I worked really hard on my cover letter to get into Honors English my freshman year of high school. I wrote about how much I really wanted to be in the class and why I deserved to be in it. I also talked about how I want to have a book published one day and how a lot of my friends ask me to edit their papers. When I sent in my cover letter and my application I was really nervous. I had to wait many weeks until I heard if I made it in or not.
I would run to the mailbox after school each day and check for a response letter. I would pull all of the mail out, flip through each thing, and would be disappointed each day. I never brought the mail in either; I think I just left it in the mailbox since I was upset every day. However, when my letter finally came, I was really nervous opening it. I ripped open the envelope and slowly pulled the letter out. I unfolded the piece of paper and read these words: "Dear Samantha," and "Congratulations!" I screamed and didn't even bother reading the rest of the letter. I called my best friend with the red hair since she had applied for the same class. She told me that she had got in as well! We both screamed on the phone and were really excited. I called my dad and my mom, basically crying on the phone since I was so proud of myself. It was an awesome moment.
The only thing that really sucked about getting accepted into the class was the fact that we had to do summer reading. I hated that part. I read the following books: Tender is the Night, Anne Frank: A Diary of a Young Girl, and The Invisible Man. The last two books I listed weren't all that bad. However, Tender is the Night...that book was the death of me. It took me weeks to finish it. In fact, I remember that I was going on a camping trip before school was starting and I had to return the book to the library before we left. I had many pages left to read in the book and we were leaving the next day. I had to spend one of my last summer days at home reading this book. It was dreadful. The sad part was the fact that I love reading...just not this book. I barely remember what was going on to be honest. I think I bullshitted most of the essay I had to write after reading that book.
On the first day of school there was a room full of people that were old faces and new faces. We were all talking about which books we read and complained on how we didn't like most of them. You walked into the room and introduced yourself and said that you did a mean impression of Scooby Doo. We all begged for you to do it but you said that if we remembered at the end of the year, you would. I knew right from your introduction that you were going to be an awesome teacher. You apologized for the summer reading packet and asked us all to turn in our essays that we had written. After that we went around the room and introduced ourselves to you. Then you went over what we would be doing for the school year. You talked about how we would have someone bring in a song every Friday to listen to and to figure out what it means. You talked about the Big Questions papers that we would have to write as final exams. Then you talked about how we would be reading books in the class as well such as Frederick Douglass, Ender's Game, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Odyssey and Romeo and Juliet. We would also be watching movies in the classroom as well. There were also vocabulary quizzes each week.
It wasn't long before the whole classroom got really close with one another. How you taught us made us feel like a family. When we read in our assigned books we would have group time where we would all sit on the floor around you and talk. We would talk about how these books fit in with our Big Questions paper questions. We would get off topic quite a bit though since we all enjoyed hearing stories about your wife and your new daughter. In fact, we all shared secrets and talked very deeply with one another. I even shared the fact that my father is gay with all of the students in your class. I also shared the story of how I thought I saw two men cut my grandfather in pieces before they shut his casket at the funeral. We all could talk about absolutely anything. It was really great.
One day we all decided to switch seats to see if you really knew what our names were and weren't just remembering by where we sat. It was weird sitting on the opposite side of the room and away from my red headed friend, but it was priceless to see your face. We had the lights off and everything and so when you came into the pitch black room (there were no windows), you were surprised to see us in different seats. You put your hands on your hips and said, "Is this a test to see if I know your names?" We all laughed and as you said each of our names we all went back to our original seats. We never had assigned seats but we were very put off when someone stole our spot. It's funny how that happens, huh?
Another "prank" we pulled on you was priceless. You had this baby doll you left on your bookshelf for some random reason. I think one of your classes left if behind so you kept it. You also kept a butter knife in your desk drawer...but I don't really know why you did that. Anyway...my red headed friend and I came up with the idea with putting the baby on your chair with the butter knife. The whole class agreed and we went to work on pranking you. It was so easy to prank you, by the way. We would all come in early since we had your class right after lunch. You always took a long time since you ate lunch with your wife. Alright, back to the prank: we placed the baby with the butter knife in your chair and waited for you to come into the room. You talked to us for a little while and then gave us a vocabulary quiz. As we were taking our quiz, you went to go sit in your chair. You spun it around and kind of yelped at what was in your chair. We all looked up as you asked while laughing, "What is this?" The whole class busted out laughing as we watched you put your butter knife away and your baby doll back on the shelf. It was too funny.
