My Self-Evaluation

My portfolio cover banner is the pictorial representation of how I felt after leaving my first conference with Anne. No disrespect towards Anne for comparing her to a garden hose.

I started Play in the City rather apprehensive that my writing could improve in three months. I tried too hard in AP English to push my essays above a six out of nine but never managed to. I think it had something to do with how I could never benefit from the comments she wrote in the margins of my essays. We never spoke face-to-face about my work even though our class consisted of five students, including me. Looking back, I should’ve asked for an appointment. 

So, it came as no surprise to me that Anne benevolently butchered my very first essay. In the process of said butchering, she made me understand exactly what I was doing wrong. I was using humor and sarcasm so that my writing wouldn’t be taken seriously. I wasn’t owning my claims either. These were defense mechanisms against judgement from the wiser and more experienced. For the next couple of essays, I tried my best to cut down on the wisecracks and make more assertive claims. In the process, my confidence started to inflate. It was supplemented by insightful feedback in the small groups. Tomahawk, Nightowl, and Ecohn were especially helpful. Most of the readings were also accomadating to my writing evolution, with Ackerman's Deep Play being my favorite. The only ones I didn’t benefit from were Georg Simmel’s work and Albert Barnes’s. On the whole, the readings provided the structure for the class. If doesn't do the reading beforehand, there is almost no point coming to class because one would feel very lost and guilty for letting Anne know, because she would be able to tell immediately. This approach, I feel, is very effective for writing my weekly essays because I could refer straight to the text/course notes and not from confusing handwritten class notes. This is why I stopped taking notes in class by the second week; it therefore helped me participate more to the discussion. 

By mid November, I still was having trouble with taking my essays to the “next step” right at the end. Anne and I had a breakthrough of sorts on The Mayhem of Our Minds. This was the first paper where I really buckled down and refined my lens by doing in-depth research. It helped a lot that Anne walked me through a good outline of it beforehand. All of the essays after that have some element of research in it. They also follow the same basic format. 

Our jaunts into Philly were what I looked forward to most this semester. I would never have even heard of Isiah's Zagar's magic gardens otherwise or the adorable second-hand bookstore patrolled by an adorable cat behind the Free Library. The city has become familiar and comforting for me, a place of escape when finals are nigh and catfights are rife in the dorm. I now have much more confidence to navigate the grid and the subway. I'm still a fuzzy on the parts of Philly to avoid, however. I expect I'll learn this from trial and error. 

While my writing still has much refining/solidifying to do, I am so happy that it’s on the right track. I was convinced that I’d be the owl on the receiving end of the hose all throughout my college career. In the next three-and-a-half years, I see my writing turning away from creative and self-reflective to more analytical and logical. I don't remember a day this semester where I had time to sit and freewrite a story that's been brewing. If I'm going to pursue biology all the way to the end, I need to start getting used to writing scientifically.