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My earliest writing experience was in Mrs. Berkowitz's first grade class. We had an assignment where we were learning how to answer questions in full sentences. After completing the assignment I walked up to her desk to hand it in numerous times, but when I got to her desk with my paper she would point with her wrinkly finger and in her croaky voice would just say, "Noooooo." I had to erase my sentences yet again and I was left staring at my desk, frustrated, with pink eraser crumbs everywhere and the word, "Because" engraved into the worksheet because I wrote on top of it and erased it numerous times. For some reason I could not think of any other possible combination of words to start off my sentences.
Vocab. I always felt like I struggled with vocabulary. Every week I had to learn 20 new words, but I could never keep up. It was a game of memorization and after the test came around I immediately left those 20 words behind and never looked back. Today I still struggle with having a small vocabulary because I constantly find myself not knowing the meaning of a big word (or medium word) when reading articles or assignments.

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I entered high school  dreading writing. On my first day of English class I already did not like the teacher. Every time we had a writing assignment I would hold my breath hoping she wouldn't say the infamous words, "...and then we will all  go around and share it out loud!" As if going to a new school and being a teenager did not make us insecure or nervous enough. It did not make me, "step out of my comfort zone."
My tenth grade teacher was definitely not on my list of top five favorite teachers. I rarely spoke and for some reason she always gave me the eye. The only thing I learned from her was that the kids who received good grades on writing assignments were all knowing beings with no secret, just talent that I could never have or get.

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My middle school English class curriculum was mostly structured around reading a book and then writing an essay on it. I was the least creative person I knew. My dislike and nervousness that I developed for writing probably led to all of my dull and generic assignments such as that eighth grade essay where I had to relate Holden Caulfield to myself, or that time I had to talk about the "friendship" between Old Yeller and Travis in sixth grade. Another time I had to write a creative ending to Romeo and Juliet. I do not remember what I wrote about, but it was probably as unplot-twisting as it could get (which is impressive considering Shakespeare told us the ending on the first page.) It could have been the lame essay topics, or that I thought the topics were lame that lead to me resist and hate creative writing. The only type of writing I could bare a little bit was factual writing. The boring kind was my favorite kind. I did not have to try and express myself or cringe at myself in a weak effort to put emotion into my writing.

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It was not until I became an upper class-men that I realized not all English teachers are out to get me. Eleventh grade came around and I knew I was not a good writer, but my teacher was a good grader. He always gave me words of encouragement, perhaps too encouraging because I got a 2 on the AP exam. On a ten page research paper I wrote, I received an A and no markings which I was sure it had to be a mistake because I did not even read Fahrenheit 451 and I only shmooped half of it. It had been years since I read a book from cover to cover and no matter how many times I tried I did not have the patience and I told myself I didn't have the time.
It was not until my senior year that Mr. Marcus told me that my essay was good and I actually believed him a little bit. Our first day of class we wrote a free write as an exercise for college application essays. The topic was, "things we cared about." I spoke on paper about all the fun I had with my younger brother. With this assignment we had the option to read what we wrote out loud. I thought everyone who read out loud was better than mine, but I was still a tiny bit proud.

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I went through a phase of loving to read beginning a few years before middle school and ending in high school. It all started with the first Percy Jackson book, The Lightning Thief. I read through all the books in the series very quickly. I enjoyed Rick RIordan's style of writing it was silly and creative because he put a creative twist on mythology and made it kid- ish. I then moved on to a mermaid series which I do not remember the name of. My mom had to take away the second book because I kept saying I was close to the end of the chapter and that I would start my homework soon but that never happened. After I ran out of books my mom bugged me to read Harry Potter, but I refused to because I knew she loved it and I for some reason did not want to give in and let her be right that I would love it too. In sixth grade I burned through the Harry Potter series. Every school night I would stay up till 2 or 3 am laying in my bed underneath my lamp light. I finished each big book that amounted from 300 to 700 pages in days. Later in middle school I read through the hunger games. (The books were better than the movies.) Adventure, fiction, and mystery novels for some reason always caught my eye. I really loved reading until I stopped around Ninth grade.