Personal memoir Essay

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Mitchell James Paddock
Mrs. Richie
English 101
2 September 2014
My Feelings Towards Reading and Writing “Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.”- Joyce Carol Oates.
For many people, this quote is an accurate description of their opinion on reading and writing. For many others, this quote is merely the opposite. Many people believe that the enjoyment of reading and writing is something genetic. You are either born with the love or you aren’t. I believe that isn’t true. I believe that like anything else in life, change is possible, and that literature is simply a door with a complicated lock combination, which once you are able to unlock, you will not regret the strenuous task of picking the lock. When I was a sophomore, I had written plenty of five paragraph essays, plenty of biographies, plenty of poems, and plenty of research papers, as well as read plenty of novels, short stories, fiction, non-fiction, and textbooks. Up until my sophomore year, reading and writing was a tri-seasonal activity for me; fall, winter, and spring. Reading and writing was a burden for me, only to be completed when required. This was true until my first semester of sophomore year. I was taking English 10 Honors, and I had Dr. Davis, who I had heard many things about, mainly that he was a teacher I would never forget, and those rumors proved to be true. On the first day of school, Dr. Davis told us that he had two goals for us for the semester: to learn, and to think. When I first heard this, I was confused. Who did he think he was? Obviously I knew how to think, however, throughout the semester, I slowly but surely started to understand what he meant. Dr. Davis did not want us to learn things only to take a quiz on one day, and forget the next. He wanted us to think about what we were learning, and take away some significance from it that might benefit us in life. Dr. Davis was not only an extraordinary teacher, and an extraordinary man, but an extraordinary influence. He wanted us to leave school everyday not only with more academic knowledge, but more life knowledge. Through these life lessons, he would incorporate reading and writing, showing us the impact it can have on our lives and how we can use reading and writing to sprout creativity and well-being. He taught us how to make reading and writing fun and enjoyable, without even telling us. Dr. Davis was not only one of the best teachers I have ever had, but he is also the reason I enjoy reading and writing. Before my sophomore year, I felt that reading and writing were a burden. I felt no inspiration to write, and no motivation to read. After my sophomore year, I felt potential, potential to express my thoughts through writing, and gain new thoughts through reading. “There is no shame in being ignorant; there is only shame in staying ignorant.”- Dr. Mike Davis. Since the end of sophomore year, I have written more and read more than I had ever thought possible. This was not just because I enjoyed it more after having Dr. Davis as a teacher. Part of the reason I was reading and writing more was because it was required in most of my classes. As school years passed by, poems turned into essays, multiple choice questions turned into essay questions, and book reports turned into research papers. In our current society and day in age, writing is a large part of the curriculum taught in school. This is very important, due to the usefulness of writing in different aspects of our lives, however; forcing people to write, whether it’s a sentence or a novel, takes away part of the importance in writing. Writing, like many other forms of art is not something you can force someone to do well in. Yes, there are different formats, writing styles, and writing techniques you can teach them, but that is just as pointless, because
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