I have chosen this writing prompt to continue with my essay.
An honors student who knew all the answer, who did all the homework and went beyond, who got 90+ on all his test, who was always ahead of the class. A mediocre student who knew all the answers but chose to say none, who could do the homework but chose not to, who did average or even below average on his tests, who was ahead of the class but chose to be behind. Both of these things are me and not me at the same time. Split personalities are walking the same path. One class I walk in and am the genius. As I walk to my other class I turn from the active student in the front of the class to the quiet kid in the back. These two worlds were my high school life.
I was raised by my parents to always overachieve. “You’re not finished yet” were the words constantly ringing in my head when I think about elementary school. I always was forced to do more than I wanted to. Other kids would write 3 paragraphs in an hour and be done. On the other hand, I would take 2-3 hours perfecting it. I hated that. Why would do double to work if I’m not going to get double to grade? I didn’t want to be the overachiever. I just wanted to do what was necessary and be “average”. And so, I did.
In middle school I was given more freedom from my parents as the they knew I would have to work on my own sometime. I saw this as my chance. I would no longer have to be the overachiever. So, I started to be laxer on my work. Sure, my grades went down. But I wasn’t stressed over overwhelming amounts of work for a few numbers on a report card. It wasn’t hindering my education as I still understand all the work. Until I took it a little too far. I had stopped doing homework. I stopped participating in class. My grades continued to drop.
I loved to play games and still do now. I would always despite how bad I was doing in school come home and play games. But soon that would all stop. Of course, my parents being parents wouldn’t tolerate me playing games despite having bad grades. So, there was only one solution, and that was to improve my grades. And so, I did. I got my grades up as much as I could. But it wasn’t enough to satisfy them. And around the start of high school is when I started to go in between my two worlds.
On one hand I wanted to play games, so I would try to get my grades up to achieve my goals. And on the other what I did in eighth grade wasn’t good enough even though I did my best to redeem myself; so, what will be enough? If that meant going back to the overachiever from elementary school, then would never go back. I could not find a medium. So, I would have bad grades despite being able to give my classmates all the answers. I would do bad on tests but the person who I was teaching before had gotten a higher grade than me. I just couldn’t be bothered to care enough to do what need to be done. Without something to keep me motivated like my games, I was stuck.
I saw one way out of this and that was to strike I deal with my parents. “I promise that if you let me play games and do what I want, I would improve my grades.” Of course, it was a one-sided deal. I had nothing to prove that I could do good in school on my own. But regardless it was the only thing of which I could think. I proposed this deal at the start of tenth grade. Only around the end of eleventh did they finally agree. It was bad 2 years of high school. But I had gained the motivation needed to be able to do both.
From then on, I was no longer the overachiever who did everything necessary to pass with high grades, nor was I the below average student who could do the work but chose not to. But a median between the two. Someone who always did the work but enough to pass but a reasonable margin. Someone who raises their hand in class not because they feel like that must but because they want to. And in my opinion, that’s when I actually became a proper student. “A student who does work because they feel that they need to, is a robot. Students work and learn because they want to.”
I can agree with the battle between getting work done and procrastinating I believe we all have since it’s so easy to get distracted. But nun the less great beginning.
Great introduction!!
Jonathan:
My intention as the teacher is to give you a chance to explore different possible topics, so you should have written something different for each writing task. However, you have not done that! LOOK BACK AT THE WRITING PROMPT — for this one: Here I asked you to describe two different worlds, and I gave examples of what those two worlds might be. What are the two worlds you are writing about here? Your response doesn’t fit the writing prompt!
You write: Split personalities are walking the same path. One class I walk in and am the genius. As I walk to my other class I turn from the active student in the front of the class to the quiet kid in the back. These two worlds were my high school life.
OK I get that you have two different parts of your identity, but is that really two different worlds you are inhabiting? I am not sure you have answered the writing prompt.
What I do see is that for all three writing tasks: Resilience, Saved and now Btw2Worlds, you are writing about the same topic: Gaming and how it has effected your school life. You present it as a positive, as something that saved you.
So my suggestion is to use ALL your writing work on Resilience, Saved, and BTW 2 Worlds and apply it to the Saved writing prompt.
What you have been doing is really writing the same topic over and over again. In a way that could be a good thing because you are telling me that you really know what you want to write about! What you write here is good, but can you reframe this writing. IN fact you can keep a lot of what you wrote here, but check to make sure and reframe it to make sure it addresses the Saved writing prompt. Look at the Saved instructions again. Look at Colin Powell’s essay and how ROTC saved him. YOu are writing about something that SAVED you!/p>