“Believing something does not make it true; proving it within the light of reason does” (Scott, 48).
When I began this summer assignment I was overwhelmed. I did not know where to begin, so I started by reading the first passage by A.O. Scott, Better Living Through Criticism: How to Think About Art, Pleasure, Beauty, and Truth. A chapter that stood out to me was “Self Criticism (A Further Dialogue).” The quote I found most interesting was a response to a question about what kind of knowledge you can attain from reading a novel or watching a movie. What do you actually learn? The answer to this question, according to the interviewee, is that with reading you can “acquire a more intimate, richer sense of what is found there than you would through classroom study or organized travel.” I will have to disagree with this idea, as I believe that nothing can beat real life experiences. Also, the idea of reading someone else's experiences almost feels like you are invading their privacy. This quote has left me with one final question; how valuable are life experiences to our happiness? Over the course of high school my writing has drastically improved. As I transitioned from Freshman to Sophomore to Junior year, I slowly noticed my writing developing. I began to write more complex, well thought out essays. With all of these improvements, one glaring problem stood out; I struggled to prove my point and back it up with strong evidence from the text. This quote by A.O. Scott is what I need to live by this year in AP Lit, because it is essential to my success in the class. An essay can have a strong structure, complex sentences, and incredible ideas, but without proving a point, it is nothing. Throughout high school, English has been one of my favorite classes, and year in and year out I have been determined to improve my abilities, even when I had many doubts. This quote holds true in more facets of my life than writing. Basketball is a huge part of my life and I have never been satisfied with the player I was; I always had to improve. As a Freshman and Sophomore I played very infrequently, and I was sitting on the bench more than I was playing in the game. When my Junior season came around, I knew it was time to change. I was tired of riding the bench, and I was tired of being seen as a lesser player. My whole life I had believed I was a great player, and knew I could contribute to whatever team I was playing for. Now though, it was time to prove it. This quote was the perfect way to describe my season. I believed in myself, and proved to coach why I deserved to play. Our team would go on to win a school record 19 games, and make the State Tournament for the first time since 2003. I believed something, and went out and backed it up.
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