TOW Reflection

Back in September, when I sat down with the syllabus for my first taste of an AP English course, I was honestly skeptical about how the TOWs would benefit me and help me become a more effective writer.  It seemed back then a trivial task that would make my Sundays longer.  However, I realize now that through the hard work that I put into the TOWs throughout the year, I gained vital knowledge for my success in the course.  I first realized how beneficial the TOWs were when we started writing argument essays in class, and both of my examples for one of the essays came from the assignments from the last two weekends.  I noticed that I wasn’t only going on a website and choosing an article at random to try to find examples of parallelism.  For the first time in my life, I was spending an hour each weekend reading the news and becoming an informed citizen.  When added to the practice that the TOWs gave me in argument and analysis, it is evident that this assignment slowly, but surely, improved my writing. 

            This improvement is shown throughout the progression of my posts.  Rereading the first TOW I wrote was painful; it really shows how much my writing has changed.  A common theme throughout the first marking period was that my entries read like a list.  I was following the assignment sheet to a point and made my writing seem robotic.  I was summarizing the articles I read or the videos I watched more than I was analyzing them.  In addition, I didn’t have a full understanding of the various forms that rhetoric could appear in and was relentlessly sifting through the texts looking for specific rhetorical devices, even if they were insignificant to the purpose.  The lack of awareness I had pertaining to the assignment itself was also evident because my choice of texts was narrow and did not encompass a variety of topics.  However, the first marking period did serve as a foundation to my ability to analyze texts effectively in the future.

            After the shock of the first marking period, things started to click for me, including the TOWs.  I started to develop arguments in each post and spend the majority of my time focusing on the analysis.  In addition, the skills I learned from the class appeared in my entries.  The posts read less like bulleted lists and contained more sophisticated diction and sentence structure.  The major criticism of these TOWs is that they weren’t very sophisticated in terms of creativity.  The hooks weren’t very good and each one was in the same format from week to week.  However, I was covering a wide array of topics from numerous sources and reaped the benefits from that.  By the end of the year, the level of my TOWs peaked.  The structure of each one varied and they were written like concise essays.  However, as the AP exam approached, the TOWs were at a comparable length with those from the beginning of the year.  This worked though, because the space was being used effectively.  The best qualities of the latest TOWs included an assessment of the author’s rhetoric pertaining to the purpose of the paper and connections between the current topic and other events.  I felt as if I was able to master forming an argument and analyzing a text during these TOWs, which made writing the graded class essays easier.

            Even with all of the improvements, there are still areas where I can approve.  I think the leading category would be to make sure that I fully elaborate the argument that I am developing.  At times I skimmed that and just focus on the analysis.  Also, I need to make my writing more creative and interesting for success in the future.  Ultimately, the TOW assignments proved to be extremely helpful throughout the school year.  Not only did I have a weekly tool to help develop my writing ability, I was also given a medium to push me to inform myself about the world around me.