Kayla Castello English 1103 The roller coaster of life is what influences a writer.

The journey starts out with a push and throughout the ride there are bumps, peaks, and falls. These are the moments a writer can express her adventure through writing whether the experiences are good or bad, there is always an outlet. I can remember back to third grade; there I was in the back seat of my familys four door gold van. My stomach was full of eggs and pancakes, my mom made me a delicious breakfast for my big day. As I quietly sat in the back seat, my mom was giving me a pep talk on how great I will do. Her words went in one ear and out the other, all I could think about was my first ever EOG. Not only was it my first EOG, but it was on writing, writing being my worst subject. I was one of the top readers in my class and I remember studying the 12x12 multiplication table as well as fractions and doing well learning the material. Sadly, I had to pull up my thoughts and strength into writing for the day, I was scared beyond belief. My mom helped me out of the van, I kissed her goodbye and I felt like I was walking to my doom. When I walked into class, my teacher greeted me with a big smile and a cheery voice saying good morning Kayla, are you ready for your writing test? Of course I politely smiled, but on the inside I was screaming that I wanted to go home. Finally, the time came and the tests were handed, I was no longer able to run or hide, the time had come. As I waited for my teacher to tell me to start writing, I took a deep breathe, read the prompt, and began writing. I was amazed at how easy the prompt was

and how easy I was able to write, after the first few sentences, my nerves were gone and a little smile of confidence came across my face. That afternoon I got into the van and I told my mom how I thought I did and she assured me I most likely got a four. I did not want to jinx myself so I just said we would have to wait and see, but secretly I knew I got a four. Sure enough, one day I walked into class and my teacher announced she received our scores. One by one, she called all of my classmates and I up to show us our score. My last name starts with C, so I was one of the first people to be called, although I felt well about my score, I was still nervous as I walked up to my teacher. As I looked beside my name, I saw the magic number 4, a huge smile came across my face and my teacher smiled with me and gave me a high five and said great job. It was at this moment I figured out I had bad test anxiety, but also that writing was not as bad as I thought, in fact, I kind of enjoyed it. Throughout middle school, my writing grew and I began writing poems in my spare time. I felt self-assured that my writing was well until my sophomore year of high school came around. I just transferred from a small charter school to a brand new high school built near my house. It was a gigantic change for me, the charter school I attended had grades K-10 and there were about 500 students in total; my new high school contained about 800 students between two grades. What made things worst was my English teacher did not like me and announced my writing to the class. One specific instance that I will always remember was about an essay we wrote about who influenced us the most. Most kids wrote about their parent or grandparents, but then there was me, I took a different approach and got creative with the prompt. At this time I had just gotten back into church and I used God as my inspiration. I wrote my heart out and thought it

was one of my best essays, my teacher thought otherwise. I remember the day she was grading them, she had the class do free reading for the entire hour and a half. When she got to my paper, she loudly expressed her opinion in front of the quiet class. Kayla, God will not work because he never existed on this planet, you could have used Jesus Christ, and you will lose points for that. She had very valid criticism, but my face turned tomato red due to embarrassment. How often does someone hear about a public high school sophomore student write about her religion and love for God? I felt everyone stare at me and I even heard a couple of girls snickering in the other corner. I was in shock that she announced my writing in front of the class, I would have understood if she had called me up to her desk and talked to me privately, but this was not the case and all I wanted to do was cry. After school, my mother picked me up and I told her what happened with tears streaming down my face. When we got home, she called my teacher and expressed to her the concernment of a caring mother. The following day in class, once again, my teacher calls me out in front of the entire class Kayla, I did not know your mother was so sweet, she is nothing like I would have thought. Obviously, I did not take that as a compliment, between her tone and diction, I knew it was some type of acknowledgment towards me as being some type of obnoxious brat. Once again, I was embarrassed and hurt, I texted my mom and she just told me to focus on my work and ignore any comment she said to me; I finished the semester this way. At the end of the year, every student got a registration card for their classes for the following year. I knew I wanted to take AP classes and start building up my GPA and make myself stand out for when I applied to college. With my school, the teacher had to

sign off for a student to take a Honors or AP classes. After talking with my English teacher from my sophomore year, she refused to sign off on me taking AP English. I do not feel like you are ready or capable of passing AP English, I cannot sign off and give my consent for you to take the class. I told my mom and she instantly got furious, she was no longer going to talk to my sophomore English teacher, this time she called my counselor expressing her concern and anger. Luckily, my counselor said I could take the class as long as I had parental consent and the will to do my work. After a brief talk with my parents, we all agreed I was capable of doing well in an AP English class; I ended my junior year with a C on my report card for AP English. Although I knew I was capable of passing the class, I was going into AP English with a low self-esteem and I genuinely had no desire to write for fun like I used to do back in middle school. It was not until about two months into the school year that I realized how much I missed writing. My AP English teacher was great and she taught us how to analyze passages and then write a paper about how we comprehended the selections. It took me a while to get used to writing papers in this type of format, but eventually I comprehended everything and once again, I felt confident about my writing. Every writer experiences the highs and lows of life, but with this emotional roller coaster, these experiences add to our personal enhancement as a writer. For me, I never thought I would be capable of half of the writing skills I have now and I am still willing to learn because my roller coaster still continues.