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Red. That was all I saw. Lines, dots, scribble of it everywhere. I felt ashamed and stupid. I had never been this much of a failure...I had just moved cities after finishing up elementary school and was about to start seventh grade. I walked over two miles down a windy road to my destination, Elk Ridge Middle School. I walked through the narrow hallways without a clue of where I was. After a couple questions here and there I found my first class. I walked into the room as a crowd of eyes came upon me.

Suddenly I had already been through five classes and my day was almost over. I walked the narrow halls again to my sixth class and slowly stepped into a dark and slightly morbid room. The seats were all perfectly arranged in vertical rows. I could tell this teacher was going to be a problem. I finally sat in a seat, not too far back so she wouldn't assume I was a slacker and not too close to the front so I wouldn't be assumed as a teachers pet. That was the last thing I needed coming to a new school. I saw this small round figure coming closer and closer, she was here. Hannel she screeched. Here...its Haniel by the way I said in a timid voice. Welcome to Honors English. My name is Mrs. Jeppson and you should all prepare to fail, cry, and run home, well that was at least what I heard in my head. She rambled on for what seemed like an eternity about her syllabus, which could have been summarized by we will be doing an essay every moment of everyday. Lovely I said quietly to myself.

The first week of class we had a one page essay about ourselves due. ONE PAGE! ABOUT MYSELF! Do I even know that much about myself? Hi my name is Haniel and I'm a hopeless seventh grader with absolutely no writing experience, I thought. After I had gotten past my favorite color and band I was at a loss for words. I had I lost all my personality with the fear that the assignment instilled in me. Had I ever even written an academic paper or really any

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paper at all? The answer was sadly no. I had no idea where to go from here. In elementary school I was taught minimal writing skills. Only the bare basics such as introduction, paragraphs, and conclusions, but not what I was supposed to do with all that. Did it have a set structure? I was completely lost. This one page paper was going to be the death of me.

I began attempting to write the best paper I capable of. One paragraph later and I had just about said everything I could possibly think of. Surely it was the most awkward and awful paragraph in existence, but hey, no one had taught me about transitions or that a sentence should flow. I was still about four paragraphs too short. My solution was to ramble. I reworded and basically repeated my first paragraph four times. Of course it was a terrible idea, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and boy, was I beyond desperate. After playing with margins to achieve my desired length, my paper was finally done.

The next day I walked up to the dreadful woman and slowly gave her my paper to correct. The look she gave me made me want to curl up into a ball and admit defeat. I turned around to return to my seat, each step I took down the narrow row added shame. I was scared to get my paper back. I was just a fragile little teenager.

It was finally doomsday. I walked to English class that day mentally preparing myself for the failure that was about to come. Class began and she started walking down the aisles handing out the corrected essays. I saw confused, sad, and happy expressions. I had no way to gauge what mine was going to look like, but then I saw her slowly walking toward me and I began telling myself that I did fine. I had never been terrible or failure at anything before, so why would I start now? I was still the same hard working student. She handed me the paper face down with a smirk on her face. I had to build up the courage to flip it over to see my score. My stomach fell to

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the floor instantly. I felt the need to cry, but I thought Id save myself from even more embarrassment and cry later in the privacy of my own room. I failed. There was so much red on my paper from corrections, she must have used up a whole pack of flair pens on it. I could barely see the white paper my pathetic essay was printed on.

For some time I never felt the need or want to write again. I was terrified to fail again, but I didnt have much of a choice. I was going to be stuck in honors English with that awful teacher for the rest of the year. I sought out help from her throughout the year, but she always critized me and never truly helped me. This just made me hate and fear writing even more.

I was honestly mentally scarred and never wanted to pick up a pencil and write again. Mrs. Jeppson had ruined writing forever. I left that class having no confidence in my writing. That was truly an awful to go into high school. From then I have had some better experience with writing and have improved my confidence slightly, but the memory of Mrs. Jeppsons class lingers.

Since then I have taken a writing class that has changed my perspective towards writing. I quite enjoy writing now and dont have an anxiety attack when an essay is assigned because of Mr. Bigelows class, writing for AP. His curriculum consisted mainly of academic papers and lightly touched in creative subjects, such as poetry. This class truly helped me regain my confidence and sparked an interest in writing again. As of this moment my relationship with writing is decent, but could surely use some strengthening.