Failing my First Paper in College
I have never been a student to typically fail at anything in regards to writing papers because I have always been told that my papers have been really good by prior teachers. In my Thought and Writing course during the spring of 2010, my teacher gave me rave reviews on several papers i wrote, especially the one that was discussing the character of Willow in the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So I believe that I had an ego when it came to writing papers because nobody told me that I was ever really doing a horrible job. Sure I would make some grammatical errors here and there, and I would usually misuse a word from time to time, but other then that, my papers were relatively enjoyable. I wish I would have not been so naive and realized that all good things must come to an end, and that I needed to get a good swift kick in the rear for thinking I will always write amazing papers.
I had to take the course Literary Interpretation as a prerequisite course that I needed to take in order to fully be in the English Department. I figured that this class would be relatively easy because I enjoy interpreting different kinds of literature and seeing what other people had to say. The first paper we wrote in the class I managed to pull off a BA (equivalent to a B + or A -, depending on what percentage you got), and I was super happy because I thought that if I can obtain that, then this class will be a breeze. So for the second paper, I decided to write on Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Man of the Crowd and how the guy watching the man was voyeuristic. I thought my paper was gold when I turned it in, but I soon realized that I did a horrible job. I was shocked, and it was a huge blow to the ego I had at that time, so I decided to bring the dialogue discussed between me and Mrs, Gillette and show that I was wrong and assumed that I was doing everything right, and she made sure to put me in my place.
Dialogue between Mrs. Gillette and Myself:
I just received my paper that got a grade that was not satisfactory in my eyes, so I went up to the teacher and asked her what to do about this grade and how I can fix it.
Walking with a aggravated pep in my step
“Um Mrs. Gillette, can we discuss the grade that you gave me on this paper”
Looking at me like she knew I was going to be the one person to ask this question, as I always am the one person with an opinion or a question after every little discussion,
“We can meet for it later if you want, I am extremely busy this afternoon, but maybe we can meet up in the library at a later date, next Tuesday around two perhaps?”
After looking at her with extreme seriousness embedded on my face as I cannot hide my expressions for anyone, “Sure, I guess that can work, I just am curious as to after multiple hours of working on this paper, that I got a DC.”
“We will meet next Tuesday, I want to help you out as much as I can because I know that you can do better than this, and I expect it in this course.”
Understanding yet not exactly happy with her choice of words, “Alright.”
Next Tuesday came around and she was in the basement of Waldo Library looking as chipper as always and as awkward as usual in her quirky hippy garb that she wears every single class period.
“Hello Thomas, glad to see that you made it on time”, as if I was going to miss meeting up with the teacher because my grade was on the line “Let’s discuss what went wrong in this paper.”
I said, “I honestly am flabbergasted by this grade, I felt that I worked my butt off on this paper, and I read the material”, she could tell that I was a little bit heated about this because I wasn’t smiling or joking in my usual form, “so I don’t understand why my hard work did not pay off at all.”
“The thing is Thomas”, I really could not stand her calling me by my full name, especially since it made me feel like she was trying to be too professional for her own good, “I remember you discussing that you were going to take a voyeuristic approach to ‘The Man of the Crowd’, and instead you discussed the narrator and how he simply just walked around and followed the ‘man’
“No part of this paper focused upon your thesis, and I was really excited for your interpretation.”
Completely annoyed and not focusing in on everything that she is saying, I said, “You didn’t understand where I was coming from though, I thought that it was extremely clear.”
“I don’t think you comprehended what I just said, I said you didn’t describe what your thesis was based on, I saw that you used multiple facts and references to this paper, but when your thesis does not match up to your paper, the potential for it to go in the write direction was not getting through to me, and other readers would be confused as to why you have a thesis like that in the first place if it does not collectively add up in the end.”
I figuratively took a step back and digested what she was saying at that moment, and I realized I wasn’t mad at her, I was actually mad that I didn’t go through with my thesis and that it was detrimental to my paper, as it is with all papers.
“Well I guess I see where you are coming from, but my question now is how can I make it up so that I can get a decent grade in this course, because I can’t afford to fail my intro class to my major.”
