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Justin Nemec

ENG 110-18

Professor Stoltman

October 1, 2019

Literate Me

My journey to becoming the literate person I am was quite convoluted and took a few

years to truly reach where I am today. When I was a freshman in high school, English class was

always my least favorite class of the day. To make matters worse, it was the first class of the day,

so my brain was very much still asleep when I sauntered into class. With my eyes glazed over, I

would watch the clock tick around and around, seemingly slower with each rotation. Each day I

counted the seconds until I could leave and go to my next class that might captivate my attention

more than the mind-numbing vocabulary words that our brains would play on repeat in hopes to

pass the quiz on Friday.

It wasn’t until my sophomore year that my dreary outlook had changed. With the added

benefit of having English later in the day, I now finally began to appreciate and expand my

literacy. The creator of this newfound passion was none other than our new English teacher. My

class had not had her the previous year, as we alternated between two different teachers each

year. She had a mystical way about her that made you wonder. For example, it made me wonder

how she convinced me to actually end up liking English. How could a nerdy math geek such as

me go from absolutely abhorring English class for its repetitiveness and monotony to finding joy

and excitement in a simple novel?

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In this new classroom setting, we were no longer studying monotonous vocabulary

words, but exploring the expansive world of meaning behind them and their use. It was in this

new classroom that I grew fond of the intricacies of literature. I began to notice the motivation

behind the device’s that authors would introduce into their writings. A newfound appreciation

and passion for learning about literacy and language began to set its roots within me. A

realization dawned on me that English was not, in fact, monotonous, nor was it repetitive. It was,

however, an artform. It was a magnificent work of art that was to be deciphered and analyzed by

the reader and pupil. At the same time, it was to be enjoyed and appreciated for what it was.

The year lapsed by and before I knew it, I found myself back in the same lifeless

classroom where I once absorbed profuse amounts of vocabulary words that might, by sheer

chance, find use somewhere down the road, maybe. However, this time around I was in an AP

Language course, where I would learn advanced vocabulary words instead of just regular

vocabulary words. You can imagine my irrepressible excitement.

Junior year came and went, and going into my senior year my classmates and I were

eager to return to our preferred choice of English teacher. Before the year started however, much

to our dismay we received news that she was abandoning us to enlighten other young students in

the art of English. Unsurprisingly, many of my classmates dropped the AP course and opted for

the regular 12th grade English class. I, however, was willing to weather the storm and give the

replacement a chance, and I’m glad I did.

To no one’s surprise, this replacement was quite different from what we were used to.

Many of my classmates hated her simply because she wasn’t what they were expecting. Others

hated her because she challenged everything that they thought they already knew. I absolutely

loved her. I will never admit this to any of my classmates, or my parents for that matter. It
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seemed as if every person who came into contact with her immediately found a reason to write

her off, except me. Amidst the hell storm that was her classroom, I found peace and growth.

With every word she spoke I listened diligently, eager for some drop of knowledge to quench my

undying thirst for betterment. My peers always grumbled about how she constantly spoke as if

she was superior than everyone, which may hold some truth. She did have an air of egotism

about her, but I saw right through it, into the deeper meaning she was trying to convey.

What others mistook for egotism, I understood as confidence. I took advantage of this

confidence and used it to discover all I could in my miniscule amount of time with her. She took

great care in her teaching and assessments. She would meticulously explain each aspect of my

work, articulating what I could improve on, and praising what I had done well. It was also in this

time that I discovered the power of literature. I found great joy in reading novels and

participating in discussions about details hidden inside of them. To this day, I have always taken

a liking to exploring the secrets locked inside a work of literature.

Literature was quite honestly the gateway into my literacy journey. Once I found an

enchanting story, I couldn’t put it down. I loved exploring different ideas in stories, and seeing

how those same ideas could come up in entirely different works with entirely different messages,

yet still have the same exact meaning. My favorite book, ever since reading it during my senior

year, is Jane Eyre. It’s captivating how such simple concepts such as love, and oppression hold

true across all timelines. The age-old quest for love remains as concrete today as it did hundreds,

maybe even thousands of years ago. It is through literature that I might experience the

inaccessible world of the past, and through my own analysis that I might connect it to my present

and use it to become a more wholesome and literate individual.

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In conclusion, one could say that the journey to becoming the literate person I am has

been nothing short of arduous. In the beginning, and even along the way, I encountered many

towering obstacles that challenged my conviction to my future self. However, I came to

appreciate the journey. Looking back now, the struggle of a few trivial vocabulary words or a

handful of last-minute essays all seem worth the heartache. All of these minor and not so minor

achievements molded me into who I am today, the literate me.