How Am I Doing?

From an assignment in AP English...
________

I’m probably doing a lot better in AP English right now than I currently think I am. In fact, the only reason my brain thinks I’m doing poorly is because it puts so much emphasis on the scores, especially the scores of my essays, which are dismal. I didn’t have time to do the meta-essay to bring my Othello essay’s score up (from twenty out of fifty). However, I have been doing fairly well on reading quizzes, NOT the articles, but the actual reading reading. The novel reading. There we go. Seriously though, if we do anymore writing write more often in this class than we do now, my grade’s gonna go down down down. Whee. Like that. I feel like I understand the way the reading is tested: names, places, quotes, the little eensie-weensie teeny-tiny stuffs. But I really do fear for my writing. I’m horrible at analyzing literature, following themes, and identifying the meaning of symbols. I can’t even find the symbols unless they’re blatantly obvious like Hester Prynne’s A in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. I mean, really now, of course the A is important. It’s the title of the book! GAH!

Umm… back on track now… after some Cheez-Its…

Top it off, once I find something that could be a symbol, I never seem to understand its meaning. How was I supposed to know that Bentley Drummle was a symbol of everything that is anti-Pip? Sure, Drummle got the girl and he and Pip never got along, but that doesn’t mean he is there to show Pip everything he shouldn’t do, right? Or am I still wrong? Instances like that cause my mind to ‘splode, and therefore I need to work on my English skills. ‘Sploding brains are NOT something one wants in a classroom. Quite the opposite would be preferred: absorbing information instead of regurgitating it on the walls in a ‘splosion of grey matter. So, I am still not very sure as to “how I’m doing” in the class. Come back later when I’ve got my grade report in the mail.