   I never really thought of myself as a reader or writer. Throughout middle school and most of high school I hated reading and I hated writing. Why is that? We have to read certain books that was a part of the “curriculum” the school had, everyone knows that. It was like I had to read a book and understand all the metaphors and the ideas of what the author wanted us to know. After that came essays we all had to write every single time and there was always a specific thing we had to write about and find details to support it and if you wrote something wrong you had a bad grade. There was always instructions to write essays and maybe that was the reason why I hated it so much. During Junior year, I had a teacher that was so passionate about teaching students how to write well. And I think that’s when I actually started liking writing in a way. We still had to write essays but she was different, she always gave us options in what we ,the class, wanted and what we were comfortable with. Yea that’s definitely when my perspective on writing changed. Also, my writing itself got better, I no longer how a ton comments from my teacher on what was wrong about my writing and it felt good but I still had. But that’s not my greatest experience with writing. In senior year, I took classes that were college level to prepare myself for actual college. This experience actually came from my science class. We were watching a movie about the Soviet Union and it’s time around there and we, the class, had to write a three page essay on that movie. It was that kind of writing like a movie critic. I honestly don’t think I have ever worked so hard on an essay before, I guess because it was a college class I had to up my game. At first I was so nervous I saw that movie at least three times before I actually started writing. Of course this was a prompt but it was really vague, just comparing that time period to this time period. I worked on it a couple of days till may be one in the morning just writing and rewriting and fixing grammar and all that. After watching it so many times I thought that maybe overdid it. While writing it, I felt so proud of myself that I was able to accomplish a big assignment like that. When I got that paper back, right on top was a one hundred and a small smile. I looked through the pages and had no comments and when I saw the rubric all it said was “perfect paper”. That moment honestly felt like the greatest accomplishment I had done in my education and yet it was just one paper. It was like all my writing education in each grade just prepared me for this essay, this was college level it was what I had to get up to. Not only did he write that on my paper, my teacher had said “ there was only one paper that got a one hundred, I didn’t have to write anything else, it was perfectly written, the best paper I have ever read in my whole life of teaching”. In my head I thought it was someone else in another class even though I got a one hundred because I never had that kind of complement in my life. But no he said “Nataly you did an amazing job”. What a weird feeling to feel a type of way because of a writing assignment.Â
