At my high school, it was required that students take English classes all four years unlike science and math classes where only two or three years were required. English was a subject that I disliked, despite my good grades in the class.
It wasn’t the writing portion that I didn’t like, although I procrastinated most of the time like any other kid. It wasn’t even the assigned readings that bugged me. Annotation were a pain, and I’m sure everyone would agree with me, but it was mainly that they just took up a lot of time. So what else is there? The presentations and speeches, of course.
Anxiety hit me hard during these times. Many times, when presentations or speeches were required certain days, I would go to the nurse’s or counselor’s office for the class period. I reached a point in the beginning of high school where I would ask my teacher if I could do the speeches just in from of them, either during a free period, or before or after school. All of my teachers were understanding and accepted my request.
It wasn’t until the middle or end of junior year that I became more confident in my ability to present in front of my classmates. There weren’t many, if any, speeches needed in my English classes that year, but there were presentations in others such as US History. There was a group project, but it wasn’t too bad since I didn’t have to go up alone and didn’t need to say much.
My confidence for that presentation was motivated by my favorite high school teacher who taught chemistry. Without her, I might have just ditched the class like I did once in a while with others. Following that year though, I presented a project in my Anatomy and Physiology class and even my English class.
That year was my last year, and the school didn’t assign a specific English class to be taken unlike the other years, so I chose to take Advanced Writing and Creative Writing. I took Creative Writing for my last semester, and it was the best class I’ve ever taken in high school. A great way to end my high school career.
The main reason was because my teacher told the class he wouldn’t make us present any of our writing unless we chose to do so. No speeches were required at all. The other reason was because we learned and wrote about fiction writing and poetry, including spoken-word. Those were the subjects in English that I found I was best at writing, and I loved it. I even ended up sharing one of my fiction pieces to the class, and I’m proud of myself for that.
Before that year, I did dabble a bit writing poetry because I dealt with depression, and I found that writing was a great outlet for me to express my thoughts and feelings. This was one reason I thought English wasn’t such a bad subject.
The year of that Creative Writing class was the year that I decided I loved the English subject, and I would go on to write as a part-time job. Once I started college, I changed my major from a science-related field to Creative Writing and English. I know I made the right decision even when I think back to all the times I said I hated the subject. Keeping an open mind and seeing each side of one thing can change your life, just like seeing the different units in an English class changed my career.
