Tangible panic surrounded Chagrin Falls High School today as all the AP English 12 students prepared for their in-class essay throughout every period in a sort of scared-out-of-their-minds panic. Everywhere I turned, I saw some stressed out classmate mumbling quotes to themselves like a crazy person, nervously jittering, madly flipping back and forth between worn out data sheet pages, or (my personal favorite) incepting other students. This inception of AP English 12 students apparently does not take much because it seemed to engulf all of our lives today, and I believe that it only requires these 4 simple steps:
1. An AP English 12 student approaches a fellow classmate in the hall or class and eyes meet as the venting about how stressed they feel begins even before they reach speaking distance.
2.One of them says their idea of what they predict the essay will deal with.
3.The other then walks away in a state of panic as they start to obsess over this prediction, until it consumes them so much they feel they must memorize more quotes and analysis dealing with the (probably outlandish and overly specific) prediction their classmate just made.
4.The incepted student then starts the whole process all over and approaches another innocent victim to incept.
This painful process surrounded us all, and I had not completely realized its relevance and frequency until today as stress about the writing swarmed all over the school. I think that every one of us should rightfully accept the accusation that we, at some point or another, fell guilty to scaring, and ultimately incepting, a fellow classmate in the grueling hours leading up to an in-class essay.
After sitting down in my desk today and scanning the room before the writing, I have concluded that we ended up going into a manageable essay that we had the ability to do, as a group of slightly insane, extremely paranoid, and unnecessarily incepted, AP English 12 students.
These observations are very accurate, on Monday night I felt only marginally nervous about the impending essay. By Tuesday afternoon my head was swimming with random snippets of quotes and I felt an anxiety attack coming on. I am beginning to realize that the scariest part of AP English might not be Ms. Serensky or the essays, but my classmates and our ability to collectively panic and incite anxiety.
ReplyDeleteCarolyn, I could not agree more with your ideas. After memorizing my quotes on Monday night, I felt confident in my ability to recall them for Tuesday's in class writing. However, as soon as school began, my self confidence drifted away and I became anxious and nervous. I watched my classmates copy down the quotes they learned on to notebook paper. They then counted up these quotes and proceeded to ask one another if they had memorized enough. The panic only worsened at lunch when students began to contemplate the essay topic. Soon everyone worried if the quotes they had memorized would fit the topic. After English 6th period, I realized the panic and feelings of anxiety and nervousness were completely unnecessary. In the future, I hope to avoid my classmates on in class writing days in hopes that I can avoid the panic and anxiety.
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