Andrea’s Angel

When I was five, I first learned to read. I hated it. My grandma would sit me down at the table, and forced me to read. I learned the alphabet and how to read before I even attended school, and I did not enjoy it. I did not learn to enjoy reading until I switched schools in fourth grade. The school I attended was Benjamin Foxen Elementary School, in Sisquoc Ca, and it was literally in the country. I had a teacher named Mrs. Adams, and she taught me to love reading. She split my class into four groups, and assigned each group a book. My group was assigned Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson.

Do we ever really know people? Do we really know people, or do we only know the version of them that they wish to show us? A girls' mother knows her differently than her sister, and she sees her best friend in a different light than his girlfriend sees him.                                                                                                                                           ~Dodadagohvi

Today, in my English class, we were asked to conduct a Socratic Seminar. Once we defined how to carry one out, we started. Everyone immediately turned to the students next to them, but nobody actually addressed the class. Soon, someone said that the earth was flat. I'm sitting in the corner thinking that this kid is out of his mind, but he explained it like a quarter: when its sitting on your table, it actually is flat, but when you spin it, the quarter turns into a sphere. The whole concept does kind of make sense, when you take away everything you've been taught, but we all know that his logic is incorrect. This led to Dr. Preston ( my English teacher) to tell us more about Socratic Seminars. He said that they are discussions, and that we should provide facts to back up our opinions. He then continued on to say that arguments are not a fight so much as a search for truth. For the most part, I agree. You aren't fighting, you are trying to get the other person to understand...

My teacher asked my class to make this video of the Richard Cory poem, and I had to film it like, thirty times. Either my cat would jump in, my brother would walk in, or I would start laughing in the middle. Richard Cory is a great poem, and even though it was written in 1897, it really connects to our world today. Sometimes the people that have the best things in life, the ones that everybody wants to be, they are actually going through some bad stuff and they decide to commit suicide. Humans today are really good at putting only the best of themselves out in the world. When you see pictures on Instagram and other social media platforms, do you see the actual person, or do you see some cover picture, full of makeup, perfectly posed? Do we really know our friends? People would rather hide the bad parts of life, (like Richard Cory did), and only show the most desirable sides. When you hide all of the bad stuff in your life, it sometimes gets to be too much, and then you commit suicide...

I’ve never done this before. Written something that anyone in the world can see. I don’t show people my writing, or really anything about me. So here goes: I am currently a junior in high school, I want to be a veterinarian, and I play softball. I love writing poems and stories, though I’ve never let anyone see any of them, and I love reading. This year, I have two classes in my schedule that I look forward to, and surprisingly, one of them is English. I have always been good at it, but I've never really enjoyed it. Maybe this time will be different. Teachers normally start off really cool and make it sound like they might be different, but then two or three weeks later, it's just like everything else. I am looking forward to this class because none of my teachers have ever trusted us, or let us make our own decisions. I think it will be different. I truly hope it is.                                  ...