18 Literacy Memoir Although English class has not typically been a favorite of mine in the past it is a subject that

I can learn to enjoy and thrive in. In elementary school I was diagnosed with a writing disability but have since proved to have overcome that disability. Certain figures have influenced my writing over the years more than others. For example my reasons for generally not enjoying English class have to do with my previous English teachers, which for some reason or another I did not always get along with. However I did have those close to me who helped me along the way and in some way or another influenced me to write well and write more. My grandmother Sally Buckner is a writer, poet, and used to be a professor of English at Peace College in Raleigh. When I was young I would read her poetry and, although I didn't think it at the time, it helped develop me into a better writer. When I became old enough to write papers and essays for classes, my grandmother would edit many of my papers, which helped me with grammar, spelling, and in general helped me to understand what my English teachers expected of my writing. In high school my case manager Patrick Florio helped me develop better time management, which helped me write better essays and taught me to never wait until the last minute. Last year I had a great English teacher, but her teaching methods did not meet the way I learn best. She was a strict-but-kind type of woman, who never minded a good laugh but when her students got out-of-line, she knew how to whip them into shape! The way she taught, as I previously mentioned, did not help me in the least. Many of the people in my class did not know various parts of speech; one of the ways she would teach this was to do something called sentence graphing. To be entirely honest, sentence graphing was the biggest waste of time in

English class that I have ever encountered, making the parts of speech and the way to use them in sentences at least twice as hard. It consisted of breaking a sentence into pieces and graphing lines around certain words and parts of speech to show how the sentence worked with the different parts of speech. All it really did was confuse everyone and make a sentence illegible. However not every part of English IV was a waste. I did enjoy reading and analyzing several pieces that include Macbeth, Lord of the Flies, and Beowulf. Honestly, writing and reading are not for me. I understand their importance in everyday society, but I do not enjoy nor do I want to continue to have to learn it. As of now it appears that I am going into a career in Physics and the military and the only use I will have of writing will be in writing scientific papers and such. Besides this, I have other ways to use my time besides writing long papers and reading books, which I do on occasion, but do not usually enjoy doing. When I read a book, it is a book that I have looked into, that I know I would be interested in, and even then I do not read all day for the fun of it. When I was a child I liked to write fiction, and in middle school I enjoyed reading fiction. Since then I have become somewhat of an information junkie and I like nonfiction things. A great book I read this year was called On Combat, and I even started reading On Killing, the prequel to the book. The book was about the psychology of combat and its physical effects on the human body. Nowadays the only times I write is when I am assigned to do so. When I was in fourth grade taking the ominous writing test for the first or second year, I remember the topic of the essay was along the lines of imagine one morning you wake up to find a castle in your front yard, what do you do? Now I've never enjoyed writing more than I did during that two hours. What I wrote that day makes me realize what a creative person I am. I remember writing some elaborate story about waking up and sneaking around the guards to

explore the elaborate rooms inside. I described three or so rooms in great detail, especially for my age at the time. At the end a few guards almost caught me, but I took the candy bar out of my pocket, thinking to myself yes, it's still frozen and chucking it down the hall. The guards ran toward the sound of the frozen candy bar hitting the floor and I ran all the way back to my house. It was definitely the most well-written story I had ever written for years to come. Over the past few years I have learned the tricks-of-the-trade as to how to go about revising and editing my papers, however I do not always utilize them. With the exception of writing thesis papers or large-scale reports, I do not usually take the time to plan out what to write; I typically never spend more than ten to fifteen minutes editing and rewriting a paper. Usually when I do edit something it consists of fixing grammar mistakes, spelling errors, or run-on sentences. I tend to sit down and think of a way to start my paper, then the rest just comes while I write. It's all about the flow. I look forward to a good semester and I am not too worried. The one thing that does concern me is the work load. As I said before, writing is not my strong suit and having a lot of papers to write on my plate could add to the stress caused by the amount of work assigned by my other classes.