Good teachers are hard to come by. In many schools, it is rare to have even one good English teacher, however, I was blessed with the opportunity to have two fabulous English teachers, Mrs. Gaines and Mrs. Brown. They have both been great influences in my life, so I wanted to thank them.

Dear Mrs. Gaines and Mrs. Brown,

I wanted to thank you for all that you have done for me. You were both passionate about English, which made me passionate about it. You worked countless hours preparing lessons and thinking of the most creative ways to bring many of the stories and poems to life. Most importantly, however, you made me the writer I am today.

Both of you were tough teachers. I cannot put a number on the nights I stayed up late crying over a writing assignment, especially when it came to research papers. However, I would do it all over again because of how much easier it has made my life going forward. I am now able to quickly put together well-written papers for all my classes.

Even when I have been asked to write at a graduate student level, I have received compliments from my professors, and I owe this to the two of you. You pushed me to become the best writer I could be. Making me rewrite entire sections of my papers because you knew I could do better benefitted me in the end. You guys truly were the best.

Mrs. Gaines, you gave me such a great foundation in 7th grade, and then you gave me a ton of freedom when I had you again in 9th grade. I wrote my favorite research paper in your class because you gave us the freedom to create our paper with the only catch being that it had to relate to children's books in some way. This helped us come up with creative topics and learn to write papers with very little instruction.

Mrs. Brown, you livened every English class with your different cheers and sayings that typically involved cats. One of my favorite memories is of you reading us The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe. You read it to us in an eerie voice with the lights turned off while holding a fake raven with glowing eyes. Of course, someone from the office came by the class to ask a question and was quite confused when they stumbled across this scenario.

You both were so very dedicated to your students, and I hope you know we appreciate all your hard work. We may have complained and given you plenty of grief at the time, but now that we are older, we understand that you were just pushing us to be the best we could be. Because of you I learned to love writing. I now write for the Odyssey, which gives me the chance to share my voice. Thank you for all you have done for me, and remember that though your students might complain now, they will be very grateful later.