Dudas 1!

Naomi Dudas
AP Language, 1B
Ms. Thompson
May 11, 2015
Year Reflection
As the year comes to a close, it's impossible to not look back and realize just how much
change has taken part in both my life and my writing. New responsibilities and aspirations have
made me more aware of how I represent myself and how I address my audience. This year in
particular has contributed greatly to how I view myself as an individual as a result of how I perceive the world as a whole. Most will agree that junior year in high school is the most stressful
and transitional year in high school, where everything slowly starts falling in place and the bigger picture can be made sense of. I suppose I can say that I identify with the thrill of what it
means to be a teenager in this day and age by reminiscing my then new experiences but I can
also say that I have come to accept my life as being in the control of my God's hands rather than
in mine. Being in the AP language class has challenged me to truly become my own person by
developing my voice and style throughout the various writing assignments assigned. Unlike
many of my peers, writing is not just a requirement or necessity; it is a release. I find personal
growth and peace in expressing myself through the language that Ive learned to love. Therefore,
my analysis is not only from a technical perspective but a personal realization of what I stand for.
To begin with, our first assignment of the year- the item that represents me- was an important foundation for finding my identity. Although at first it seemed trivial to compare myself
to such a simple and seemingly irrelevant object, I found the comparison to be a creative way to

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recognize my personal characteristics. Paralleling myself with a bridge helped explain my journey. Furthermore, my essay response to the prompt relating to I Just Wanna Be Average, gave me
an opportunity to speak out about something I could personally identify with and fight for with
my words. It also encouraged me to suggest a potential solution rather than simply identify the
issue at hand. The various AP language practice essay questions also contributed to the development of my voice and style by forcing me to form my main points and execute them with evidence from the information given. The Martin Luther King Jr. Argumentative essay was a memorable in-class essay because it was filled with pathos and an argument that is still valid today. His
dream is still being carried out today and this call to action reflected itself in my emotional essay.
Something I failed to do in this essay, and others alike, is to be consistent with my organization
and relevant with my thesis; some of the points I would come to make were quite sporadic. In
addition, my rhetorical analysis in-class essay on Jonathan Swifts A Modest Proposal allowed
me to personalize my voice within a more confined and structured setting. This challenge helped
direct thorough analysis and although I struggled to be clear in my thesis, I still managed to organize my thoughts in a coherent manner. The synthesis in-class essay, however, seemed to have
been my most successful piece of the three because I improved on my previous mistakes and developed my essay accordingly. Finally, my research paper on media-controlled opinions gave me
a chance to explore the depths of the information available to me and come to my own conclusions about the medias impact on the way we perceive various issues, people, and ideas. Writing
the research paper was by far the most interesting piece from this semester because I was given
more freedom in how I approached it. Due to the diversity in our writing assignments this year, I
was able to appreciate the qualities that make my writing truly mine. Along with the reading as-

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signments such as The Crucible, I was able to creatively explore my personal convictions while
keeping an open mind to the thoughts of those around me.
In conclusion, I am happy to announce that the greatest transition of my writing occurred
in this class, due to its efforts in liberating me from the spell of uniform and welcoming me into
the arms of voice.