My teacher’s cause was to get us to want to read. It was a typical rainy day at school in December of my sophomore year. We had just finished checking out our next book for the unit: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. At this point, I was still adamant about being in high school and wanting to read, because I thought it was just going to be another boring book that we would have to read. My teacher Mrs. Fry had us go through the PowerPoint introduction, and it seemed like we would finally be reading an interesting story for once. After we had finished all of that, she had us open up the book and read the first couple of chapters. As the class sat in silence, everyone reading on their own, I became entranced by the setting and the initial character development in the first chapter. The main character reminded me so much of myself, and I felt like I could see myself in that novel. I felt even more excited and compelled to read this novel, and it got to the point where I wanted to read ahead. Not only that, but I also wanted to write something on this, so I started writing notes on the first couple of chapters that I read. After leaving that class that day, I desired to read more, and I was already looking forward to the next day of English class. It was like another door had just opened up in front of me and I ran right through it without any hesitance or care in the world.
What my teacher started on that day changed the whole direction of my love for reading and writing. No longer was I dreading having to go into my block class to have to suffer through a whole two hours of boredom. For the first time in a long time, I actually felt compelled to go read and write outside of class, and I did just that. My teacher was making us read it as part of our new unit, sure, but by forcing me to read it I began to appreciate what she was doing for me and the class as a whole. Reflecting on it now I realize that she wasn’t just forcing us to read the novel, but was also trying to get us to enjoy the class, and reading, to the point where we would want to be doing this reading outside of school and still desire to read the next chapter of the book.
At the time I read this I was still growing in my spiritual faith (yes, I am a Christian), and the desire to want to read more also led me to start reading more of the Bible, which further grew my literacy in reading. Someone asked me why I believe Frankenstein is the book that had the biggest impact on my literacy, and I responded, “Because throughout all of high school and even beyond, I’ve never read as great of a book as Frankenstein.” And no matter how much reading or writing I do, Frankenstein is by far the novel that has expanded my literacy the most.
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