1.The author, Shannon considered herself “a strong student”. “ I loved writing”she said. She believed she was a good writer, so much so she was in disbelief when she failed the writing part of the standardized writing proficiency test. After she failed the test the first time, she began hating writing and started doubting herself (paragraph 7). she never “aging felt the same love of reading and writing” (paragraph 5).
2. She said “the people grading the tests didn’t have the slightest clue about what constituted good writing” (paragraph 5).
3. Shannon loved writing, she said “It was one my strengths. I was good at it, and I enjoyed it.” When she was going to take the standardized writing proficiency test she was confident she’d passed, especially the writing part. To her surprise unfortunately she failed the writing part of the test, and that devastated her. If anything “I thought I might fail citizenship” she said. A poem she wrote was put on television once, but due to failing the test twice she stopped taking English seriously and earned a 2 on the Advanced Placement English Exam. She barely passed the twelfth-grade proficiency test, and she was placed in developmental writing in college. Shannon says “I wish I knew why I failed that test, because then I might have… maintained my enthusiasm for writing, and continued to do well” (paragraph 7).
4. If I were Mrs.Brown, I would say to Shannon, the author of “Proficiency”, don’t let one negative feedback of your work stop you from continuing what you love, but instead view it as a way to learn and improve on yourself. Feedback wether good or positive is a lesson on what you need to work on.
5. Yes there have been time when I doubted in my writing abilities, mostly because since English isn’t my first language I’d worry that I wouldn’t be able to write strong essays as someone who speaks the language. And also there were times when I wrote essays that I felt were my strongest essays, but didn’t get the recognition I’d hoped to get from my teachers.
6. I think I am a pretty good writer, but I know I still have a long way to go before I can be where I want to be as a writer. A part of writing I’d very much like to become good at is being able to well describe a setting and invoke emotions.
