Shane Cavanee

Sean M. George
English 1010D.6
8 September 2015
Never a good thing for me
I have never been too intrigued with the idea of literature. From childhood until present
day I have tried my absolute hardest to stay away from the subject of English. Despite my
efforts to stay away from the subject it is still all around me and you cant very easily avoid it
and go to school at the same time. Basically I have just learned to adapt and survive to the point
where I just barely scrape by, to get the grade that I need and move to the next class. Since first
introduced to literature it has never been something that I have enjoyed and it may not be
because of the experiences that Ive had through school but it just doesnt interest me.
From the very beginning of childhood I have never really taken an interest in literature.
When I was young and just barely starting to read and write I would never ask my mom to read
me a childrens book, I was just the type of kid that wanted to run around and jump off things
and break things, I was the kid that would play outside from dusk until dawn and sometimes
longer if I was allowed. The strange part about this is that I have two sisters and their favorite
subjects are English, I swear my older sister is the master at writing, she can write anything in
any amount of time with such ease, and my younger sister, all she wants to do is read, there isnt
a time when she isnt asking my mom or my dad or our other sister or even me to read her a
story. I guess the subjects you like in school arent preprogrammed in your genetic makeup.
Throughout school I have always hated reading books, if there was ever a way that I could get

around reading a book for class, trust me, I did it. Middle school was one of the worst times for
me because you had a class for each and every subject which meant an English class.
There was one significant event that I can remember from middle school, and that was
taking SRI tests. I was in seventh grade and for the first part of the year we had a teacher named
Mr. Frank and he had a student teacher named Mrs. Jones, half way through the year Mr. Frank
retired and Mrs. Jones became our teacher. She was a very nice person but she wasnt a really
good teacher. I remember one day we had to take a reading test, right then I knew it wasnt going
to be a good day. The test was called SRI, and what you do is sit down at a computer and you
read passages and it asks you questions about each passage, the test can be any amount of
questions long it just depends on what the program determines you need. For example lets say
someone gets ten questions and they answer every single one correct and do it pretty fast, then
their test would probably be over and they most likely got a good score. Then someone like me
gets some questions and maybe doesnt answer them correct or it takes longer to read the
passages, someone like that might get more questions and then when they are finally done there
score wouldnt be very good.
That is the thing that I remember most about taking this test is the scores, the higher the
score the better, the scoring range was from like the low hundreds to about 4000 or so. I just
remember that all of my friends got really good scores on the upper end of the scale and most of
my class mates did too, but not me I was at the very bottom with a score somewhere around 600.
I just remember actually feeling lower than everyone else and maybe even less intelligent. I also
remember the teacher did nothing to help me, and maybe it was because we were her first class
and she was still getting the hang of everything still or maybe it was because I wouldnt allow

her to help or allow myself to get better. Again, I scraped my way through and moved to high
school.
My creative writing teacher my senior year of high school made me a tiny bit more open
minded about literacy. Her name was Mrs. Weed, she was very tall and skinny and her had bright
red hair, she was the type the believed in freedom of expression in our writing and everyday
lives, she loved to have fun, she was loud and energetic and was always happy to be teaching us
about something she was passionate for. I think that her personality among other reasons was the
reason why she opened my mind a little bit. It was the best English class I have ever had solely
because we were able to write about literally whatever we wanted and that was great.
I will always remember one thing that she taught me about life. We were to do this
assignment, and I cant even remember what the assignment was but I remember that I ended
writing about my dad and I wont go into detail about the paper, but basically it was about me
never being good enough but in that paper I also wrote how I came to realize that he just wants
me to have a life that I deserve and he doesnt want me to sell myself short. I ended up sharing
this paper to the class and Mrs. Weed and I had quite a good conversation about the writing, and
what she made me realize was exactly what I wrote in the paper, but me writing it didnt open
my eyes, her talking to me about it did. What she said that clicked in my head was this, it sure is
amazing when we realize something like that about our parents isnt it? this moment was
significant to me because it was the one time writing helped me in a real life situation.
With the exception of that one paper that I wrote in Mrs. Weeds class there has yet to be
an English teacher that has helped me to appreciate literacy. Throughout all of my 14 years of
education I have not had a teacher that has shown me something that makes me enjoy English
more. Maybe I havent ever had a good English teacher, Ive never had one that takes time for

individuals who are more behind than the majority of the class. Or maybe its me, maybe I wont
allow my mind to be open to new knowledge and new ideas of learning about literacy. I do
however think that it is probably a small amount of both me not wanting to learn and them not
wanting to give extra time. Also I think that it could just be hard wired in to my brain at this
point that Im not supposed to like English class, because I havent liked it my whole life so
thats all I know, I may have programmed my brain from a young age to associate literacy with
hatred. Its hard to just change thoughts like that overnight but it can be done.
Maybe one day I hope to find an appreciation for literature, because literature is not
something that is going anywhere anytime soon. I wont just use these skills in college but also
in the real world, so it will probably be beneficial for me to do better in these classes and also do
some stuff on my own such as reading more books. I believe that it will be easier for me in the
long run to just try and enjoy literature and research and so forth, because hating it and dreading
it and complaining about it will just make things harder. Over all I think I just need to find things
in literature that I enjoy, because I think that will help me learn and ultimately do better in class
and possibly my future career.