“Well I do not give out extra credit, if that is what you’re asking, that would not be fair to the entire class because if I would help you out, I would have to help out everyone. I’m sure you understand that don’t you?” In saying that, it was more of a statement rather than a question, so it was kind of like she answered the question for me.
“I guess.”
“Your next paper is going to be a revision of this paper, and I think that if we sit here, we can get some ideas flowing so that your next paper can be a success.”
“Alright, so what do you have in mind,” not thoroughly channeling the fact that she is here to help me out because she sees how upset I am getting, “because I have a lot of extremely hard classes right now, and this is stressing me out more than it really needs too, I mean, I am glad you are helping me, I just want this next paper to be a home-run if you catch my drift.”
Giggling, she says “I completely understand. Well what you are going to want to do is understand what the term voyeuristic means, because that is vital for this paper.”
“Secondly, you will need to find a couple outside sources to help you back up this interpretation of the text, and in doing so, you will have a skeleton of what you are going to write about, do you see where I am going with this?”
This time I knew she wasn’t mocking me, she was truly understanding, “Yes I definitely see what you mean, is there any place I should look in particular, because I use the library website, but it just gives me useless information on topics that usually don’t help what I am trying to state.”
“Well if I was you, I would start by going to the English database and heading on over to JSTOR, because that will lead you in the right direction for anything involving literature, at least for this I hope.”
“Sounds good, JSTOR… check, alright, well that will definitely be a good start to my redemption of this next paper, thank you for putting up with my attitude, I just do not like it when I work extremely hard on a paper and feel like it was all for nothing.”
“I completely understand, but that is what I am here for, to help you understand and to fix what I can so that you can learn through revision and hopefully make have this paper become amazing as I know you can.”
“Alright well I will definitely work on that for sure!”
“Well is there anything else you would like to ask me about or work on, you have my office hours and my office phone number right?”
“Yes I sure do.”
“Alright, well if you need help, or you feel like you are stuck, send me an email to my WMU account and I will be happy to help you.”
“Thanks a bunch, I’ll see you in class on Monday.”
“Good-bye Thomas.” The tone in her voice when saying my name was now of a more caring nature, and I appreciated her willingness to listen to me and understand where I was coming from.
I had to take the course Literary Interpretation as a prerequisite course that I needed to take in order to fully be in the English Department. I figured that this class would be relatively easy because I enjoy interpreting different kinds of literature and seeing what other people had to say. The first paper we wrote in the class I managed to pull off a BA (equivalent to a B + or A -, depending on what percentage you got), and I was super happy because I thought that if I can obtain that, then this class will be a breeze. So for the second paper, I decided to write on Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Man of the Crowd and how the guy watching the man was voyeuristic. I thought my paper was gold when I turned it in, but I soon realized that I did a horrible job. I was shocked, and it was a huge blow to the ego I had at that time, so I decided to bring the dialogue discussed between me and Mrs, Gillette and show that I was wrong and assumed that I was doing everything right, and she made sure to put me in my place.
Dialogue between Mrs. Gillette and Myself:
I just received my paper that got a grade that was not satisfactory in my eyes, so I went up to the teacher and asked her what to do about this grade and how I can fix it.
Walking with a aggravated pep in my step
“Um Mrs. Gillette, can we discuss the grade that you gave me on this paper”
Looking at me like she knew I was going to be the one person to ask this question, as I always am the one person with an opinion or a question after every little discussion,
“We can meet for it later if you want, I am extremely busy this afternoon, but maybe we can meet up in the library at a later date, next Tuesday around two perhaps?”
After looking at her with extreme seriousness embedded on my face as I cannot hide my expressions for anyone, “Sure, I guess that can work, I just am curious as to after multiple hours of working on this paper, that I got a DC.”
“We will meet next Tuesday, I want to help you out as much as I can because I know that you can do better than this, and I expect it in this course.”
Understanding yet not exactly happy with her choice of words, “Alright.”
Next Tuesday came around and she was in the basement of Waldo Library looking as chipper as always and as awkward as usual in her quirky hippy garb that she wears every single class period.
“Hello Thomas, glad to see that you made it on time”, as if I was going to miss meeting up with the teacher because my grade was on the line “Let’s discuss what went wrong in this paper.”
