Alex Gutierrez

Mrs. Morales

AP Language

2019 May 27

English Reflection

When entering AP Lang, I felt very confident with my skills and believed that I had the

opportunity to make it far in this class. I was not correct with my assumptions. Even though

some of the work was easy for me to understand and easily learned, most of the concepts were

confusing to me. I didn’t understand the point of writing, I felt the need to write because the

school system requires me to write. One challenge I had during this class was finding the

motivation to get work done. I always found it hard to START writing, to START reading, and

to START anything English related. When I finally had the ability to start, I found new trouble in

knowing what to write about. When it comes to writing, there are many directions it could go in

and it's hard for me to choose just one, so sometimes I overload myself with problems before

even starting to write. Another challenge that I am forced to face is my set-up. I don’t really have

a good plan before I start writing my essays and I feel like that is a high indicator for why I don’t

do so well. One of my strengths in English is when I start to get into writing an essay. That is

usually the case when I fully understand the topic or have a close relation to the topic being

asked. I used to believe that writing was an easy task to do and that anybody could do it. My

opinion was greatly changed by this class because it is harder than it looks and it takes skill.

When I faced the challenge of having to write my first essay, I felt blown out of the water by

how much I was struggling with it. The essay that I had the most trouble with was the rhetorical
analysis essay because it was hard for me to say what I found in an essay when I don’t even

know how to use them correctly. When it came to essays I wanted to use in my summary, I

decided to use 3 rhetorical analysis essays because I wanted to show my growth on them

throughout the year. I wanted to show my improvement and my understanding of how to use

specific elements in certain articles. I struggled the most with this type of essay, but by the end of

the year, I had a good understanding of how to use them correctly. When it comes to

understanding how to write for college, I have learned a lot. I have learned to be more

descriptive and to not leave out any information so that I can better explain my points. I have

taught myself to not get caught out by distractions and to finish what I started and to go back and

check for mistakes. This class has called out my mistakes and brought them out into the light.