AP English Language — Rhetorical Situation — Writing Drill 3

The following is a draft of a student personal essay written for a college application. The student is reflecting on what she learned from two years of volunteering at a food bank. [1] I have volunteered at the Riverside Food Bank for two years. [2] During that time, I have learned a lot about myself and about my community. [3] The experience has changed the way I think about food, poverty, and what it means to help someone. [4] When I first started, I thought volunteering would feel good. [5] I imagined I would arrive, hand out food, and leave feeling proud of myself. [6] What actually happened was more complicated. [7] On my second shift, a man named Mr. Torres asked me what I was doing there. [8] I said I was volunteering to help people. [9] He looked at me for a moment and then said, "That's a funny way to put it." [10] I did not understand what he meant until much later. [11] Over the following months, I came to understand that the food bank was not a place where people with resources helped people without them. [12] It was a place where people worked together — clients, volunteers, staff — to solve a problem that none of them had caused and that none of them could solve alone. [13] Mr. Torres was a regular client who also sorted donations every Tuesday. [14] The woman who trained me on the register was a former client who had found stable housing and wanted to give back. [15] The lines between helper and helped were not lines at all. [16] I used to think that service meant doing something for someone. [17] I now think it means doing something with someone. [18] The difference is small in words and large in practice. [19] What I bring to college is not two years of community service. [20] It is two years of learning that the most important problems do not yield to charity. [21] They yield to solidarity.