I remember that moment being one of the most embarrassing feelings. One that crushes your ambitions and makes you feel totally incapable of doing something that you once felt confident about. I had been the top of my English class in sixth grade, always the example for good work and fast pace learning, but I had moved into seventh grade advanced english, so everything had changed. I had gone from the top of my class to probably one of the bottom few and it hurt. I went from the easiest english class i’ve ever had to one of the hardest in just a year and it was a struggle and shock for me.
I remember the one specific moment when I realized that I wouldn’t be able to skate through class anymore. It was toward the beginning of the year and we had been going over grammar and the correct use of various conventions. I had not been aware of all of these rules my previous year in english so I was feeling overwhelmed and anxious because everyone else in the class had previous knowledge on all of these rules that I was just now learning. This one particular week really stood out to me and showed me that I had a lot of work to do. I was in my 3rd period English class, probably the third week of school. My teacher, Mrs. Vaughn gave us an assignment to write a dialogue about a snapshot photo that we were given. I had never written a dialogue before but I had seen them in some of the books I read. I did the assignment and I felt really good about myself. I had written a solid story that amused me so she would obviously love it, and I had the preconceived notion that I would do well because of my previous successes. Later that week, she handed back out papers and I was excited to get mine back and see how well I did. Turns out, the assignment was graded based on conventions and how to properly use them in the form of dialogue, which I didn’t know. I failed that assignment bad and it hurt. I wanted to give up and switch out but I knew I couldn’t because my friends would look at me differently because I wouldn’t be as smart as them. On the top of that assignment,
the teacher wrote, “I know you’re trying.” Now that I look back on that, it makes me laugh because I was so bad at conventions and I had almost 50 mistakes in one paper. At the time though, I felt like it was okay that I made that bad of a mistake because of that little note on the top of my paper. I felt like she was on my side and that I would get better, I would just have to work harder than I’ve ever had to. We ended up doing that same assignment a couple other time, and the second time I also failed, but the third time I improved so much that I only had 20 errors compared to my 50 at the beginning of the year.
Mrs. Vaughn, my seventh grade english teacher, was probably my biggest literary sponsor. She wanted all of her students to succeed and she didn’t take no for an answer. She was passionate about her job and made lasting marks on my life and my friends lives. Her class, even in 7th grade, made me college and high school ready and an advanced kid through the rest of my schooling, which I will forever be grateful for.
I know for a fact that I will remember this in 10 years because of how funny I see it now. I kept that first assignment in a file and I found it this summer and remembered how hard of a time I had in that class and how much better I am now because of it. I will also remember every other part of that class because even though it was so hard, it was also so fun and Mrs. Vaughn knew how to make learning fun and interesting. We would do plays, mysteries, group projects, debates, and haller hawk news, and all of those taught me something new, but also were fun to create and present.