My personal story has a bit of an “overcomer” tone. I grew up on a small farm in rural Virginia. Though both my parents were hard workers and rose above their childhood socioeconomic circumstances, neither of my parents graduated high school (though my father did attain his G.E.D. when he was 19). In my house, “me” was a nominative case pronoun and “good” was an adverb. Let’s just say it took many years and many teachers to undo the grammar habits I had formed at home. As I got older and became conscious of the constant grammatical sins that took place in my household, I seriously considered an intervention just to save myself the humiliation of my friends and teachers discovering my parents’ secret of being uneducated. My parents were loving and supportive, but they never encouraged my siblings or me to challenge ourselves academically the way some of my friends’ parents did. Attending college was an option, a choice I had to make personally.

Although school wasn’t my parents’ strong suit, they did read. In fact, when I picture my mother from my childhood, she is either cooking or reading; whether she was reading her Holy Bible, the newspaper, or Reader’s Digest, she read daily. My father also read, though more for instructional purposes than enjoyment. When he decided to open a welding business, he learned to weld by reading books that he checked out at the library. As a child, I too loved reading. I think I was four years old when I ran out of books to read at our house. One of my older sisters, Kim, would take me to the library as often as she could, but when I didn’t have a book to read, I would write. I must have written a hundred books as a child. I had notebooks full of them. I even turned Science notes about dinosaurs and planets into storybooks. One of my earliest recollections from my childhood is sitting at my Fisher-Price red and blue checked table, gazing at the stars in the night sky, and dreaming of becoming a writer.

I continued to read and write fervently throughout my elementary years. Kim continued to take me to the library, and on paydays, we would sneak to the mall bookstore where she would buy her Harlequin romance novel and I would get the latest in the “choose your own ending” mystery series. My middle school years were jaded; I had to change schools and the change was not good. I went from an elementary school where my joy was volunteering with the kindergarteners during snack time to middle school where I would sit and listen to my peers drop the “F” bomb as they retold their weekend making-out stories. By eighth grade, I succumbed to the miscreant adolescent flow, swimming against it day-in day-out was wearing me out. I don’t remember much about that year regarding my classes except for two moments: “signing the book” and getting caught cheating.

My school had a rule that if you violated any of the other rules, one of which was that you must be prepared for class, then you would have to sign “the book.” There was a “book” of lined paper sitting at the front of every classroom, and every kid dreaded the long walk of shame down the aisle to sign it. My fatal day occurred during Civics class, and I had run out of paper. My teacher told us to get out paper and pencil so that we could take notes on Hitler’s rule of Nazi Germany, and I panicked as I opened my binder to see that I was plumb out of blank paper. I whispered to the person in front of me to please lend me some. She agreed, but we were not sly enough to pass that one wide-ruled sheet without the quick eye of my teacher seeing it. I was busted. I made my way to the front of the room as all eyes were on me, and I signed “Krissy Dill… unprepared for class.” The following Friday while all of the exemplary students (which I had always been until this day) were outside enjoying popsicles and kickball, I was sitting in a stuffy classroom copying the dictionary.

That began my downhill spiral that fortunately culminated at the end of eighth grade. I was in Science class, and we were taking our weekly vocabulary quiz. My classmates had a system of cheating where one person in each row would take turns hiding the cheat sheet in his or her lab table cubby. It was my turn, and once again, I failed at not getting caught. My table partner whispered for me to turn the paper over. I knew this was a bad idea and that there was no way I could reach my hand into my desk cubby, flip the paper over, and Mr. Teacher not see me. I was right. That day, I officially lost my reputation as a good girl, as I traded it in for a note on my permanent record and my first zero on an assignment. Not surprisingly, my reading diminished, and my children’s stories morphed into adolescent poetry.

Life was a little better in high school. I switched back to my district school, which was smaller and more personal. I continued to write and mature my craft at poetry as I rediscovered my love of reading. I kept straight A’s in my English classes, but for some reason when advanced classes became an option for us in eleventh grade, I was not recommended. I was devastated. In fifth grade I had determined to go to college, and I worked hard to get good grades so that I could be in the “smart classes.” When I found out that I wasn’t recommended for English Honors, I met with my guidance counselor and fought for my seat in Mrs. Fielding’s English Honors class. Thankfully, I won.

That summer I read all of the reading assignments with utter delight, yet ironically also set my heart on going to a school with a law program. My senior year, I took AP Literature, and loved it. My teacher, Mr. Kirtley, was brilliant, and he inspired me to read analytically. I remember entering into Heathcliff’s mind and dissecting his childhood. I remember delving into why Salinger used the colors and imagery that he did, and why those images affected the readers the way they did. That same year, I entered one of my poems into a contest and won an “Editor’s Choice” award for it. Inspired by my accomplishment in the poetry contest, I founded a Young Writer’s Club at my school. I would host local authors and like events at our school for fellow writers to share their works. Despite not coming from a literary background, I began to see myself as a writer, but still didn’t have the confidence to reconnect to my childhood dream of writing. I still set my sights on law.

When I look back now as to why I did not have the confidence to become a writer, I realize it is for two reasons. First, I never felt secure about my vocabulary and how to use language to truly communicate with others. I was comfortable talking to people, but I did not want others to read what I had written. Secondly, I was motivated to gain acknowledgement from others for a “respected” career as an attorney, and honestly, did not feel that teaching would feed my ego the way prosecuting in the courtroom would. And let’s face it, law offers more opportunities financially than does teaching or writing. Most importantly, though, is that as I reflect on what most affected me in school, it was having teachers who believed in me for me. Not for who my family was or wasn’t. Not for whether I had paper in my binder or the correct color ink on that paper. They were teachers who loved what they taught and who were not biased about who they shared that subject matter with.

When I enter my classroom each year, I embrace the different backgrounds of my students, and I now acknowledge each year that each of my students comes from a different background. Some come from privileged homes where both parents speak fluently and eloquently having been finely educated from pre-K through college. Others come from homes where English is the second language. Then, I have students like me who come from those homes where the parents speak English, but not the kind that English teachers like. Because I recognize the influence that our upbringing has on our language skills, I approach my students as individuals and I treat them as people – not just a grade or another body to fill a desk. I do this because I love language, and I want to share it with each of my students; I believe that they can all benefit in life by understanding and using language effectively.

On our next stop, we are going to dive into how to apply our personal stories to how we teach writing.