I said, “I honestly am flabbergasted by this grade, I felt that I worked my butt off on this paper, and I read the material”, she could tell that I was a little bit heated about this because I wasn’t smiling or joking in my usual form, “so I don’t understand why my hard work did not pay off at all.”
“The thing is Thomas”, I really could not stand her calling me by my full name, especially since it made me feel like she was trying to be too professional for her own good, “I remember you discussing that you were going to take a voyeuristic approach to ‘The Man of the Crowd’, and instead you discussed the narrator and how he simply just walked around and followed the ‘man’
“No part of this paper focused upon your thesis, and I was really excited for your interpretation.”
Completely annoyed and not focusing in on everything that she is saying, I said, “You didn’t understand where I was coming from though, I thought that it was extremely clear.”
“I don’t think you comprehended what I just said, I said you didn’t describe what your thesis was based on, I saw that you used multiple facts and references to this paper, but when your thesis does not match up to your paper, the potential for it to go in the write direction was not getting through to me, and other readers would be confused as to why you have a thesis like that in the first place if it does not collectively add up in the end.”
I figuratively took a step back and digested what she was saying at that moment, and I realized I wasn’t mad at her, I was actually mad that I didn’t go through with my thesis and that it was detrimental to my paper, as it is with all papers.
“Well I guess I see where you are coming from, but my question now is how can I make it up so that I can get a decent grade in this course, because I can’t afford to fail my intro class to my major.”
“Well I do not give out extra credit, if that is what you’re asking, that would not be fair to the entire class because if I would help you out, I would have to help out everyone. I’m sure you understand that don’t you?” In saying that, it was more of a statement rather than a question, so it was kind of like she answered the question for me.
“I guess.”
“Your next paper is going to be a revision of this paper, and I think that if we sit here, we can get some ideas flowing so that your next paper can be a success.”
“Alright, so what do you have in mind,” not thoroughly channeling the fact that she is here to help me out because she sees how upset I am getting, “because I have a lot of extremely hard classes right now, and this is stressing me out more than it really needs too, I mean, I am glad you are helping me, I just want this next paper to be a home-run if you catch my drift.”
Giggling, she says “I completely understand. Well what you are going to want to do is understand what the term voyeuristic means, because that is vital for this paper.”
“Secondly, you will need to find a couple outside sources to help you back up this interpretation of the text, and in doing so, you will have a skeleton of what you are going to write about, do you see where I am going with this?”
This time I knew she wasn’t mocking me, she was truly understanding, “Yes I definitely see what you mean, is there any place I should look in particular, because I use the library website, but it just gives me useless information on topics that usually don’t help what I am trying to state.”
“Well if I was you, I would start by going to the English database and heading on over to JSTOR, because that will lead you in the right direction for anything involving literature, at least for this I hope.”
“Sounds good, JSTOR… check, alright, well that will definitely be a good start to my redemption of this next paper, thank you for putting up with my attitude, I just do not like it when I work extremely hard on a paper and feel like it was all for nothing.”
“I completely understand, but that is what I am here for, to help you understand and to fix what I can so that you can learn through revision and hopefully make have this paper become amazing as I know you can.”
“Alright well I will definitely work on that for sure!”
“Well is there anything else you would like to ask me about or work on, you have my office hours and my office phone number right?”
“Yes I sure do.”
“Alright, well if you need help, or you feel like you are stuck, send me an email to my WMU account and I will be happy to help you.”
“Thanks a bunch, I’ll see you in class on Monday.”
“Good-bye Thomas.” The tone in her voice when saying my name was now of a more caring nature, and I appreciated her willingness to listen to me and understand where I was coming from.
Rigorous Amounts of Reading and Writing
During my Spring semester of my Junior year of college, I decided that I needed to get into gear with my career and take more classes because I figured that the busier I am, the more I will get things done. I decided to take seventeen credits, which I thought was going to not be so hard as I have taken sixteen credits multiple times before, but boy was I wrong. I chose to take three writing and reading intensive courses: Studies in the Novel, Studies in Verse, and Adolescent Literature. I had no idea that they were all going to be reading and writing intensive, but after I looked at the syllabus' for all three of them, I knew that I was either going to be in huge trouble and drop one of them, or bust my butt to come out on top of these classes and show them who is boss. The choice I made was to bust my butt and work extremely hard to get a great grade in these three courses, as well as the other two that I was taking that semester.
