My Growth as a Writer

In many ways similar to my growth as a reader, my development as a writer during this semester was built around my around my discovery that an author may have recurring themes in his work. While this had not been directly mentioned in my essays, this perspective has aided me in writing essays much more profound in nature, and in turn, helped my own development as a writer.

The idea of an overarching theme appearing in an author was first explored with the reading of Hamlet. The first essay I had to do for this semester was a question of whether or not Hamlet could have been a competent leader had he survived the cascade of conspiracies present within the play. Considering how it is often noted that Shakespeare himself was indirectly very involved in politics as well, asking its audience to question the political atmosphere of their times by watching the squabbles and the endless scheming of morally questionable noblemen. With this in mind, I decided to consider the question asked by the prompt from a purely political point of view by stating exactly what constitutes as a good king. I proceeded then to dismantle each aspect, demonstrating Hamlet’s complete incompetence as a leader, “a brilliant individual that is able to entertain and excite the audience, but due to his mental instability, unpredictable nature, and misplaced responsibilities on his honor would have made him an incompetent king had he survived the play.” (Hamlet Essay) This essay in turn taught me how to plan and write an essay with strong political connotations to it in a thoughtful manner, which helped me immensely for the Independent Author’s Study Project.

My progress with the Author’s Study Project was in no way the smoothest ride that I had taken during AP literature and I could even say that it was a significant demonstration of my growth as a writer. Due to the sheer amount of pressure from my other courses and the AP exams, I wasn’t able to initially give enough thought to the writing style that was prominently used by Aldous Huxley in his novels, so I was only able to scratch the surface of the fundamental choice of words, and, failing even that, had to resort to usage of vagueness in language and instead discussing what the question itself asked. This, however, helped me immensely later on when I was writing my final draft for the Independent Research Project, in which I was able to discuss many different aspects of Aldous Huxley’s writing.