How My 9th Grade English Class Changed My Life.

For as long as I can remember, I didn't mind reading books. Although I wouldn't have considered myself a bookworm back then, I read a few books here and there. If there was an assignment for class where it required me to read, I had no problem doing it. But did I enjoy reading books outside of the course, just for fun? Not really. I probably had read 2 series in total that were considered reading for pleasure. I always dreaded school too, and I still do, but I hated English and Math equally. For English, I never seemed to grasp the concept of run-on sentences, active/passive voice, but that wasn't the main reason why I hated English. I despised writing. I dreaded freewriting, essays, research reports, poems, etc. Anything that required me to put sentences together to create paragraphs to eventually make a story.

Now, most people would think I'm crazy to hate freewriting. They would say, "That's the easiest type of writing there is." Well... I didn't care. I didn't have a passion for English class, no passion for writing. My only passion was music, to sing specifically. So yeah, English was not on my radar for love. I ended up hating freewriting more than I care to admit, and don't get me started when the teacher used to time us for it. That was a living nightmare. Even though I would occasionally get criticized for not liking freewriting, I did get a few who despised research reports or general essays.

It wasn't until my freshman year of high school where I started to finally look at English differently. During this new year in my life, there was also a new teacher for the school. The teacher did everything in their power to change my mind and my classmates to look at English in a new light. As I have mentioned earlier, essays were not for me. During the school year, he taught us how to create the best and simple writing.

Most teachers I had before didn't bother going into depth with the writing process. They simply had one way to do it, and everyone else had to follow it. He was the only English teacher who showed us multiple ways to write and gather ideas to create a story. He showed us this brainstorming technique that reminded me of bubbles. It was similar to the web ideas that most students learn.

He broke down the process so quickly that I really did feel like I finally understood this subject. He was a rare teacher who was passionate about his job and cared about the students' education. He wanted us to succeed, and he knew that we needed to finally understand English in a new light to advance the next couple of years of high school.

Finally, understanding this subject that I once found horrid, seeing this teacher's passion for his career, is what really impacted my life. I decided to work harder in this class and make him proud. I wanted to show myself that I can learn something new and turn things around. I also wanted to show my teacher that his work and teachings will not go in vain. With this new mindset, things started to turn around fairly quickly. I started passing his class with A's, and things began to get easier for me. Until he pulled out Poetry. Then I for sure thought that I was done for. We started off with free verse, then blank writing, then Haiku, etc. As he and I expected, I was not getting it at first. Then he learned that I loved music. He helped me bring poetry and music together and explained how they can be one and the same. Before I knew it, I was getting A's again and mastering the art of poetry.

During this entire time of freshman year, working with my teacher, I realized one thing. I was overthinking every time I stared at a blank piece of paper. Once I came to this realization and learned to overcome it, I became better at writing. Now I look at myself, and I am not only the biggest bookworm, but I am currently working on my first novel. I am also working on doing Narration for audiobooks. I just recently joined this excellent site (Vocal). My 15-year-old self would not believe that I would be so involved in this English Literature world that I am now. Whenever I hit a roadblock in this career or feel stuck when writing, I always do two things. The first is that I think about falling in love with English Literature. The feeling of finally understanding what the subject is all about. I think about all of the pieces of advice my teacher had given me. Then, the second thing I do is read my favorite quote:

"Everybody walks past a thousand ideas every day. The good writers are the ones who see five or six of them. Most people don't see any." -Orson Scott Card.

This quote is a daily reminder to step away. See the world, get inspired, then come back to writing.