Monomyth
One of the first big essays I wrote for my English class was about Boromir, a character from The Lord of the Rings, and his advancement though the hero journey. He overcame his arrogance in the end to save some of his companions, and his strength and love redeemed him. Boromir became a great hero because he died heroically coming to the aid of his friends. The monomyth project describes his steps towards heroism and the obstacles he had to overcome.
I had to write this in-class essay in a period of fifty minutes, and our teacher wanted us to come to class without having made an outline. I did not feel prepared for this task, but now that I have practiced, I have become much more experienced. Though this project, my first in-class essay, I have learned to cooperate well with important essays, and as usual, I have learned from my mistakes. I used too many “to be” verbs in this essay, and “to be” verbs reveal weak writers. For example, in the sentence, “Boromir is a very arrogant person who is too confident in himself…”, I could have written, “Boromir’s arrogance leads to his development as an overly confident person.” Without “to be” verbs, my essay would flow more nicely, and I could entice my readers more easily. Many of my topic sentences were demeaned by my “to be” verbs, and my essay became a lot less interesting. But, I used a lot of specific incidents to back up my reasoning, and I gained a lot of points because of it.
I could not overcome the shock of the idea of coming to an in-class essay without an outline or notes. This concept had been introduced to me for the first time, and I did not think I was going to do well because of it. But, I followed my teacher’s instructions, and by the end of the class, I felt a lot more confident than I thought I would. The night before, I even looked up “how to deal with essay tension”, and the website I read told me to breathe deeply and stay calm. I laugh at this act now, but at the time, it proved to be reassuring.
I learned that I usually put myself down before an exam or a quiz and that instead of destroying my confidence, I should behave positively. With ambition and a positive attitude, I can work a lot better because I believe in myself.