In my Studies in the Novel and Adolescent Literature classes, the course syllabus said that I either had to read an entire book before the next class period or read about 200 to 300 pages before the next class period. I was extremely nervous about this because I never have had to do something as intense as that, but I made sure to find time to read these important novels. I had to write a response about each novel I read for both classes and each class had about seven or eight books I had to read. These responses had to be about themes we believe we saw, or why we liked the novel, etc. I found these papers to be irritating in the beginning of the semester because I thought there was going to be no way that I would be able to do the amount of work they asked of me. But once I got into the swing of things, these papers seemed like just a natural part in the process of my daily life, and midway through the semester, they just came to be easier and easier. By the end of the semester, my Adolescent Literature class had a required 8 page paper based; my Studies in the Novel class had a required 15 page paper, and my Studies in Verse had a required 4 page paper. I was starting to feel like I was not going to pass these classes and show my potential as a good writer.
The week before these papers were do, I decided that to get a head start, I would start writing the papers early. I am so prone to starting a paper just a few days before it is due, which doesn't allow me to have time to edit and seriously take a good stand on what I'm writing about. I knew that these papers were a major portion of my grade, so I had to start early in order to show that I cared a lot for the subject I would be discussing in detail. I spent about three hours if not more every day adding a few pages to one or two of the papers, and looking for more quotes and examples that I could put in the papers that would help with what I stated in my thesis'. By the time these papers were do, I was exhausted. I was hoping and praying that these papers would turn out and that my grades would be at least a B because I felt that I put forth so much effort. By the time grades came out, I was shocked beyond belief. I found out that I got an A in all of my English courses, and a 3.91 GPA for the semester. I tell myself that I cannot believe that I did so well, but I take a look back and see all the nights I stayed awake at the computer lab writing these papers and working on projects and studying for exams, and I can believe it now. I realized that if I was extremely busy, that I would hit it in high gear and pay way more attention to detail and although the stress got to me a lot, it also helped for me to write more diligently and professionally. The outcome of that semester made me feel like I was worth something again in the English department, and that my goal will be achieved in the long run.
In my Studies in the Novel and Adolescent Literature classes, the course syllabus said that I either had to read an entire book before the next class period or read about 200 to 300 pages before the next class period. I was extremely nervous about this because I never have had to do something as intense as that, but I made sure to find time to read these important novels. I had to write a response about each novel I read for both classes and each class had about seven or eight books I had to read. These responses had to be about themes we believe we saw, or why we liked the novel, etc. I found these papers to be irritating in the beginning of the semester because I thought there was going to be no way that I would be able to do the amount of work they asked of me. But once I got into the swing of things, these papers seemed like just a natural part in the process of my daily life, and midway through the semester, they just came to be easier and easier. By the end of the semester, my Adolescent Literature class had a required 8 page paper based; my Studies in the Novel class had a required 15 page paper, and my Studies in Verse had a required 4 page paper. I was starting to feel like I was not going to pass these classes and show my potential as a good writer.
The week before these papers were do, I decided that to get a head start, I would start writing the papers early. I am so prone to starting a paper just a few days before it is due, which doesn't allow me to have time to edit and seriously take a good stand on what I'm writing about. I knew that these papers were a major portion of my grade, so I had to start early in order to show that I cared a lot for the subject I would be discussing in detail. I spent about three hours if not more every day adding a few pages to one or two of the papers, and looking for more quotes and examples that I could put in the papers that would help with what I stated in my thesis'. By the time these papers were do, I was exhausted. I was hoping and praying that these papers would turn out and that my grades would be at least a B because I felt that I put forth so much effort. By the time grades came out, I was shocked beyond belief. I found out that I got an A in all of my English courses, and a 3.91 GPA for the semester. I tell myself that I cannot believe that I did so well, but I take a look back and see all the nights I stayed awake at the computer lab writing these papers and working on projects and studying for exams, and I can believe it now. I realized that if I was extremely busy, that I would hit it in high gear and pay way more attention to detail and although the stress got to me a lot, it also helped for me to write more diligently and professionally. The outcome of that semester made me feel like I was worth something again in the English department, and that my goal will be achieved in the long run.