In the beginning of ” Proficiency ” the author was confident in writing. the author wasn’t only confident in writing but also loved and enjoyed writing. Writing was on of her strength. The author only had a gpa above 3.0. Everything changed about her writing, about her confident and about her love for writing that was because of the result the author received from her proficiency test.
At first, the author felt confident about the standardized test. The author was so sure she would pass everything that was before she received her scored. When the author received her scored she was devastated. She was convinced that she was a failure and let everyone down. From there, she changed her attitude in writing, it was changed in a negative way. For example, in the narrative it states ” Failing the second time made things worse, so perhaps to protect myself from my doubts, I stopped taking English seriously… ” This illustrates that the author let her score define her. The author threw away all her hard work in writing and lost her confident in writing.
Shannon Nichols, a student in eighth grade took a ninth grade proficiency test. She never had a gpa below 3.0. The test will determine if students will receive a high school diploma. The test has reading, writing, math, and citizenship. She prepared so much for the test and was confident she would pass every part. Writing was one her strength and was completely confident that she would for sure pass the writing part. She took the proficiency test and unfortunately she did not pass the writing part. She felt like a failure. From there, she always doubted herself in English and stopped taking English seriously. Furthermore, she picked herself up and still maintained the love she had for English especially writing.
If I was Mrs. Brown I would tell Shannon Nichols that ” a score, a test does not define you or your ability. You are still an excellent student and an excellent writer. Your strong ability in writing would always still be there and would help you in life no matter the outcome. ”
I had always doubted myself in math and I still do. Every time I’m in math class I don’t understand anything and I be so lost. I always have to ask the teacher for help even if it is a small “easy” question. I have always doubted myself in math. My math teacher in 12th grade told me once that ” I need to stop doubting myself. I understand what is going on in math but I don’t give it a try. I look at a problem and just immediately doubt myself. ” Till this day, I still doubt myself.
I feel like my writing skills aren’t too bad but I can sometimes struggle. I read at least 4 times a week to continue improving my writing skills.
2 thoughts on “Alexsandra Fitz Converstation #1”
I completely understand your struggle in math. I used to struggle with the same problem myself. Till I realized that I do understand the math concept. My Brain started to get things a little bit quicker. It gotten better to the point where the teacher had to teach me the strategy one time and ill complete the assignment faster than others. But all it takes is to loose that thought of you doubting your self. You got this.
Shannon probably would have felt a bit of relief hearing those words you would have told her if you were Mrs. Brown. Shannon cared too much about her score on the proficiency test and ignored the fact that she was a good writer with good grades. If someone had told her the proficiency test wasn’t a big deal, like she was making it out to be, then maybe she would have continued to love writing. Also, I feel the same way about math since I did not understand much of it during high school and some of the math in middle school and I don’t think I’ve improved much.