School never had many subjects that interested me. Nothing ever really stood out to me. School felt like a chore and it was almost impossible to get through the day without taking a nap in class. English class was what always kept my interest because it was always switching up. Some days I got to write, and the writing was always in different forms and styles. Other days I got to read and spend the whole period calmly and quietly enjoying a book. It was the only class that felt personalized to every student, because of the versatility of the things we got to read and write.
In school I had always been good at writing. In 7th grade we did a unit on poetry in my literacy class and that was hard for me at first. Writing in that specific way was never really something I had to do before, it seemed like the words never really came to me. As the days progressed I found it coming to me more naturally when the project became to write personal poems. I realized that writing this poetry was a helpful way to convey the emotions I was feeling everyday at age 12. At that time I had been going through a lot and reaching adolescence so it was a confusing time. The poetry we were told to write in class helped me more than I knew it ever could. Putting my emotions in artistic and metaphorical phrases that all came together to symbolize how I, and many other young girls felt, was therapeutic in a way. As a young girl trying to navigate becoming a teenager, going through puberty, and struggling with mental health, the world can feel like a very lonely place. I know for myself and many others, regardless of gender, just starting to become a teenager and middle school was a very hard time. It sounds cliche to some but writing poetry and learning a new way to convey emotion through a healthy outlet was extremely helpful to me. I know I was not the only in class to benefit from writing poetry. Many of my classmates wrote very heartfelt and personal pieces that I could tell was very freeing for them to share with others. After middle school I did not find myself writing poetry often at all, but to this day I do find myself very drawn to poetry and actually really enjoying it.
Ever since I was a little kid I have enjoyed reading. In 4th grade I had been gifted a book by a friend of my mom titled “The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane” by the author Kate DiCamillo. It was a much bigger book than I was used to reading but as soon as I started it I could not stop. It begins in the 1930’s when the china rabbit doll named Edward is gifted to a wealthy ten-year old girl named Abilene Tulane by her grandmother. Edward is aware he is a doll and the story is narrated through what he says in his head. He is very vain but finds himself becoming separated from Abilene and going from owner to owner, living many different lives, learning first hand how less fortunate people live. This book stuck with me as a child because I had never read something like that. It quickly became my favorite book and as I am reaching adulthood it still is the best book i’ve ever read. As I read this book I learned about many different lifestyles, although the story was entirely fictional it used scenarios that many people live through in their daily lives. Situations that the main character Edward Tulane had thought of as completely unheard of and below him were also somewhat unheard of to myself in the 4th grade. At such a young age I felt so enlightened by this book. My like for reading quickly turned into love because of this one book.
English classes had helped shape who I was in a creative sense. It helped me realize the topics that interested me and what I was naturally drawn to. I loved reading but some books did not stand out to me at all. I also loved writing but I found that if it was in a certain format or about a topic I did not really care for I would show no interest at all. As we moved along unit to unit in my past english classes I eventually began to realize the things I did care for, the type of writing I genuinely enjoyed doing, and the type of books that grasped my attention. I feel as though it is important to realize and learn these things about yourself just as I had. If you consider yourself a creative person then paying attention in english and writing classes can be more helpful than you think. For me in school english classes was much more than mandatory reading and writing, If the topic was the correct I could write with no interruptions, It was always as if the ideas just poured out of my mind and onto my paper. I had a few good teachers along the way as well that were actually very helpful when it came to organizing my ideas and revising my work to make it better. Most of the time asking for a little help is not so far off what professional writers do, so asking for the help and receiving constructive criticism helped me learn how to not be shy about asking for help in the real world as well. I learned in my classes that literacy could help you with more than you may initially realize.
English class had always been the class that I felt like I was really learning something. It was one of the few classes that helped shape me into an individual. Through all the reading I did I learned about the topics and stories that would catch my eye. Through my writing I learned the topics I was passionate about and how to apply real life lessons that could help some people everyday. Literacy and english classes helped me develop into my own person.
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