A long way to go

A Long Way To Go

            My year in Ms.Fogarty’s AP English class, was such a challenge for me, I was so used to just not doing all my work before going to her class and just getting by. Ms. Your class opened my eyes to the fact that I actually do have to put in work in order for me to succeed, not only in your class but all of my classes for the rest of my school career. I really was not putting my best foot forward in the beginning of the class and nobody to blame but myself.

            Although I didn’t do what I should have done in the class ms.Fogarty is a very good teacher, she is so serious about deadlines. I remember I received a paper back that I handed in like a good four days late and I lost twenty points and that made me end up with a failing grade for that paper. There was another time I lost fifteen points on a paper for it being late, but I am glad she allowed me to hand the paper in instead of leaving it a zero and not accepting my paper at all.

            This class made me a better writer and critical thinker, it challenged me to do more than what I had been used to doing. I began to set a higher standard for myself, and saw that I could not just sit back in everything and do the bare minimum. I thought that when she was giving us vocabulary quizzes that it would be easy and I wouldn’t have to study, but I was in for a rude awakening. Those words to me looked like a completely different language, I sat down for the test and I was so confused. That’s when I realized this class was something critical and I needed to do my work and actually study.

             I know that if I had asked for help or attended the help that she offered I would have done a lot better in that class. I started to do better with handing my assignments in on time, but I would actually start writing and planning my assignments with only a day left which is absolutely no good. As we entered into the third quarter I started to break away from my procrastinating ways and an improvement began to show in my work.

            I was constantly late to class, I had no first period and this is my second period class still very late or I missed the period. In the beginning of class would normally be when due dates were announced and new assignments were introduced, and when my mom asked about the assignments and why they were missing I would have no idea what she was talking about. “There is no time like on time!”I hear a student say all the time through the hall way, my mom constantly was on me about getting to class and I still hadn’t got it together.

            The second semester, I am not sure what it was that made me get it together but I am just going to say that I began to see the light. I really started to wake up at seven forty in the morning and rushing to get to class. I was bribed a little bit by caffeine, if I didn’t get up early enough my dad wouldn’t take me to Dunkin donuts and I really wanted that large coffee light and sweet.

            I really enjoyed the Socratic seminars that we had throughout the year, it was a great way for the whole class to interact with each other and discuss the books that we were reading together. It made us think a lot deeper beyond just the traditional English class settings by allowing us to express our own view points of politics and religion.

With the advice that Ms.Fogarty gave me for the essays that we had to write was a very good way for me to identify what it was that I needed to work on in my writing.  By using that I was able to grow as a better writer.

            I know that everything that we learned in this class can and will be applied outside of this class. The strategies that we learned for organizing our writing, reading and critical thinking will be necessary when we start preparing for college. When we start writing essays for college scholarships and for applications it must be well organized and show that you are a well educated and thoughtful writer and person. Nobody is going to want to accept a person that writes an essay and it has a ton of grammar mistakes, spelling errors, and capitalization malfunctions.

            I will continue to apply the things that I learned from this class to any other class I need to take throughout the rest of high school and college. I am going to take my work a lot more seriously from this point on. Thanks Ms.Fogarty for the time that you put in and for giving me the chance to improve and assisting me in that process.