Personal Narrative: A Long Way Gone

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This year in AP Language I learned many things: new vocabulary, how to identify and analyze rhetorical strategies, how to correctly implement differing types of punctuation, and more. Additionally, this year I wrote more than I ever have before (between this class and AP Seminar research papers). From a personal essay to arguments, I learned how to use logic and information or experiences to write an organized essay in which I clearly explain my stance on the topic. While I was capable of doing so before, I can now more logically and concisely do this in shorter amounts of time. Overall, this year I wrote an abundance of essays and learned a great deal from it.

Moving from ninth grade English to this class initially proved challenging; before AP Language, all of the timed writings that I did (with the exception of one about Of Mice and Men) were in my American history class. This caused my writing to have a formulaic introduction paragraph that consisted of context, a …show more content…
Before this class, most, if not all, of the books that I read were fiction. I stayed away from nonfiction because it tended to bore me. This class taught me that nonfiction could be just as interesting as fiction. The narrative A Long Way Gone was my first glimpse into that revelation, as it showed me the crazy and fascinating tale of Ishmael Beah. My impression of Spare Parts was less enthusiastic, as I found this story very unrelatable (not that I related to A Long Way Gone, I just do not find robots exciting). The book that I found most interesting happened to be Into the Wild. I did not feel any connection to Chris McCandless’s desire to transcend from society, but his story intrigued me. I never imagined that an educated, upper class person would willingly give everything up and walk into nature, disconnecting from everything and everyone that he ever knew. This made Into the Wild a very enlightening story to

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