I’d never really considered myself good at writing before, nor did I enjoy writing. I would even go as far as to say I use to dread it. Writing was always just a part of school that I had to do in order to get a good grade, it was never something I really cared about improving on or learning more about. That was until I enrolled in a sophomore honors English class taught by Mr. Benedict. At first, I didn’t think I’d like the class or the teacher, I thought it was going to be extremely hard and boring and that I would get a bad grade out of it. However, a couple of weeks into the class that all changed.
I was 15 at the time, and it was the sixth period of another boring school day. The last period I had to endure before I could leave school for the day and enjoy one of the last warm, sunny days of the year. I was especially not looking forward to this day because I knew we were workshopping a rough draft for a writing assignment that was due, a rough draft I knew I hadn’t written well. The assignment was to write an essay about a possible theme of the book Lord of The Flies. I was completely lost when it came to this assignment. I’d never been good at academic essays and this one wasn’t any different. I was really struggling with it, so I went up to Mr. Benedict toward the end of class and asked if my theme could actually work for the book. It was rare for me to ask for help before then unless I really needed it, but I am very glad I did on this day. My original theme ended up not working, but he started to help me change it in to one that did. By the time we found a theme that did work, his small classroom that was usually crammed with 30 kids, was empty, as class and school had ended. However, I still had more questions about my paper, so I asked him to read over all of it and see if he could help me in other areas. He agreed, and it not only helped improve that paper, but my writing skills altogether. We only talked for a brief thirty minutes, but a lot of what he said has still stuck with me. I sat directly across from him at his desk as he made comments that vastly improved my writing. He helped me improve on my syntax, as well as the structuring of my essay. He also helped me with expanding on my ideas and putting them on paper. I used to have trouble writing what I was thinking of in a way that made sense, Mr. Benedict helped talk me through my ideas and allowed me to expand on them.
Through our short, but valuable, conversation, I not only grew a lot as a writer, but I started dreading writing a lot less altogether. I even still use the tricks and tips he taught me to this day. Looking back on it, it seems kind of silly that our short discussion increased my writing skills as much as it did, and although I still don’t consider myself to be great at writing, I can honestly say I am a lot better because of this conversation.