Francesca
Mauceri
Bob
Haas
ENG
1103-12
January
11, 2018
Francesca’s English Career
I have always had a love-hate
relationship with English throughout my school career. Some days, I would dread
going to English class, knowing we were going to be practicing reading
comprehension for our standardized tests at the end of the year. I would drag
my feet to class and count down the minutes until I could leave the room, only
to realize we had more reading comprehension to do at home. Other days, I would
walk to class with my head up, ready to learn, knowing we were going to be
doing a writing assignment. I loved the days that we could do creative journal
writing in class, or days where we could write about a topic that we would get
to choose. My best work is anything that is fiction. I am a storyteller, and I
have been ever since I was little. I love being able to create my own world and
put it down on paper; an alternate reality that seems so real while I create
it. Something outside of the ordinary that I can make up as I go along. A world
where anything that I say, goes. But, I know that writing fiction all the time
is not always going to be, so I also enjoy writing about topics that really
interest me. My entire high school career seemed to be guided and pushed by
teachers on what to write and how to write it, which limited my creativity, but
my senior year I had an amazing English class, and teacher, where I was able to
truly explore my passion for creative writing and about topics that I could
research that interested me.
Mr. Kelly, my senior English
teacher, gave me so many opportunities to explore my writing, I finally
realized how much I truly enjoy it. Senior year, I did a research project on
stem cells, where I was able to spend one month gathering information and
putting it into an info-graphic to share with my class. I enjoyed researching
and learning about stem cells, and then being able to share my research and
findings with my class, in a creative way. I am a very creative person and I
love being able to show that in my writing. For the first time in an English
class, I was able to read about a topic I enjoyed, write about it creatively,
and present it to my class in a way that made it fun for me; this is where my
love for English comes from. In the past, English had always been reading a
book, analyzing one specific paragraph picked by the teacher, and writing an
entire essay on it; this is when I dreaded English class every day. As senior
year went on and we were finally coming to a close on high school, we were
given our senior project. It could basically be anything we wanted, as long as
Mr. Kelly approved it. Finally, my chance to shine was here.
I have a love for TV and movies
like no other. I could sit in front of a TV for hours watching just about
anything, and that is one thing I could talk about for days. So, when it came
time to picking my topic, I decided why not analyze a TV show, like it was a
book. Mr. Kelly loved the idea and I got right to work. This was the first time
that I felt that I could write freely based off of ideas from myself and not
finding all of my information on the internet or from databases. I had all of
my ideas right in my head, ready to be put on paper. Then for the creative
part, we were allowed to present our information to the class in any sort of
way, so I decided to create a game, like the game Clue, to present the characters and the story line to the class.
Everyone loved how interactive the game was, and that it wasn’t just your
everyday power point presentation. This project is my best to date and I can’t
wait for more exciting opportunities where I will be able to express my
creativity through writing.
All in all, I feel that my history
with English has been a road of ups and downs that will, hopefully, continue
moving up, with more experiences throughout college. I feel that there is
always room for improvement, especially in writing, and I can’t wait to work
with my college professors on how to improve my skills. I look forward to this
class to work on my writing skills and to obtain new knowledge that will help
me in my future.