Xavier Walker
05/28/13
English/Comp
It’s not High School Anymore
In high school I notice that pretty much anything I turned in was an automatic 90%. When I started college I expected it to be just about the same, but sadly it wasn’t. High school English messed me up so bad that it had me thinking that I was an A1 writer, when really I was beyond less than that. My first college paper was so disappointing, I was pretty much in complete shock about the whole thing. Never had I ever failed a rough draft, I mean come on a rough draft! To me that’s the easiest grade to get in English besides a spelling test. College English quickly showed me that I will actually have to apply time into my writing. That means not just trying to make it sound good, but applying key facts, dates, precise punctuation, correct use of writing, and using the right type of MLA formatting. Even though most of this was already taught in grade school, it was hardly ever enforced as hard as it is in college.
In high school I was graded on the rubric the teacher would handout before every essay. In the rubric it would consist of certain criteria that were needed to be met by me by its due date. So basically I would only stick to what was only required. Not thinking to expand the broadness of my paper, I would simply keep it short and sweet. In high school I never had to keep up with how many words that was needed to be wrote in my essay. We as the students were only required to keep our essays to a 5-7 paragraph minimum. So once reaching five paragraphs I had always considered it to be a “no go” on going further with my essay. I would cut my conclusion short, and it would be my summary in a brief response, and that’s it. No further conclusive thoughts on what I just wrote. So the content in my paper would be more of right to the point instead of a short explanation.
Also in high school procrastination was simply a religious act done so on every paper. Never did I stop and think “hey, this would be the perfect time to start on my essay.” It would always be… Oh well I have plenty of time. Days would go by, and I would start my essay, but only to have just a couple of paragraphs written right before 3 days of its due date. Then immediately I and my brain would go into this complete panic and rush mode. In this situation I would take my easy and write in bold letters, “COMPLETE B’S!” No, not really would I write that out on my paper, but hypothetically that would basically be what I would write. Not one ounce of critical thought would go into my paper. All that would be on my paper would be whatever my brain came up with while my pencil was moving. The only reason for why I procrastinated so much would be, because I knew I could pull out with either a low or high B. As long as the requirements were met I was pretty much in the running for an ok grade.
Therefore when I would procrastinate I would also be highly temped to plagiarize next. This would only happen whenever I would have a compare and contrast paper due on a story that was read by the class I was in, or when writing a