High School Lesson

While reflecting on my four years of high school I see a mass of useless math problems, historical facts and thousands and thousands of words written for papers and other such things. I remember two very different types of papers I had to write for my senior year English class. These two papers showed me a lot more about myself then I ever realized any paper could. They were both very valuable tools in shaping the way I think now.
The first being a 4,000 word paper comparing themes of four books we had read and the second one being a self reflection of our previous thirteen years of school. I struggled extremely with the first paper not that 4,000 words is a lot it was just I would procrastinate and it was very time consuming. And quite frankly it was an extremely boring project over four very boring books and I found it extremely difficult to keep interested in writing it at all. These types of papers never captured my interest and honestly made me hate writing and my grade showed on this assignment how little effort I put towards it.
I wasn’t thrilled but our teacher requested a second paper to be done. But there was something different about this paper. It really seemed to re-open my eyes on the idea of writing and I believed prepared me much more than any research paper could have for college. The paper focused on me and my life. What I have done and what I plan to do. A reflection of thirteen years of school summed up in two very short pages. This paper showed me just how much I have done to get where I am now. Showed me not only how important writing is but the overall goal of the assignment. To enjoy what I am writing about. This paper made me think on how I could still better myself and work toward my goals and to enjoy doing it. It really made me focus on what was important in life. What I needed in life to be successful. This paper seemed to make me find my passion for school again. Something I had lost long ago. This paper was exactly the motivation I needed to rekindle the lost spark.