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[aplang2023raniamin]

[aplang2023raniamin]

R(est) & R(elaxtion)

I attribute so many sleepless nights to this class, partly my fault and partly due to the circumstances, but I believe that I would do it again if I had to. In such close proximity to summer vacation and in anticipation of a reprieve from school, I am hyper-aware of how simultaneously taxing and rewarding my junior year of high school has been. I did make sacrifices in terms of physical, emotional, and mental health, but I also pushed myself up one of the steepest steps leading to the future I want. I always wanted an academically challenging class as I grew up, sometimes feeling bored by busy work and repetition. I got more than I bargained for with this class, something that I became acutely aware of while writing the libraries synthesis prompt (C) (seen above). I thought of myself as an elementary schooler in the children’s room at the Woburn Public Library, pausing to stare at the adult books before making my way down the steep spiral staircase. Those books that seemed so complicated and archaic before, I can now handle and comprehend due to my newly acquired language and composition skills. English being my second language, I take great pride in the bounds I have made beyond towards knowing the language intimately. Comparing my first essay about Educated and Boys in the Boat, which was about ten sentences in length, to the wind farms prompt where my first sentence was a paragraph (seen above), my perception of language and how I personally can tame it and bear it to my advantage has transformed and I am a better student and writer because of it. I can rest now; my journey with English will not. 

[aplang2023raniamin]

[aplang2023raniamin]

Skimm ing Through

I had never heard of the Daily Skimm before I ventured into AP Lang, but I quickly became used to the daily notifications to my woburnps email, letting me know that the daily news was ready for me to glance over. While it would have made sense for me to actually increase how much I looked at the Skimm as the year went on, I actually looked at it less and less because I found other sources that spoke to me. Once I realized just how much current events affect me, not just in classroom but in self-discovery and developing independence, I made sure to keep up with the Associated Press or NBC or even the headlines on Twitter and Instagram because even those brief glances every day showed me that I should not allow myself to become shocked into numbness. As I wrote an an argument essay (B) about the value of fear in persuasion on my AP Lang exam or the value of the unknown in class, I realized that the constant threat of school shootings and gun violence in general has numbed my generation to news of gun-related massacres and given us so many options to choose from for evidence (seen above). The discussions we shared in class and the indignation I could share with my teacher and classmates was refreshing and helped me shake off numbness towards something I care about. (E) It is not futile to want a better future, but it cannot arrive unless we know exactly where the world stands every time we get an opportunity to know more.

[aplang2023raniamin]

[aplang2023raniamin]

😇💖🫂🫶🌷Comfy & Cozy🌷🫶🫂💖😇

I did not ever expect to cry in this class, especially over a content discussion instead of friend drama. Discussing race openly in a classroom was something that I eagerly anticipated at that point and simultaneously was not prepared for. The tweet we were looking at was a part of one the first rhetorical analyses I had ever done and regardless of whether it was a misunderstanding or if I was rubbed the wrong way by what was said or even if I was just having a bad day, my tears were a release and I am grateful to have had a conversation with my teacher afterward. Communication is important in every sphere of life, especially in education. If you are trying to learn something new, it is crucial to feel comfortable being uncomfortable and not just simmer in it but figure out why you feel that way. If I never realized that my discomfort came from feeling as though someone’s story and trauma surrounding racial profiling was being ignored, it would have been harder for me to realize that I want people to be heard and their experiences to be valued genuinely. This certainly carried over to my writing and of every argument essay I wrote, be it about the value of polite speech or timely decisions, I always wrote myself into a reflection on equity or privilege (B). Writing in a timed situation brought out what I am most comfortable discussing and making connections with and required discomfort on my part first to get there.

[aplang2023raniamin]

[aplang2023raniamin]

Words vs. Words

As a child, I was an avid reader of mostly fictional novels. Nonfiction bored me. At least, I thought it did until I realized how expansive and inclusive nonfiction writing actually is. My favorite commercials for Legos and Barbies were all written to persuade me, each person behind them creating a complex thesis and involving ethos, pathos, and logos to “ultimately move” me to purchase the toy. I applied for leadership positions in clubs at my school and synthesized my experiences and qualifications not just to list them, but to apply them to the purpose of making a point and advocating for myself (C). Therefore, when I started this class, I had all of the tools I needed to create my own rhetoric and I needed to learn how to understand them and wield them responsibly. The best nonfiction works are not the ones that feel like reading, but the ones that feel like action. Just words on a paper is not enough, it is the calling to our values and our urgencies that make some writers more influential than others and distinguish the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.s of the world from the bystanders. (E) Words mean so much more when they cannot be ignored.

[aplang2023raniamin]

[aplang2023raniamin]

Multiple Choices 😮‍💨

I had so many options for English classes to take during my junior year, and my decision to take AP Lang was more dutiful than anything. I had heard that it was the standard path to take for students who want to take AP level classes and I was passively preparing to read and write and read and write until the last day of school. Then, I had to print out a forty page packet and annotate it.😵I had to figure out the “devices” that Dr. King masterfully commanded as he sat in a Birmingham jail cell and then write an essay about how he urged a certain audience within a certain context to perform a certain action to achieve a certain purpose and the abstract values behind his writing in the first place. (A) Faced with such a daunting task, people were complaining about dropping the class all week and honestly, I was among them. I, did not, however because I had faith in myself.💪I made the choice to stay and to let myself learn new things and accept that I did not know how to write. I made the choice to practice multiple choice questions on Khan Academy and spend an extra fifteen minutes of my life learning strategies to read faster and eliminate choices. (D) I made the choice to do my homework every night, even if I was sacrificing sleep, not even just for grades at that point but to keep up with the content of the class. I chose to share deeply personal stories about myself and my family to help my classmates with different life experiences gain a more diverse understanding of the world and I listened attentively when they shared theirs. Reading college examples at the end at the year was a lesson in storytelling and I learned how people can capture the essence of who they are in less than 650 words. I even replicated it, preserving an incredibly important relationship in writing not just for college admissions but to remind myself of my values every time I forget. Taking AP Lang is not a choice I regret.