The rain had been falling all day. I grudgingly canceled the tennis game I had planned with my doubles partner Jackson, changing out of my tennis whites with a sigh. I tossed my phone across the room, and it landed on my desk, on top of a pile of folders, binders, and nearly unused school supplies. I had just graduated from high school the day before, and hadn’t gotten around to cleaning up yet. “Well, since I have nothing else to do,” I thought, I shrugged and started placing piles on my shelf. This wasn’t the best system, and my things were already disorganized, so inevitably the top shelf spilled its contents onto the ground.
The first thing I went to pick up was a ripped green folder, stuffed to the brim with papers. When I sprang it open, many crumpled up loose-leaf papers fell out onto the floor. I picked them up, and was immediately astonished by what I had found… my songwriting lyrics, written years ago. I knelt on the ground, beginning to read and sound them out in my head. As I read the sloppily constructed phrases, I was touched by how earnest and sweet they were. I had been a singer and songwriter for many years, and this piece from the early days was a shock to find.
I couldn’t believe how much I have changed throughout the years. The first song had no lyrics but was written on sheet music, I had no idea where it came from or what it was about, so I quickly ran downstairs to our grand piano and began to sight read. A flood of memories instantly came back to me. I had written this piece when I was five years old, winning an Illinois Reflections award for the composition. Playing the song transported me back to my kindergarten years, which I spent trapped inside a classroom with a teacher that clearly didn’t want me to be there.
I remember staring down at a lined sheet of paper where I was supposed to be writing down the letters of the alphabet. Ms. Zentmeyer, my teacher, would stood over me, and seeing that I had no work done would sternly ask, “Have you been paying attention at all today? ” I never knew how to answer to this because I was frustrated with learning about the letters multiple times during the year. I had been repeatedly told that my handwriting was terrible and that I needed to spend extra time working to make it legible.
I was known to teachers as a scattered kid, who almost never payed any attention to the instructor or the lesson plan, and I often felt disrespected or misunderstood by teachers. Multiple teachers tried to diagnose me with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, but when my parents took me to doctors, they informed me that I didn’t have any sort of disorder, and that just learned differently. This didn’t matter anyway, as my parents refused to put me on any sort of medication. They knew me well enough to realize that I just was a different learner, that didn’t have any sort of difficulty paying attention when I actually wanted to.
As a younger kid, I often didn’t get along with my peers or peer group because I was singled out as different by teachers and other adults. During Elementary school, I always turned to music, the only thing I was really passionate about. I would use the piano as my outlet for my frustrations and pretty soon I was writing instrumental and lyrical parts to songs. Sure, for being as young as I was, my lyrics were cheesy, but writing through songs helped me express my emotions better than anything else could.
Back in the town that I used to live in, the arts were not emphasized or respected nearly as much as athletics were and as an unathletic, scatter-brained, weaklooking child, I didn’t receive much respect for my passion other than in my family. Most of the songs that I wrote back then were private, and I kept them to myself, without letting anyone, even the people that I trust, see the lyrics. Analytical essays have always been a struggle for me. My first analytical writing assignment was in seventh grade, just to write a two page essay n a short story titled “Charles”.
The class and I were quickly taught the proper format of an analysis essay, before attempting to rush write one ourselves. By the time I was done with my essay, I was proud of my work. I thought that I had made a thorough analysis and had completed the assignment to the best of my ability. The class was a bit harder because it was an honors class, but I felt that I could easily manage the work and had enough skills to succeed. A few days after the essay was turned in, my teacher pulled me aside after class.
She then began a tirade, throwing out words such as, “This is not honors level work! Your ideas are too concrete and your sentence structure is terrible. This is not a good essay, I will reccomend you for a regular class in high school. And this is what you get for not paying attention! ” This was all based on one essay, in fact, the first proper analytical essay that I had ever written. As one could imagine, this did not make me feel good about my writing, and though her explanation of my troubles with essay writing were a bit vulgar, there were many truths to it.
This teacher was a negative role model and influence on her students and was not willing to help me reach my goals in writing at all, so my writing progress was stagnant through the two years she was my teacher in middle school. It’s incredibly hard to improve in a subject where you are repeatedly told that you are stupid. I ended up overriding this negative teacher’s recommendation for the honors English class, because I felt that I could handle the extra coursework and rigor of an Honors class.
This probably wasn’t the best decision at the time, as I didn’t do very well in my Freshman high school English class, but I am glad today that I made the decision. My freshman year of high school didn’t get off to a good start as far as academics were concerned, English included. I didn’t get my homework in on time, and I let tests slide without studying for them. High School was an awakening for me because in middle school, good grades were given almost no matter what.
In high school, I had to earn good grades and not just expect them to ome without hard work. Freshman year overall was a rough year for me academics-wise, but it certainly was a good year for growth. My freshman year English teacher was extremely hard on me, but she actually cared about my improvement and was willing to help me become a better analysis writer. After a couple of lackluster papers, I asked her about what I could do to improve my essay writing skills. She then went to her bookshelf and pulled out a giant anthology of short stories and told me, “I understand that you want to stay on the English Honors track.
These short stories will help you with your analysis writing skills, and I would like to tutor you from now until after the summer once a week, with an analysis essay written every week. This will help you become a more concise writer, and help you catch up to some of the other writers in this honors class. ” Now unlike most students, I was totally fine with doing extra work in order to propel myself forward, and had a different outlook from the beginning of freshman year, when I refused to work hard.
I met with Mrs. Lyons weekly for the next two years, and because of this one teacher that believed in me, I am a much better writer today than I was back then. All this time I was continuing to write music and lyrics for fun, because even though I maybe wasn’t the best writer. I was certainly improving. My lyrics were becoming less cheesy, and more in depth with hidden meanings and I found a more adult sound to them. This has to be partially due to the work that I had done with academic writing over the past few years. The green folder was lost by then, and no matter how hard I looked for it, I couldn’t possibly find it.
It was the gate to my past, my frustrations, my triumphs, It would bring back many memories, the good and the bad. But I certainly wasn’t relying on finding the folder, as I was producing more modern and better music, well at least in my opinion. Throughout the many struggles of my writing, I had never seen the growth that I had made in leaps and bounds until I opened up the folder that I thought I would never find. As my essay writing improved, my songwriting skills also improved, and I am now able to express my passion for music better than ever before, mostly due to my improvements with analysis writing.
