Richard Parks Journal #1: Making/Breaking Up with Reading and Writing

My relationship with writing is one which is the equivalent to that make-up/break-up, dramatic, “why are they even together?” partnership that happens between an immature couple. I began reading and writing at an early age and did pretty well. Based on my academic performance, I was invited to attend various magnet schools where I was enrolled into special programs to further advance my precocious little mind.  This caused me to read on levels much higher than those which corresponded with my grade. I sporadically used this advantage, though, due to my disinterest in reading higher-level books. No books on my reading level captured me the way I would have liked, except for the Goosebumps series. Needless to say, Goosebumps was, is, and always will be the greatest book series in the history of the world, hands down. I poured an ample amount of my childhood into reading the impeccable collection up until middle school. This is where the breaking up began.

 If you know me, you know that I rarely enjoy reading a book- or anything, for that matter- if it is an absolute requirement. Of course, I produced good work, but the more books my teachers assigned, the less interested I became in reading and writing. This translated, effortlessly, as I transitioned into high school, where I had one of the worst experiences of my entire life- Mrs. Bond’s English class. When I say that there was no greater torture than to have her as an English teacher, I say it with no ounce of exaggeration attached. In high school, I pioneered alongside a group of the first International Baccalaureate Diploma candidates of my school’s history. We were basically the test-crash dummy run, due to the school’s unfamiliarity with the foreign program. I understand that the faculty had no idea how to approach teaching such a high curriculum of education, but they could have at least given us an English teacher that knew more vocabulary words than the amount of fingers on her hand.

To make a long story short, we studied nothing but poetry and plays, which we found out- as we moved into our sophomore year- was unacceptable. We were luckily saved by Mrs. Mitchell who was, and is, an excellent English teacher. She taught me to make up with English and read and write as if it were a reward and not a punishment. She also mentored me to better critically analyze readings to be able to intelligently comment on them in, what seemed like, millions of analyses essays and projects. Unfortunately, we had Mrs. Bond, again, junior year, which was a major setback on our progress toward higher education. Like a starving puppy, limping along with only the strength of its hope of being fed, we hobbled back to Mrs. Mitchell in our senior year. She taught me to love English- or, more specifically, literature. Now I have a respect and admiration for reading, analyzing, discussing, and writing about literature.