I was writing and still did not understand what was being asked (yet those somehow always turn better than ones where I feel know what I am writing on, so who am I to judge). If I want to improve even more, I'll definitely need to read more books and other pieces of writing, and I'll need to read more closely as well. Reading more helps me more easily understand what authors want to convey, and it also expands my knowledge of the world, allowing me to be a more active citizen and to take stances on more subjects. At the very least, I feel I've achieved my goal from 10th grade (more or less): to expand my thoughts and to be more succinct with my writing.

What are you even saying?

People are usually able to understand what I'm saying (if they can hear me, but that's a different story). They can completely comprehend two of my "Englishes" that I use on a daily basis: serious and not serious. I grouped most of the English I speak into these two major categories, as they serve similar functions and sound relatively the same as others in the same category.

The ways that I speak that fall under the "serious" category are usually more snide and straightforward. I say whatever comes to mind without holding back; it's also not completely serious, as I tell jokes with it. (It's just named that way for the sake of contrast). I also use more sophisticated word choice (and sometimes a more British-sounding or old-timey accent): "but of course," "insinuating," "exemplify," etc. It's very structured; I speak grammatically correct sentences with very few colloquialisms. I use this whenever I'm with pretty close friends, as I can be a bit freer with my harsh remarks than I can with mere acquaintances. The sophisticated word choice is just me semi-consciously trying to make myself sound smarter (but I also like how those words sound). This is the form I use the most throughout my daily life, as I often encounter moments where I need to be serious; I usually default to this if I'm not specifically trying to use the other English often.

My other English that I use quite often is a drastic turn from the previous one: it's almost the complete opposite. I try to sound like an idiot whenever I use my "not serious" form of English. I pretend I don't comprehend really obvious things people tell me, and I give really dumb replies to questions people ask me. I talk slower and speak with a higher pitched compared with my more serious English. Also in this category are my more "laid back" responses: they have the same tone of voice when I try to sound dumb, but I'm only trying to go with the flow and not trying to lighten the atmosphere. This English is where my true comic prowess is employed. Acting dumb allows me to be funnier and derail conversations. It makes things more interesting, as I don't give a straight answer; this may be annoying to the victim other person, but he or she generally isn't bothered by it. I play dumb with my family and close friends, as they can take a joke. For every other situation, however, I interchange between laid back English and a less snide form of serious English.

Those are the two "Englishes" that most people can understand... so what of the third one? The third one is more of a "mod" or an "add-on" so to speak; in fact, it's not English. It's a combination of random Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese phrases that express what I want to say better than I could in English. Obviously, by themselves, most people would be clueless as to what I am saying; however, I use them in situations where it makes sense and only context clues are needed to understand them. For example, if someone asks me a question that I couldn't quite comprehend, I often use the Chinese/Taiwanese word for "what" with a look on my face that people usually have when they say "Huh?" or the like. People usually pick up that I'm confused about what they've said, even if they don't fully understand exactly what I said. I mostly use this, alongside normal Chinese, whenever I'm with Chinese speakers. It's a simple divide with some overlapping words: I use mainly Chinese with people who mainly speak Chinese, using a little English for words that are better expressed in English (like "anyway" and some obscure nouns), and I use mainly English with English-speaking people with the exceptions I mentioned above. (I don't speak just Japanese with anybody; they're just a few words I picked up from my sister and other places). It's just easier for the involved parties to understand what I'm saying. If anyone wants to hear my super enthusiastic voice say some of these exceptions, I recorded them for your listening pleasure.

By using a more "serious" form of English, I don a sarcastic and smart personality. I am quick to retort, and I play the straightman when it comes to jokes. I also flaunt my knowledge; I let people know that I know a lot. As such, whenever I use this English, people often tell me that I always "roast" people and say I am smart. It boosts my ego to do these sorts of things, but it can get pretty sinister if I go too far with it. I balance it out with my "not serious" form of English. When I use this form, I sound much more easygoing and laid back. I'm less tense; I tend to seem happier and laugh more speaking this English. It is definitely a lot funnier for me; I like messing with people by acting dumb. Therefore, by seeming like I'm much more stupid than I actually am, I can be the trickster archetype that I love in various forms of media; I manipulate people and make them do things they would not do normally. They have to go out of their way to explain things, or I mess with their thought process to make them think differently. With my last English, I create a worldly persona. I emphasize that I'm bilingual- that I can speak multiple languages. I can switch freely between languages, and people view me as knowledgeable instead of just smart. Whenever I'm in public with my parents, I use Chinese to (hide insults about the people around me and) reveal that I posses the ability to interchange between all my Englishes. I can change from the "carefully wrought grammatical phrases" (Tan 700) of my "serious" English to the extremely informal speech of my "not serious" English, and I can use them interchangeably with my other English that isn't really English. With these tools in hand (or mouth), I can get through any sort of situation that comes my way.