A truly significant experience shapes and defines a person. It can simply be a good memory, or it can be a tremendous influence on a person's life. An experience that has been a challenge to me is taking an advanced course of English (AP Language and Composition), in my junior year of high school. In this class I learned things about myself and the people around me. I learned to analyze and to criticize my thoughts, actions, and ideas. I saw that I can speak my mind and that my ideas can be profound. By the end of the year, I had something to be proud of. I took an exceptional course, and not only had I passed it, but I learned a lot from the experience.

In this class I learned how to be independent. I had a really good teacher that took me through the course. I started out being very inexperienced and scared to speak out in class. Mr. Knox saw my weak points and worked them out of me. His proclamation in the beginning of the year was "leave your ego at the door." It was a warning and a disclaimer at the same time. At first I did not understand this style of teaching. The other students in the class thought that Mr. Knox was mean, but he was just trying to make us stronger. We were accustomed to teachers that lecture and give lots of simple worksheets and tests. Mr. Knox was very different. He taught us to stand up for ourselves and to voice our opinions. It did not matter if we were wrong or right, that was the way to learn. The class consisted of group discussions and writing of essays. Everybody's opinion was heard and the whole class would explain what would be wrong or right with the theory.

In this English class I learned a new way of thinking. Whenever I read a book, before then, I would just see the main idea and try to remember the plot line. In this class I learned to look for themes and motifs, things that truly make a novel interesting. I experienced the literature of William Faulkner and of other famous writers and poets. Mr. Knox made me learn to appreciate the true art of literature. Not only can the story be interesting and original, but it has to be well written. I saw that not only poets use figurative language in their works, but that the good novel writers do also. Not only did I get to analyze the story, but also the language, themes, tone and mood. I learned that a really good writer must not only to entertain the reader, but to stimulate him intellectually, also.

I took this class because I saw that attention was towards things that were important to me. I started off the year being a poor writer. I cannot say that I write well now, but I can definitely say that I have improved tremendously. The emphasis of this course was on essay writing, and that is what I have learned to do. A lot of classes that I take in school have no real life use. This class was a requirement for my future. In all of the other English classes that I took, I had to study vocabulary and half of the class time was used to help the class remember it. In this class, the time was spent on more significant things. I received a lot of practice with essay writing and analyzing books and poetry. For some essays the teacher gave me a few weeks, for others, forty-five minutes. I realized that much work goes into writing the perfect sentence. It is hard to put an idea into words and that is why each word must be chosen carefully. A lot of work goes into writing a good essay, and in this class I learned how to approach such a thing.

At first I was scared that I was not intellectual enough to take a course so advanced. I thought that I would be below the level of my classmates. As it turned out, in the beginning of the year, that was true to some extent. The great thing about it was that I also had the most improvement. My parents were extremely proud of me because they saw how hard I worked. My teacher was proud to see my improvement. I was proud of myself because I straddled a new challenge. As a result of taking this course, I grew to be more independent. I gained a new way of thinking and, in the process, learned how to write.