My Language Arts Influence

I have several memories from a mixture of situations I have encountered in Language Arts classes.  Not all of them are ones I care to keep, in fact some are so mundane that I have forgotten them.  But, there are three memories that really stick out in my brain.  These are the ones that have really formed me as the reader and writer that I am today. 

In eighth grade, I found my love of reading.  It wasn’t in my Language Arts class, but in my Reading class.  My teacher had the most amazing library and allowed us to borrow her books.  I was introduced to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, all the books by Stephen King that she had, and then I found my Holy Grail of books; Flowers In the Attic by V.C. Andrews.  This was the first time I was reading adult topics.  I had grown up with “The Babysitter’s Club” and “Sweet Valley High” series.  V.C. Andrew’s was borderline pornography to a 13 year old!  I tore through her collection of the books about the Dollanger family, and moved on through each series that my teacher had.  I was reading a book a week, impressing my parents enough that they continued to buy me the books my teacher didn’t have, not knowing they were feeding my thirst for smut.  It’s funny that writing this blog now, I realize how I have come full circle.  At 13, I loved the smutty romance novels, but now I would not touch the stuff.  I believe that my hands would curl up in the Wicked Witch of the East fashion if I ever touched a copy of 50 Shades of Grey.  Now my preference has reverted back to teenage novels, like “The Hunger Games” and “The Heroes of Olympus” series.  I am also a sucker for books turned movies.  I know the movie will always be worse, but it’s fun for me to compare the movie version to the version I created in my head while reading.  With all that being said, no, I have never read Twilight.  I believe touching it would have the Wicked Witch effect on me as well.  

My memory of writing in Language Arts was actually a crushing one.  I was in seventh grade, and I loved Language Arts class.  My teacher was funny and knew how to hold my attention.  I was so inspired by him that I wrote a short story that I wanted to try to get published in Highlights Magazine.  I gave it to both my parents to read, and my mother suggested I give it to my Language Arts teacher to proofread.  I remember bringing my story to school that day (no, I don't remember what the story was about.  I think I blocked it out), and asking my teacher if I could meet with him instead of going to recess (I was that confident that I didn't even care about missing recess).  I walked into his room and already had a feeling that this wasn’t going to go well.  He had forgotten why I wanted to see him, snatched my beautiful paper from my hand, and read it in what felt like 2 seconds.  When he finished, he handed it back to me and said, “I wouldn’t publish this.  It’s not good.”  Wait, what?  At home I was used to being told that my work wasn’t good when it wasn’t good, so it wasn’t that.  It was the fact that I was dismissed so quickly without being helped in any sort of way.  Aren’t teachers supposed to help you get better?  Looking back now, I was invading his sacred prep time, and for all I know, he could’ve been having a bad day.  Whatever his problem was, it was the factor that stopped me from writing for fun, and made me despise him and Language Arts.

It was not until my senior year in high school that I rekindled my love for writing.  Again, this is not a memory from a Language Arts class, but from a Creative Writing one instead.  I took Creative Writing as an elective for a couple reasons; I loved the teacher, I wanted to decorate a giant art pad, and I thought it was be fun to keep it as a memory.  We were expected to do 2 specific assignments and 1 free choice assignment per week.  Each assignment I found myself falling deeper in love with writing, and I actually found my niche.  I was the sarcastic writer that wrote exactly the way I spoke, no matter what anyone would think about it.  My favorite assignment was to write an obituary about ourselves or someone else.  I opted to write mine about Winnie the Pooh because I really cannot stand him!  After I handed it in to be graded, my teacher ripped it out of my book and hung it in the office of my school for all to read.  I had finally had my redemption from seventh grade and got published in a way.  As a matter of fact, when I graduated, my mother had that assignment framed and I now have it hanging in my house.         

I believe that, good or bad, we are a mutation of all the teachers we have had over the years.  We take what we have learned, how we have been taught, and how we have been treated to become the teachers that we will eventually be.  These 3 situations really helped me become the person I am today, and have influenced what kind of teacher I want to be.