Letter to future APELC Student (TOW#29)

       As a newcomer to the APELC class, I was filled with doubts and questions. I was uncertain of my chances of success and plagued by horrible rumors from the mouth of many graduating APELC “veterans”. Whether or not you have the same mentality I do not know, but I know that you want success and happiness. Therefore, remember this one wisdom even if you will eventually forget all other aspects of this letter: work hard but work with purpose.

       In hindsight and to your relief, I realized that many of the terrible rumors about APELC are inherently not true. Yes, the class may be hard, challenging, and even annoying at times, but the class will never be impossible as long as you show your effort. The Plato readings and unit exams you will confront are going to challenge your analytical minds, but you will also find so satisfying sense of success once you began to understand the Plato readings and improve in your unit exams. The difficulty of the class will always be the same, but I am convinced that you will find the class increasingly easier as the year goes on. Trust in your instructors because they are skilled and are capable of stretching you to a new level of maturity and insight. The assignments may be few at times know that they serve a bigger purpose collectively, so always remember to put effort into whatever you do for this class.

       At the very beginning of class, Mr. Yost told us that “it’s just school”. The statement is not to degrade the importance of trying in school but to give us a bigger picture of our life. School is important, but your life and my life do not fetter themselves to our level of successes in school or in APELC. The value of our lives lies within us; I remember the first semester of APELC really gave me a tough time, especially on the unit exam, but all the stress I felt was but a insignificant point in my past now. All the worries I had about my grades were so trivial. The value of APELC is the knowledge it offers, and the grade, if you work, will follow.

Tow reflection (TOW #28)

       The TOW assignments throughout the school year have significantly bettered my writing in two areas: wording and description. As the TOWs progressed, I noticed the increasing refinement of vocabulary words in my writings. Introductory sentences such as “Both the newspaper’s influence and the cartoon’s simple manifestation helped readers to instantly grasp the core idea of uncertainty in an atomic age yet to come”(Tow8) became shorter and more succinct, gradually developing into “Published in 1944, the short story details the origin of insanity: the normal human tendency against overtly motley manifestations” (Tow16) and “The way to the Rainy Mountain is the way to the Native American culture, a culture recalled by the wistful description of Momaday, a culture that is struggling for survival”(Tow23). The use of more sophisticated words such as “motely” and the use of parallel structure to enhance description were rarely seen in the first few Tows of the year. I am excited to see my Tows develop into more descriptive and understandable writings as the year progresses.

       With numerous writing practice opportunities brought by Tows, not only did my writing itself improve but also my analytical insight. I began to comprehend more of the choices made by authors, such as the particular wording of their essays or a specific symbol in a political cartoon. I learned to incorporate the writer’s style in my analysis so that the readers can have a taste and did so with increasing mastery. However, a constant issue that comes along is trying to find a perfect balance between evidence and analysis. For analytical essays analysis is like the keystone of the pyramid; nevertheless, evidence is almost everything else. I still need to develop in my insight so that I can spot the balance point between evidence and analysis, a goal I will strive to accomplish in the next several years.

       Overall, I believe the Tow assignments truly expanded my knowledge and whetted my analytical mind. Though only one Tow is assigned each week, the search of different topics and styles of writings, ranging from the sentimental “The Way to Rainy Mountain” to the awing “The Life of a Cell,” has exposed me to a variety of different authors and thinking. In addition, the Tows allowed me to exercise the analytical tips given by my instructors, so in hindsight Tows really were helpful.