Playing Tug of War with Honors American Literature by Nikole Clarke (good ebook reader TXT) 📖

In the game of tug of war, two sides compete to pull the rope over the line, hence the term ‘tug of war’. The side that pulls the rope over the line is deemed the winner. This entire trimester, I felt as if I was in a game of tug of war with this English class, Honors American Literature. Sometimes I was winning, other times the class was. Sometimes we were even at a tie.
Honors classes have always intimidated me, although I started taking them in seventh grade. That intimidation also happens with big projects or assignments. In this class, some instances would be our narrative, argumentative, and reflection papers. To get a good idea of how I feel when I know we have an upcoming big assignment, imagine walking up to a tug of war match you will be competing in soon and seeing your opposing team with big, humongous muscles. Whenever we are first introduced to any assignment, I get pretty anxious. Writing is not a strong area in my academics, so I knew that even if I aimed for an A+, I would most likely not get it.
In the very beginning of the trimester, the class and I were at a stalemate in the game. I was getting good enough grades and turning everything in on time. My biggest struggle in this class was probably the vocabulary, as it added more stress to the stress I already had of winning the game. Remembering assignments and turning them in became harder for me. Once we stopped doing vocabulary, I was going to try and step up my game and felt as if I was going to getting a lead on in this tension-filled game of tug of war. The first and next big assignment was our narrative.
When I write something, I usually do not just whip out a pen and start jotting my thoughts down right away. At first, I usually do not do anything actually. I just sit there and think. Once I think of something, then I usually start writing. With my narrative and this reflection essay, I just started writing and didn’t stop until I was done. Then I typed it up and organized it. With my argumentative, I just typed it all in order, since it’s not a creative essay.
We got into peer-review groups for both our narrative and argumentative essays. The reason behind these get-togethers was so that we could get feedback from other people about our essay. These peer-review get-togethers helped me out incredibly. I would have done terrible without them. They helped me in my tug of war competition and in my narrative essay, especially. I know that we talked a bit, but we got work done as well. Talking is my biggest weakness, but it is also one of my strengths; at least I try and make it be. You can talk to communicate with your teammates on your side of the rope, which works in favor of you. You can also talk trash to your opponents, like talking off-topic during class. Resisting that is difficult, because I’m competitive. I have never been able to work without talking at all. Talking can take some stress off of the workload, off of the game, which is the reason behind why I talk.
After working for what felt like forever, my narrative was done. In retrospect, I was proud of my finished work, especially after working on it pretty hard. After turning in my narrative, I felt as if I was winning this game of tug of war. I was so sure I got at least a B+, since I tried my best on it and thought I did a good job. Seeing my grade, I about gave up on this game. I had not planned on not getting the grade I wanted. I knew at that point, this class was getting the best of me and was definitely winning our tug of war game.
Having getting that disappointing grade, I realized I was going to have to step up my game, to work out. I decided that I was going to have to put forth more effort and try a lot harder in this class. What I did was got all of my missing assignments, not that I had a lot, and turned them in. Although some weren’t accepted, it still felt like a big weight lifted off my shoulders.
In the beginning of the trimester, we did 5 or 10 minute journal entries. Some of my journal entries were pretty bad. Out of all of them, one of them made a good point. Talking about the BP oil spill, I said, “The oil spill did not just hurt fish; it hurt other marine animals as well.” Also I said, “BP stands for British Petroleum, which is not anything American; it is British. I do not understand why some British company is in American waters. BP doesn’t care about the oil spill here because it is not by their land.” I believe that was one of my best journals ever and am proud of it.
My best work is absolutely not one of my writing pieces. Out of all our assignments, I would have to say the best thing I did in this class that had anything at all to do with writing is probably my ‘Discussion Director’ paper, back to the beginning of the trimester. In our literature circle groups, every couple of days we would switch roles, or what our job was and what assignment went with it. The role of the discussion director is to pretty much keep the discussion going, and to also write down 10 good questions about the pages you have read in your book. I think in this assignment I had very good questions, which was shown when I got my grade, a perfect ten. When I got my paper back, it felt as if I had one-upped the opposing team in my game of tug of war.
Because of this class, I have learned to become more detailed in my writing. In other words, you cannot just rely on muscle to win tug of war, although at first sight it seems like it. You need some strategy, like not wasting all your energy at the beginning of tug of war. I have also learned better reading strategies as well, especially when you are talking a reading test. This relates to how you can ‘read’ someone’s facial expression, like if you were in an actual game of tug of war and you could see how weak somebody is getting. Although my class will not be getting any weaker, it is still something good to know. How to make my own website was probably the biggest technology thing I have learned this trimester. I always knew you could, I just did not understand how. Once I learned how, I felt as if I had a revelation. It was extremely exciting.
I have played tug of war in real-life before. I got rope burn on my arm. That goes to show that you can get hurt. Sometimes in this class, you get hurt. Most of the time, it is not physical though, mostly emotional. It usually happens when you think you did really well on an assignment and it turns out, you did not. This is exactly where I derived my extended metaphor from; it is like a tug of war match.
The biggest thing I have learned from taking Honors American Literature is that there are going to be more and more tug of war matches all throughout my life. This is just the beginning. When I walked into this class at the beginning of this trimester, I had second thoughts about staying with honors in the English department. I heard from a lot of people that AP Composition is extremely hard, and I did not want to have an even harder tug of war match. Although these classes are challenging, I think it is a good idea for me to take them so I can be prepared for future classes and college. It is like if you were in a huge tug of war event. There is always going to be more matches you have to face. Having taken so many honors classes, it is like having an anchor at the end of your team’s side of the rope. The more honors classes you take, the easier it will be to win, well, your matches. This class was just another thing I have under my belt of wins.

Publication Date: 04-25-2011

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