Everyone who has attended high school will tell you that they cannot wait to be a senior. Classes are supposed to be a breeze and the year is meant, for many, to be a “last hooray” before separating from friends that have been around since elementary school. However, at ThunderRidge, the administration makes it a point to ensure that seniors are crazily busy up until a week before graduation with the dreaded senior projects.
What do these senior projects have to do with writing one may ask? For a mere outsider this question is completely valid, but for those of us who have had to suffer through the process, we know that if you do not complete or pass your senior project than you cannot graduate. Gasp! And who wants to stay another year in high school when college is just around the corner?
There are two main components to passing the senior project, an oral presentation and a research paper that must be six to ten pages long. Six to ten pages may not sound like a big deal but when you are only a high schooler it seems like a near impossible feat. Not only does it have a long length requirement, there must be at least six sources cited within the text.
Being like many students I was not too worried about my paper, until the due date started hurtling towards me. I realized that I had way too much information and no direction in which to head, to make matters worse, I had put off the paper until the last minute and had to frantically work nonstop to complete ten pages of writing that would decide my fate. This story ends happily because I ended up pulling an A on the paper and graduating; however, it was a very nerve racking and stressful experience.
From my senior project paper I learned that I need to plan more in advance when writing lengthy research papers. As a writer I would like to say that I have completely stopped procrastinating and gotten my papers turned in two days early; however, I still suffer from procrastination from time to time. I always tell myself to not procrastinate and in the future I believe that I’ll work on my papers bit by bit. I feel that if I take 30 minutes to just write down some quick thoughts that I will be able to produce a quality paper by the time its due. To go along with this philosophy, I have found that if I write a paragraph about some research that I have just found, that it makes it easier for me to get my thoughts together later when I sit down to write a first draft. I believe this is because I force myself to get the important information from the research and the parts that will be relevant to my topic. Also, with this paper I forced myself to share my writing with teachers and peers because I wanted it to be good enough to get me my diploma. Even though I haven’t implemented this strategy yet in college I do believe that having two heads is better than one and I plan on utilizing my peers to improve my papers.
2 comments:
i feel you on the senior project, i had to do one and i hated it, and i felt like i was soo busy doing it
Yeh i definitely agree as well. My senior project was a killer. I dont know how many hours I spent on my project paper alone, not even including the power point presentation. That may have been the hardest assignment I ever had all four years.
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