One of the things that I’ve been meaning to do for a long time was write a little recognition for my high school English teacher – Mrs Garcia.
In one of the last attempts to make good citizens out of us idiot high schoolers, she prepped the last senior semester by having us write a college-level paper in which we were to compare two things and correctly annotate and structure the paper as you would in a college level class. We were given the task of comparing something British against something American in different time frames. The task seemed daunting, but really it was only scary if you over-thought it. This was possibly the most important class that I’ve ever had. And of course, didn’t realize it at the time.
I can’t tell you the actual name of the type of paper that it’s called, but I can sleepwalk through writing papers now. In fact, I didn’t even realize what I was learning at the time. Napping was high on my agenda when she gave us time in class. (Too many late nights at the poolhall). Writing content really was never my problem, but the organization of the content became key.
Among the things I learned were that it didn’t really matter what your content was, or even your opinion, as long as you could back it up using other sources.
My paper? Comparing the Beatles to AC/DC. In my strong headed stubbornness, I chose something that I would at least be interested in concentrating on. Halfway through, I got the feeling that it had been a very, very bad choice. But I was in too deep, so I had to continue.
Much to my surprise, I got an A on the paper. No topic is too dumb (even for a high schooler) if your sources and organization are right.
Unfortunately, my blogging has never really seen any benefit from anything I learned then, but I used the skills I learned throughout college and consistently received A’s for my papers. In all classes. Teachers seemed to enjoy reading papers that were well constructed.
So anyway, much thanks to Mrs Garcia – this is one student who greatly benefited from the lesson she taught.