For my Friday song I brought in the song "Mad World" by Gary Jules. Everyone really seemed to like it and I was very pleased. You even said that you loved the song. Many other songs were played each Friday and we had very long discussions about them. After listening to each song on a CD and read along with the lyrics, we would look up the video on YouTube and watch it to see if it had any significance. Each Friday was literally the best. We could all relax and just listen to music and think deeply about each song that we heard.
When our class was reading Romeo and Juliet you handed us each a sheet of paper with crude insults on them. The class was split in half and we had a battle of who could say the worst insult. It came down to me and this other guy in our class. I totally beat his ass in the final round, that's for sure. What can I say? I'm pretty good at insults. We had to memorize the intro to the play for credit too. You made it fun though, of course. You always made things fun. We then were split off into groups. We were given a scene to act out in modern time. My group, we called ourselves S to the fourth since all of our names started with the letter, S. Anyway, we got the scene where Juliet talks to the Nurse and Paris. We made it pretty hilarious, I would have to say. It was a really great time doing the skit. After we read the play we ended up watching the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio in it. Oh man...is he one sexy man or what? Anyway...how embarrassing...
We read The Odyssey in class and that was pretty damn boring, I would have to say. The only thing I really liked about reading it was the fact that we watched the movie. I actually understood the movie more than I did the text. That shit is hard to read. I mean, I am really interested in Greek Mythology but this story was just really boring and repetitive almost. The one thing I will never be able to get out of my mind is your Cyclops impression. There was a part in the movie where a character said, "Men do not eat other men!" and the Cyclops goes, "Cyclops do!" and then he takes a bite out of a guy. You would say that part and pretend to take a huge bite out of something. It was priceless.
Almost once a week your wife who worked at the same school as you would come into our room during class. Most of the time it was her asking for some money. She would always make fun of you when she came into the classroom too. She always had some sort of story to tell. They always made us crack up. One time you handed her a twenty dollar bill and thought she would walk away happy. Oh no, she just looked at you and said, "give me your wallet." We were all so surprised and just sat there and laughed. "I'll bring it back, I promise!" She took it from you and left the classroom. You were stunned and just shook your head. "She's lucky I love her."
You had laser eye surgery one day and came to school with sunglasses on. You said you were really self conscious about it and didn't want us to see your "disgusting" eye. We begged and pleaded that you just lift your sunglasses so we could see it. You kept telling us no and just told us the story about how the procedure went. The whole thing made me nauseous. We were watching some type of movie that had to deal with eyes...it was a science fiction type of movie. I don't remember the name of it but once we saw a part where an eye was having some sort of procedure we asked you to show us your eye again. You really didn't want to but gave in. It really didn't look that bad, honest.
Whenever we had a vocabulary quiz you told us that if everyone got twenty out of twenty he would each buy us one large candy bar. However, I am absolutely terrible with vocabulary quizzes. I'm not really sure why but I would fail almost all of them. You would always return my quizzes and ask me if there was anything you could do to help, but there wasn't anything you could do. I would study for hours and make flash cards...they just never stuck in my brain for some reason. There was one time, however, when I got twenty out of twenty. I was so proud of myself and you were proud of me as well. I was pretty upset though since one other person didn't get a twenty out of twenty on the quiz. The one time I got all of the answers right...and we don't get candy. It was bull shit.
When I wrote my two Big Questions papers I was always so stressed about them. Yeah, I wrote them the night before, I admit it. Although, I tend to do my best writing under pressure. I really loved the Big Questions papers. They were literally the best part of the whole class. I could write freely and from the heart. I felt safe writing things to you and I really loved your comments throughout each page. They always made me feel really good. You always knew what to say, it seemed.
You will always be my favorite teacher ever. There really isn't a doubt about that in my mind. I loved the atmosphere you had in your classroom. We all could literally open up and show each other our real selves. All the other Honors English Classes were full of preps and jocks. It wasn't fun at all...and not safe. I miss those days in your classroom. I wish I could just go back sometimes and re do it all over again. You're seriously the best English teacher ever. I will never forget you!
With much gratitude and good memories,
Samantha
