Bushra Rashid 

05/26/2019 
CAHS 
AP Literature  
Writing Portfolio & Capstone 
 
Throughout High School, I have written many pieces in which I inspired my own self to 
keep going. In these writings I understood myself better and learned about who I want to be as 
a person when I grow up. I actually learned more about the things I like and dislike and I had a 
better idea of what things interest me and what others don’t. Sometimes I felt as if I needed a 
break of my own, however; ever since the beginning I learned that I am the type of person who 
will never give up especially about writing, I felt like writing to me was a passion, and the good 
thing about having this passion was that I took care of it throughout all four years of high 
school.  
 
As a new student in high school with a new chapter, a new beginning. I was afraid to 
seek in through the things that I was good at. However; I never knew that I was going to be 
able to discover myself through this chapter, I thought that as a high school student I would be 
lost, just because of every TV show and movie that I have watched about high school. In my 
case it was different, my experience was going to be different and I know that because my 
school is small and I can make anything possible, and whatever came to my mind i was going 
to be able to shine the way I seen myself as a young child in the past.  
 
As a freshman, I was fresh to the new system, I knew everything would be different and 
some things would be rough. I was given an assignment to write about a story that I have gone 
through, a story that affected me personally, and what things I had to do to find a solution if it 
was a problem for me. I named this piece​ “Bushra’s Personal Narrative Writing” ​the reason 
why I named my piece like that was because I wanted to write about something expressive, 
and I was young so I wanted it to be unique to me for when I read it in the future like today and 
reflect about it. The story was talking about what I had gone through in 6th grade, I wrote 
about that time because it was one of the worst times of my life, and I still see it the same but I 
say to myself it was for the best because look at how many accomplishments I have made so 
far.  
 
The story was about how I came from Palestine in 6th grade, of course my english was 
not perfect, however; I understood most of the things that were told to me. One day my 
science teacher asks me to do a science project that everyone else was familiar with except for 
myself. I did not know what a science fair was yet. I had no idea how it works and what the 
requirements were, all I knew was that the teacher came up to me saying that I should pick a 
project and get it done as soon as possible. Back to my writing piece, I was expressive about 
how I was feeling, I said “ I was surprised about how my teacher spoke to me, even though she 
knew that it was my only 4th week in Chicago”. Since this was part of the creative/reflective 
pieces that I have, this made a big difference on my writing, I felt like it has improved the way I 
think as well as the way I write.  
 
 
 
As of my Sophomore year, even though there is no specific piece for me to really reflect 
on, however; as a student my writing was also improved during that year. I have noticed many 
shifts in my writing especially because I learned that I love writing poems, it is what I am best 
at, poems was something that was very impressive to me, and I learned how to make the best 
out of it. I learned how to make my poems imaginative and how to make them very personal to 
me. I also typically learned how to benefit myself when writing poems, because of the way I 
made them personal I understood how to develop my writing and learn about the different 
styles of poems and how to make them unique for myself.  
 
For my Junior year, this year was the most stressful year ever, and I learned so many 
things about myself during this year, I learned how to overcome challenges that I have never 
faced in my life, and because I never faced these challenges, I learned how to escape from 
anything that would have made me experience or feel the need to change the way I write in 
order for me to notice particular ways of my own writing. In this year I had written a piece that 
was an assignment for me, and it was about making a list of ethics that seem to be important to 
me in life, these ethics were morals and obligations that I wanted to follow, they were personal 
obligations, and I named this piece​ “The Process in a Life of a Living”.​ Which was in the 
argument writing section.​ T​ he reason why I wrote this piece the way I did was because I was 
trying to prove that nothing is impossible and that there is a reason for everything that 
happens.  
 
In this piece I wanted to benefit everyone in one way or another, and I realized that I 
wanted to send a message which was When people look at this particular piece I want them to 
notice the difference of each meaning when it comes to building the ten rules, I also want them 
to notice the way that I intended to make the rules different and not group them in the same 
area, this was done to make sure that if these rules were to be used in such a living, they would 
be helpful in many different ways. When I explained in the text “Even if something is standing 
against your abilities you must fight to get what you want.” I wanted to make a particular 
purpose to why someone would want to keep fighting for what they want and how they want it 
to be done, therefore; even if it was hard, within this writing I could show that the impossible 
could be possible for everyone.  
 
There was another piece of writing that I was proud of that I had done Junior year, and 
because of how strong it meant to me, I felt as if it was one of the best accomplishments 
because of how expressive it was and how much it explained a lot about my own life. It was an 
assignment, however; most of the assignments were made for one to express what they feel 
and how they feel, why the feel it and what makes them very different when they are feeling it. 
The name of the piece is “​Brave New World Narrative”​. This was a very personal connection 
that I was able to make in order for me to meet the expectation that I have in my own mind, for 
these expectations I learned how to the society was very complex on itself. In the text of this 
piece “The Israeli forces became stronger and stronger, I was getting affected by the whole 
situation as a child, I lived like a refugee.” Since this was a personal connection this was one of 
the ways that I have gotten over my fears, those fears that were holding me back from being 
the person I am today, those fears that were holding me back of expressing what I want and 
who I want to be in the future, those fears that helped me grow stronger with everything I do.  
 
Last but not least, Senior year, the last year of my high school career, the last year that I 
learn from up close, the last year that I communicate one by one, the last year that made me 
feel like myself for the first time. This year was an amazing year for my writing career, I 
learned a lot about myself, I finally learned the type of independent person I am, and how I 
make everything for myself easier than ever. I learned about specific poets and wrote about 
their style of writing, and I honestly seen this as an amazing way to figure my own style of 
writing. I also wrote about specific characters from specific books, these character traits also 
made a difference on the way I write. For example when I wrote about Estrella from the “​Prose 
Passage”​ I made a connection with the type of person Estrella was by noticing that she was “A 
character who has no knowledge of what the future holds for her is depending to learn more 
about herself than about others and how easy it could be to search about the type of person she 
sees herself as.” Through this I learned that the growth and development of my writing comes 
naturally, and it doesn’t really depend on how much knowledge I have, instead on how much I 
enjoy doing it.  
 
In conclusion, the purpose of writing about my growth and development through all 
four years of high school is to show how much I learned to be different and unique within my 
own writing, I learned how to become more independent with the way I write, and to keep 
writing the way I want even if someone stands against me and says that I shouldn’t write the 
way I write, I write it for myself, but for others to also see and view what type of person I am 
when I am writing. I learned how to improve my skills and my writing habits, I learned time 
management through my writing, I also learned how to stay organized and focused on the 
topic that I am sending a message through, I learned a lot about myself, and this to me is a 
great accomplishment, and I will keep going no matter what.