Letter of Introduction...And So We Begin

Throughout my entire scholastic career, reading and writing (mostly reading) have been my true loves. My entire life I have enjoyed listening to stories and engaging in the stories myself. I try most every night to dive into literature for a short time before I go to sleep, currently attacking the famous classic Gone With The Wind. However, I did not always enjoy the classics. One of my first encounters with a classic piece of writing I truly enjoyed was Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. I immediately fell in love with her writing style after simply glancing at her first line, "It is the truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." This simple sentence just caught me, made me chuckle, and forever love Austen's witty writing style. I felt like Jane Austen was almost a sassy author, to which I can most definitely relate.

Another story that I enjoyed even before this was F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Although, I do think a lot of the reason I enjoyed this book was my wonderful English II teacher in high school, Mrs. Linda Kirkland. She was an inspiring teacher despite the fact that she was extremely strict, but she encouraged her students to do the best they possibly could and stretched her little fifteen-year-old students to think analytically. Through this story I learned to understand the importance of figurative language, themes, simply just deeper meaning in the great works of literature. Also right around this time I was encouraged to write poetry (and by encouraged I mean forced) for some of my English classes. I actually was published in a local literary magazine in Greenville, South Carolina and in my high school's collection of poetry, but I would never say that my calling in life was that of a poet.

My most expansive and deep learning years for writing were in my AP Literature class and English 103 this past semester. Although I feel I have always been a decent writer, I struggled through the beginning of AP English learning how to write analytical essays on a certain piece of literature in a short amount of time. Through this course, however, I developed skills to implement quotes, quickly come up with a theme or figurative language, and write a decent essay in only forty minutes. My learning of writing expanded into first semester freshman year of college with Mr. Collamati as my English 103 professor. In his class my writing style matured and I learned many different mechanics for writing a well developed and comprehensive essays.

Now, at the beginning of the semester, I am excited to be combining these two subjects into one. Being able to discuss literature in class again as well as writing about it most days online. We shall see how it goes, but I'm ready for the adventure.