Jayson Sarmiento-Ramon

Enid Brain

English 11000

11 September 2025

Progress

I began tenth grade with a new English teacher. I heard rumors about this teacher, and they were not particularly good. I sat in her class on the first day of school. She went over the syllabus and asked if we had any questions. When nobody said anything, she dismissed the class early. After this moment, I thought that she was not the intimidating person the upperclassmen described her to be. After all, the teacher that others described her to be would never let class end early, right? 

The deadline for the first paper was approaching, and I was polishing my English paper. I had done extremely well last year in English, getting an H as my final grade for the year, which is around a 3.8 on a 4.0 scale. I credit my standing in English my freshman year to my good time management skills. I made sure to always start my English paper two weeks ahead of the deadline, allowing me to complete many, many revisions. I applied the same method to my first English paper in my sophomore year. 

Then came the much-anticipated day. The day I would receive my English paper back. I received it. My heart began to beat extremely fast. My palms began to sweat. I suddenly felt an extreme rush of heat. On my paper, at the very end, was a big letter U circled in red. This letter grade equates to a 2.8 on a 4.0 scale. The only advice on the paper in red letters was “go to the writing center for your next paper.” I looked over my paper once I got home. I then looked over it again. And again. And still one more time. I found small mistakes and realized that perhaps I could have chosen better-quality evidence, but I still couldn’t understand why my paper was given such a low grade. I screamed into my pillow. Then I sat upright at the edge of my bed, staring into space. I looked up toward the ceiling and began to question if I had what it took to succeed in her class. Fueled by my anger at the grade I received for my first paper, I went to sleep muttering, “I will succeed in her class no matter what.”

This time around, the task was to write a “perfect paragraph,” as my teacher called it. Essentially, I was supposed to be as succinct as possible. I had only 250 words to write a topic sentence, which would serve as my thesis for this paper, along with the supporting pieces of evidence and analysis. I could write about anything. There was no prompt to answer. I had freedom. A little too much freedom. On the contrary, because of the word restraint, that freedom was cancelled out.

After gathering the evidence, I went to the writing center. A bunch of upperclassmen were available, and I chose the one closest to the entrance. I sat down and went over my evidence with him. To put it shortly, he said they “were solid choices” and that all I had to do was to “make sure to only quote what I am explaining and vice versa” because that was a big pitfall for many students. I thanked him for his time and left the resource center. The day came once again. I received my English paper. This time around, I got an M. This grade equates to a 3.5 on a 4.0 scale. I took the paper and put it in my bag. Outwardly, I was emotionless. I guess it had to do with the fact that I was half expecting another poor grade. Aside from the big red M at the end of my paper, my teacher wrote the following yet again: “Continue to see the writing center.”

I continued to do what she recommended all year, and I kept getting great advice. In my first paper of the second trimester, the fourth paper of the year, I finally reached the H grade I was so used to seeing in my freshman year. Beginning with this first paper of the second trimester, my teacher began to give me specific feedback, contrary to the usual feedback I got, which was nothing. Although I finished tenth grade with an M as my final grade, I was proud. I learned a valuable lesson: I learned how to fight for myself academically.