Heedful Highlighting by Hope

Heedful Highlighting by Hope - December 2017 Scholarship Essay

For every school project that I create, I strive for near-perfection in order to achieve a substantial grade on the assignment. My primary strategy in my completion of school projects is to directly follow my instructors’ guidelines.
My strategy for executing my projects is exemplified by a recent assignment that I completed in my AP Literature class. In the assignment, we each had to find a poem (of our choice) and analyze various aspects of the poem. My teacher delineated the specific aspects of analysis that she expected from us, split into sections that each had questions that we were supposed to answer. Therefore, when I sat down to type up my complete analysis for the assignment, my teacher’s guidelines stared up at me from right next to my computer. Once I believed that I had completed the assignment, I printed out a copy. I laid the copy next to me and compared my assignment to my teacher’s expectations. Each time I found something in my work that directly followed the rubric, my yellow highlighter would fly across the ink. Seeing how effectively (or not effectively) I have completed my assignment helps me to succeed in each of my school projects. By having noted the areas that I am strong and the areas that I am weak in the particular assignment, I can more fully grasp the premise of the assignment in order to ensure that I may succeed. Understanding what the teacher wants and expects from an assignment is the ultimate facilitator of success.
When I complete school assignments, I find that specifically denoting where I have and have not met the teacher’s guidelines is the most conducive strategy for success. By highlighting the areas that I found that I have answered the questions that the teacher posed, I can more efficiently determine how I can improve my assignments to allow for the greatest possible success.