Personal Narrative: My Eleventh Year In High School

Walking into my honors English class my eleventh grade year, I felt as if it would be a breeze. Thinking back to the previous year to when I constantly maintained an “A+” and without hesitation I knew that any test, quiz, or writing prompt I was destined for an “A.” It was until now sobbing in a big puddle of salty water I knew for a fact I was doomed. Although I had never really thought into what karma was and what it really meant. It was my eleventh grade year in high school it had finally caught up to me. During my tenth grade year my English class always flowed smoothly. As a class we were never really required to do much more than babysit ourselves. There were countless days we sat in class and did simple worksheets on the book Night by Elie Wiesel which I had read in the eighth grade. Not realizing this was an English class it felt like kindergarten all over again. I had even considered it to be the best class period through my first two years of high school. It was chill, easy, and, comfortable. That comfortableness had not only crippled me but was what played a key part in my eleventh grade misery. That’s when it had all started.
After reviewing and taking a quiz on our syllabus and understanding the many detailed writing assignments we would be asked to do over the many months until June 14, 2015, was when I could said it had finally hit me.
Everything wasn’t going to be like it used to be! After the few short lessons we did have on punctuation and grammar thereafter my true insufficiency was put to the test. We had been assigned to write an essay on what we thought “begin with the end in mind” meant. Just as I had the same confidence in turning in papers in my tenth grade English class was what had followed me then, with the hopes of getting an “A” as
usual. At that point was when I could say I had reached my literacy demise. I was so used to receiving what I thought; more like what I knew was accurate but that had been now changed by not one but two whole letter grades. I was barely making a “C,” receiving the highest of a seventy-one percent. Going home confused and in tears my mind demanded answers. I could never begin to understand how I could come from perfection to failure. I felt it was no way in this universe I, Shakira Brown could barely maintain making a low “C!” After the continuing downhill spiral I was already making a “D” in the class five weeks in. I sought answers! While receiving help I had realized that I wasn’t properly taught or trained on numerous things I needed to know for that class. These had now become the main pieces that my papers had begun to lack greatly. My life had now become a 2,000 piece jigsaw puzzle that had been taking apart and the pieces had now become a unsolvable mystery. In due time I had come to learn that being complacent and not caring was not going to change this situation. In order to learn, grow I had to realize that sacrificing would be a crucial stage. I had decided that two major changes that had to be made in my life. Inwardly I started to look at the class differently not viewing as hard or a waste of time but; I viewed it as a challenge I was willing to take to better me as an honors English student. The second major adjustment was to become more self-efficient. I learned that the only person to blame was myself not the tenth grade English teacher nor the eleventh grade one. These changes had now bettered me as a student. Though I had never made it back to making “A’s” I did what was manageable and learned a lot through the way.