Senior Portfolio Reflection

Within the freshman section of my portfolio, I included my PA on a literary analysis of TKAM, a

discussion about humor and Elizabeth Bennett from Pride and Prejudice and a presentation on

Perseus and Medusa. Starting off, I included my PA on TKAM to demonstrate the change in my

writing style over the years. When looking at this paper, the writing style is not very good and

some of the ideas are undeveloped. When looking at the senior year section which includes an

analysis of Claude McKay’s “America,” it is evident that my writing style and abilities have

improved. The ideas within the poetry response are well thought out and articulated with fully

developed ideas being connected back to a theme. Furthermore, I included the discussion of

Elizabeth Bennett to compare that to the notes I took on The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of

Denmark. When looking at the discussion, much like the PA, the sentences are very choppy, and

the ideas underdeveloped. There was not much information within that discussion deeper than

surface level. However, when looking at the Hamlet notes, there are some connections I made

within the annotations that I would not have made were I 14 again. The last work that I included

was the presentation on Perseus and Medusa. Just by looking at the structure, the presentation

itself was not particularly good. The titles of each slide were not centered, there was a lot of

blank space and overall, looking at it was not very aesthetically pleasing. I compared this

presentation to the big idea presentation on Death from the Senior section. Within that

presentation, there is little to no blank space, the contrast of the words on top of the black

background made it easy for the audience to internalize and the words were big enough for

everyone in the room to see. When comparing my freshman year work to senior year, it is

evident that my journey through high school was rough, but worth it in the end. I struggled a lot

with the work that was assigned freshman year, in English at least, but when looking at the work
I curated and created (sometimes entirely on my own, even though it was supposed to be a group

project), got better as time went on. About my journey through high school, each item revealed

to me that the journey was rewarding more than anything. Even when I felt like I would never

improve, I did.

Moving onto sophomore year, for the writing section, I included my sociocultural report on the

Armenian Genocide from AP Seminar, in the reading section, I included my bible notes that I

took the Summer before Junior Year while we were online and for the listening/speaking section,

I included the presentation on the Armenian Genocide. I compared these works to the work I did

in Junior Year to show my development between the two years when I was at school and stuck at

home because of Covid. I included my sociocultural report to compare it to my literary analysis

of A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines. My sociocultural report, although it is not as bad as

my PA from freshman year, still had a long way to go before it was worth passing. On the other

hand, I passed my literary analysis on ALBD first try, making it the first PA I passed on the first

go. It is evident through these comparisons that even though I was hindered by the pandemic, I

was willing to continue to try and be better and so I was. I would also like to compare my

reading skills. For the sophomore section, I included my bible notes that I curated during

quarantine, and for the junior year section, I included my annotations on Brave New World by

Aldous Huxley. Regarding the Bible notes, I had a set list of things I was supposed to annotate

for; 5W’sH. This made these notes quite simple to create. However, for BNW, I only had a set

list of things I should annotate for. Therefore, I was on my own when it came to annotating this

book. Within the annotations; though, it is obvious that the ideas within it are very structured and

thought through, whereas the bible notes were completely structured the way they were because

they had to be. Lastly, I compared my TMP from sophomore year to the Civil Disobedience
presentation that I did junior year. When looking at the whole AP Seminar project, I believe that

I took a backseat because I was not confident in my ability to do a project like the one assigned.

However, for the Civil Disobedience project, I took the lead and created the outline all myself,

because my group members were not willing to. Furthermore, I assigned them their own texts

along with the kinds of things they would have to look for, since it was evident they would not

be doing it themselves (sorry for snitching, but who cares anymore). The comparisons between

sophomore and junior year show that even though this time and transitional period was

exceedingly difficult for me, I learned how to take the lead and advocate for myself and my

grade.

When looking at how I evolved during the last four years, it is evident that I developed both

mentally and emotionally. During freshman and sophomore year, I struggled a lot with self-

esteem and the ability to see my true potential. However, after some being at home and taking

the time to discover myself, I know now that I am more capable of things than I could have ever

imagined. Overall, I believe that I evolved in every way that a person can positively evolve. I

learned how to let people who hurt me go without apology, I learned how to trust my intellect

and ideas, and I learned how to be a better student and person.