When I was sixteen, my English teacher wrote this comment on the bottom of my Macbeth essay: Have you thought about majoring in English?
She didn’t know that I spent all my free time reading and rereading my favorite books, or that I was working every night on a new chapter of my novel. In school, I struggled to get through the reading material and I wasn’t the most reliable class participant—often shy and unwilling. I wasn’t the best English student in the class, or even particularly good at it. But she was still somehow able to pick up on something that I didn’t even have an understanding of yet. During my time as an English student at Webster University, I was able to develop an understanding and new love for English literature and writing. …show more content…
The language of Toni Morrison or Cormac McCarthy became much more interesting and impressive because I was looking at and listening to the words with a more educated lens. After putting the time into my own sentences, I realized how much a good writer must care about his work, right down to the diction.
Understanding the sentence, avoiding clichés, and developing reading skills were all central as I developed an interest in poetry. Because poetry is so much about the music of the words and sounds, there’s no room for laziness or sloppiness.
Although it seems obvious, it was so valuable to learn about the importance of reading and writing, and how to do both. Growing up, I loved reading. But the steady advances of technology easily overshadowed my creative desires. Webster taught me that reading is imperative: that I must make time for it, that novels don’t have to be classics to be good literature, and that I can read poetry and enjoy it without having an essay of analysis ready to go.
People always say that reading is so important, but because of the way reading was placed alongside the writing in our workshops, I realized that reading teaches you how to write by example. I also learned that writing must be planned out—that I must make time because no one else will make it for me or
She didn’t know that I spent all my free time reading and rereading my favorite books, or that I was working every night on a new chapter of my novel. In school, I struggled to get through the reading material and I wasn’t the most reliable class participant—often shy and unwilling. I wasn’t the best English student in the class, or even particularly good at it. But she was still somehow able to pick up on something that I didn’t even have an understanding of yet. During my time as an English student at Webster University, I was able to develop an understanding and new love for English literature and writing. …show more content…
The language of Toni Morrison or Cormac McCarthy became much more interesting and impressive because I was looking at and listening to the words with a more educated lens. After putting the time into my own sentences, I realized how much a good writer must care about his work, right down to the diction.
Understanding the sentence, avoiding clichés, and developing reading skills were all central as I developed an interest in poetry. Because poetry is so much about the music of the words and sounds, there’s no room for laziness or sloppiness.
Although it seems obvious, it was so valuable to learn about the importance of reading and writing, and how to do both. Growing up, I loved reading. But the steady advances of technology easily overshadowed my creative desires. Webster taught me that reading is imperative: that I must make time for it, that novels don’t have to be classics to be good literature, and that I can read poetry and enjoy it without having an essay of analysis ready to go.
People always say that reading is so important, but because of the way reading was placed alongside the writing in our workshops, I realized that reading teaches you how to write by example. I also learned that writing must be planned out—that I must make time because no one else will make it for me or