Turning My Weaknesses Into Strengths
Greavu 1
John Greavu
WRIT 1301
Mr. Anderson
13 DEC 2011
Major Paper #4: Self Assessment: Turning “I Hate You” Into “Thank You” Throughout my life, for some reason or another, my writing has always been one of my weakest academic areas. At a very young age, through a series of many tests at doctors’ offices and local universities, I was told that I was three things, ADHD, OCD, and finally “gifted”. In addition to being hyper, having a very short attention span, and being obsessive-compulsive about certain things, I was also at least one or two years ahead of 99.9% of all other four-year olds in categories that included reading and math—but not writing. While I excelled in the first two categories in school (I was literally moved up a grade for a year), when it came to writing, I would always do below the average in comparison to my other classmates. I scored a 32 on the ACT but could never get above an eight (out of twelve) in my writing score in the four times that I took the test. In desperation, I even took an ACT class mainly for the reason of improving my writing score of which was to no avail. No matter, how good I felt about my writing, whether it was on the ACT, or on a high school paper, from experience I learned to never get too excited after I turned something in because it would probably only lead to disappointment after I received it back. As I have high standards for myself, I came to college, where “the papers flow like beer”, knowing that my deficiency was something that I needed to address immediately in order to succeed academically. I decided to take the required freshman writing course right away during first semester, and with it, I can say that my writing has significantly improved—more than I ever imagined it would. Prior to taking WRIT 1301, my struggles with writing were various and even
Greavu 2 intimidating. Although I may be labeled technically as a “genius” (and often think I am one in my head), my brilliant thoughts seemed to
John Greavu
WRIT 1301
Mr. Anderson
13 DEC 2011
Major Paper #4: Self Assessment: Turning “I Hate You” Into “Thank You” Throughout my life, for some reason or another, my writing has always been one of my weakest academic areas. At a very young age, through a series of many tests at doctors’ offices and local universities, I was told that I was three things, ADHD, OCD, and finally “gifted”. In addition to being hyper, having a very short attention span, and being obsessive-compulsive about certain things, I was also at least one or two years ahead of 99.9% of all other four-year olds in categories that included reading and math—but not writing. While I excelled in the first two categories in school (I was literally moved up a grade for a year), when it came to writing, I would always do below the average in comparison to my other classmates. I scored a 32 on the ACT but could never get above an eight (out of twelve) in my writing score in the four times that I took the test. In desperation, I even took an ACT class mainly for the reason of improving my writing score of which was to no avail. No matter, how good I felt about my writing, whether it was on the ACT, or on a high school paper, from experience I learned to never get too excited after I turned something in because it would probably only lead to disappointment after I received it back. As I have high standards for myself, I came to college, where “the papers flow like beer”, knowing that my deficiency was something that I needed to address immediately in order to succeed academically. I decided to take the required freshman writing course right away during first semester, and with it, I can say that my writing has significantly improved—more than I ever imagined it would. Prior to taking WRIT 1301, my struggles with writing were various and even
Greavu 2 intimidating. Although I may be labeled technically as a “genius” (and often think I am one in my head), my brilliant thoughts seemed to