How English affected my love for reading and writing

Joe Hupfer
Tony Michel
Com101

Growing up I never liked reading or English class in general. Throughout

elementary school, I would do the bare minimum when it came to reading or

writing. This caused me to not develop good skills in reading or writing through

my first 5 years in elementary skills. This changed in 5 th grade when my

teacher Mr. Namath would read us Michigan chillers. Mr. Namath really

grabbed my attention with reading and led me on a motivated path in English

making me read above my grade level and giving me a passion to read that

would carry on in middle school. In 6th grade, my teacher Mrs. Ansel kept me

motivated in English class. I had a joy in English until in 10 th grade during

covid I had an English teacher named Mrs. Bedard who would always find

something wrong with my work even if it was an A+ she would say I cheated

and give me a bad grade. This made me start to lose my passion for English.

Luckily my 11th-grade teacher really helped me through the whole year which

made me get back into English class.

In elementary school, my teachers would force us to read lots of random

genres that I was not interested in. In silent reading, my teachers would

restrict us to certain books making me not want to read at all. This resulted in

my DRA test scores being average and, in some cases, maybe a little lower. In

some parts of English through the first five years, the teacher would always
 How English affected my love for reading and writing

read to us but it would be boring or uninteresting books to me so when she sat

there reading I would be looking down and playing with my hands while I sat

crisscross apple sauce on the carpet. Going into 5th grade I treaded doing

English work. Until I came into the first day of school and Mr. Namath showed

us around his classroom, he had a reading area with bean bags and a

bookshelf with his favorite books. He said we could read anything we liked, and

he said he would read to us on Friday the first book being his favorite book

which was a Michigan chillers book being called Aliens Attack Alpena. After this

it sparked a new passion for reading, I was very interested in this series and

Mr. Namath took a passion for helping us find a book we loved he would take

us down to our library and let us roam to find a book or we could pick books

from his personal collection. By him doing this I found I loved Michigan chillers

and started reading those all the time. Doing this made my DRA scores go up

and by the end of the year, I was reading a grade or two above a 5 th grade

reading level. Mr. Namath helped me find a love for English class and it would

carry on to middle school in 6th grade.

In 6th grade, I walked in ready and excited to read and write but it still

lingered in the back of my mind if I would lose this passion because I would be

gone from Mr. Namath and his classroom. My thoughts were all gone when I

meant Mrs. Ansel. She shared a love for letting kids find their passion in

reading. She wanted us to read Three books per quarter and write a book

report about it. She said we would be going to the library to pick out books. I

was nervous, I only had one shot to find a book. At the last second, I picked up
 How English affected my love for reading and writing

a book called Skelton Creek. I was lucky that day the book I grabbed in the

library was an amazing book and it was a 3-part series. The book was

awesome, it had videos that would go with them. It made writing about the

book in the report easy. Mrs. Ansel showed me in 6th grade there are thousands

of books and just grabbing a random book could spark your interest and have

you reading through a whole year every time you have a moment to read. Doing

the book report not only helped my reading but also helped my writing as well.

Through the rest of middle school and the beginning of high school, I

took enjoyment in English. I found it easy cause of my knowledge and taking

an interest in the books we were reading. This all ended when we went

virtually, and I was giving my English 10 teacher Mrs. Bedard. She was my

least favorite teacher ever, almost failing me that year. Any work I turned in

was always meant with criticisms. She would grade my papers I wrote harshly

and would criticize my reading any chance she could if I had to read in front of

the class on Zoom. When I started to fail assignments, I would ask her what I

had to do to get better grades. I would ask her for tips, she would only tell me

to work harder. I would work as hard as I could, and I could never get past a C.

This year of English killed my confidence in myself. I questioned if I could do

English 11. At the beginning of the year, I thought about taking AP English but

since I did so poorly in this class I was not allowed. I was unmotivated I felt like

I was back in elementary school I treaded going into English 11.

 How English affected my love for reading and writing

Luckily for me, I had a loving teacher named Mrs. Harris. She was my AP

psych teacher in 12th grade and my English 11 teacher in 11th grade. Mrs.

Harris would help me with my writing, giving me pointers instead of just failing

me on the assignment. She would let me fix my mistakes. By doing this it made

me feel confident in my abilities again in English. Which gave me motivation for

my final year of high school. And stopped me from hating English class.