Dear Amy,
My journey through glorious AP English 11 can easily be compared to your various lives and deaths. Walking in to Ms. Serensky's classroom, I thought I knew what to expect. I knew the road would have many up's and down's, but I never expected what was waiting for me in May. I greatly can empathize with your feelings when Junior told you about the end of the world, as I felt similarly when I heard that I would be writing three essays, of different types, in two hours. To me, the combination of an analytic essay, argument essay, and synthesis essay was very much like the merging of comet, earth, and destruction. The constant writings, discussions, and readings made me truly question my place in the AP English world. Did I belong? Would I do well? And much like you, eventually, I came to the realization, "I am nothing" (179). Even though you found this out as a comfort right before you reached your death, I grasped this when I saw the "3+/4-" grade on my paper. I felt a little comfort in this fact when I knew that since I truly was nothing, I had only one way to go. This upward movement did not come quickly, and after I received countless papers with a -.5 here, and a -.5 there, I finally looked in the mirror and told myself, “‘everything matters!’”(243). I can’t carelessly forget the period of Ms. in Ms. Serensky, nor can I allow an 11-point period to taint the page of my 12-point Times New Roman perfection. I realize your exclamation had much more depth to it than it did personally for me, but when I realized that everything matters, I knew that I was making a change in my life that would lead me to a road of 8’s and 9’s. And finally, when I received that paper with a 7 marked in blue, in addition to opening an envelope sent to me by the college board, adorned with the number four, I knew that “I [had] finally, finally stopped failing” (176). Like you, a weight lifted off my chest, and I knew that there was no turning back. You had stop failing with people, and I had finally stopped failing at English. This provided as the perfect conclusion for AP English 11. From this point on, I knew I was ready to take on AP English 12, (avoiding any comets and mass deaths) and then...take on the world.
Sincerely,
Haley
Sincerely,
Haley
