Flower Week

Assignment/Activity Title— Flower Week essays  

Year— Junior Year

Skill— Writing, creative, literature  
Portfolio Category— Critical Reasoning

            During Flower Week, we had 120 minutes to write three essays – one that focused on synthesizing sources into a cohesive argument, one that formed an argument based on a prompt, and another that analyzed an argument. This was in preparation for the AP Language and Composition exam, on which we'll have to do roughly the amount of writing in the same time frame.

            Writing these essays taught me, more than anything, to be as concise and clear as possible. Because of the limited time allotted to plan and write the essay, I had to extract the key points of the article and focus on addressing those in my essays. I wasn't allowed the opportunity to write around the prompt either; with limited time I had to address the question being asked as clearly as possible or risk not communicating my argument to the grader. It was interesting to see how stripping away my time to plan and edit actually improved my writing, forcing me to think on my feet and address the issue directly.

Flower Week also helped me develop my voice in writing. Whereas before I had the luxury of editing my work in order to sound more intelligent or over-analyzing my writing style, the shortened time frame meant I had to write in an almost stream-of-consciousness style. As a result, my voice became a lot stronger and more identifiable.

            This assignment also changed my actual writing process itself. Whereas before I would spend very little time creating an outline or planning, I found that during Flower Week I actually needed to plan in order to focus my thoughts – which is the exact opposite of what I had anticipated happening. More planning means less time to actually write, however, which is not exactly conducive to a polished essay. The time constraint in particular really helped me hone not only my ability to be clear and concise, but to establish an active understanding of how to manage my time.

            I got my first nine ever on the argument essay. What's interesting about this is that although I scored well, I almost missed the essence of the question entirely. While I focused on one smaller element of the article – why people watching TV aren't shown on TV – I missed the larger point that addressed the value of watching TV itself. That being said, I did somehow manage to connect all of my thoughts in the last paragraph. Despite having three paragraphs dedicated to the smaller point, my last paragraphs denoted the prompt as entirely subjective and brought my essay full circle. Realizing that I missed the main point of the prompt really shook me though, and opened my eyes to the idea that, just maybe, I'm not as good a writer as I thought I was. Whereas before I prided myself on my writing abilities, this made me realize that I need to be careful and keep working on my skills. And this is something that's applicable to other aspects of my life. For example, just because I'm on a division one soccer team, it doesn’t mean I can relax. And just because I've reached a point in my music career where I can read sheet music almost fluently on my own doesn't mean I can stop working on my technique. Essentially, my grade on that essay was the academic equivalent of a near-death experience, and affected my attitude towards not only writing but how I approach my hobbies and learning in general.

            This assignment is placed under critical reasoning because it, more than any other assignment, forced me to formulate my own arguments and provide support in a limited time frame. It helped me learn to think on my feet and express my ideas in a more concise manner, through analyzing the prompt in front of me.