Nobody Puts Baby in a Corner (4 - B, E)

Praise Dirty Dancing. Praise Patrick Swayze.

Discussions. Opinions. "What do you think about this?" These listed words and phrases spark horrific fear in period 5. We sit in heavy silence, our eyes darting around like flies to see if anyone will speak first. We all think that if no one speaks, we as an individual will open the conversation. Yet the seconds pass, dragging by like a body through quicksand...

Nobody put us in this corner. We put ourselves into this corner. And for what? Fear of being wrong? Spoiler alert, it's your opinion, no right or wrong answer. Fear of being questioned? Well yes, that was always the case, but how can anyone have a proper discussion if they don't back up their facts, cite their sources, give their audience a reason to believe in what they're saying. And yes, we got annoyed when we were scolded for not speaking up, but there was little reason to be. But eventually, we got comfortable. Not all of us, no, but there was a group, those who always had ideas and who always wanted to address them. We came to understand that our own individual thoughts were not useless information meant to be ignored, but rather shimmering slivers of gold that when brought together create a valuable wonder. 

I suppose a good majority of the year was spent preparing us for the argument essay, even when we were learning rhetorical analysis and going over multiple choice. All of the readings we did since day one, the content and videos and discussions, they were all giving us fuel for argument, strengthening our minds so they could go from analyzing persuasive elements to incorporating those elements into our own persuasive piece. It's likely obvious at this point that argument was my favorite unit, and it taught me perhaps the most about both the world around me and the world inside my own head.

This was one of the first (if not the first, I don't remember) arguments we wrote in class. There was a lot of prep prior, REHUGO and things like that, but even then, I floundered a bit during the writing. I worried that I wouldn't be able to formulate both my argument and enough relevant sources in the span of about five minutes, was sure that I would start to panic and just start grasping at straws to make sure I didn't run out of time. McMahon would always say that sometimes people write themselves into a good essay, and I think that applies to me most of the time, especially with argument. I would start just to start, but the further I got into it, the more confident I would become about my stance. I would expand on my points, maybe add an example or two, and typically have a better final body paragraph than the first one (and considering I always got 7's and 8's on all my arguments, I guess that wasn't too bad, but I'm not here to brag). 

The argument prep, I think, helped me more with outside social skills rather than actually writing the essay. Not that I feel it didn't prepare me at all for the essay; After only the first semester with RA, I already felt confident enough in my quick essay writing skills that argument wasn't too much of a change. Instead, it helped me to learn how to think on the spot, to rummage through the lockers in my mind to find a variety of examples, real life, fictional, or anything else, that could be used to back up that quick thinking. I learned how to put myself into my writing, learned that it was okay to be personal and include yourself in your work because it is your work and any reader should be able to understand that, to get a feel of you through nothing more than simple words on a paper. And I learned how to discuss life topics with people who weren't in the small confines of my AP Lang family, with people in my own family. I've never been comfortable talking about the politics of the world with adults, partly because I felt like I never knew enough to be able to speak on the matter and mainly because, as a child, my opinion, no matter how informed, would never be acknowledged. That part is still a hurdle I'm working on passing, but I know about the world now. Maybe I'm still not good at politics and maybe I never will be, but I have confidence in talking about the ethics of abortion, gun laws, mass shootings, global warming, and individual human identity, among plenty of others. AP Lang taught me that my status as a child, or at least as someone younger than the adults, does not mean I can't and don't have a say. My opinion will always be valid, no matter the topic, and as long as I have hard facts to prove those opinions, no one has the right to try and cut me out of a conversation simply because of my age. I never had that confidence before. If there's anything I'm most thankful to lang and Ms. McMahon for, it's giving me that confidence, for taking me out of my corner and helping me to realize that I have a voice and I should use that voice. Not only that, but I have learned that I like using that voice, I like stating my opinion and being heard because I know that my voice matters, no matter what it's being used to say. 

At this point I realize I just began to drone on and forgot to include possibly my favorite argument essay I wrote this year, the one about artifice. I had never heard that word before this essay, and I wasn't provided with any kind of definition, but I was able to figure it out for myself and write a fairly strong argument about it.  

It's not the strongest or most powerful thing I've ever written, considering I was always a little hesitant because I wasn't positive of the word I was writing about, but I still like this one. I honestly can't give a specific reason why. Maybe it's because so many people that read it gave me an 8 as a grade, or maybe it's because I'm not entirely sure why it is an 8. Whatever my reason, I just felt I should include this because of how I feel about it, and maybe there was a specific reason I was given an 8 that Ms. McMahon is thinking of right now and wondering how I can't see it. Either way, it's here, and I don't know how to properly end this one so here's a meme. 

A Modest Proposal will always hold a special place in my heart