Lathan Starnes
Literacy Story
I walked into my AP English IV class with tremendous anxiety about my expectations.
The day before, I was told that we would be assigned a novel to read and I normally don’t read
non-fiction. It was not long after I sat down in my seat that Mrs. Smith began distributing books
around the class. Before a book had made it to me, I began to hear groans and sighs. When the
book finally made it to me, all I could read on the front cover was the word “Steinbeck.” Our
class knew this name well because the previous year we were assigned to read Grapes of Wrath,
another one of his books. However, most of us never actually
read it because it was so long, detailed, and boring. I remember
only being able to make it to page 20. Almost everybody in the
class used sparknotes for this book, most people even made an A
on the test. I immediately dreaded the thought of potentially
reading another such novel, but took solace in knowing if push
came to shove, I could just sparknote it. The book was East of
Eden; it was about 650 pages and we had to read it in 10 days. I
was frightened at the prospect of reading up to 100 pages per night and taking quizzes every
other day. The scariest thing of all was that as we left class she assured us spark notes would not
provide the information we needed to succeed.
The first night I debated with myself, to read or not to read that was the question. On one
hand, I had never properly read a book like East of Eden before and it would require hours of
reading each night. On the other hand, I knew I needed to broaden by literary knowledge and
make a good grade in the class. After weighing my options, I chose to read the book. To my
surprise, I managed to read 70 pages and even started to become somewhat invested in the
characters and story. Before I knew it two hours had passed and I had survived. I was able to
relate to characters in the book especially Adam Trask. Adam was unable to fully succeed in life
because he was too trusting and trustworthy. I found the idea that you couldn’t be too
trustworthy in order to succeed interesting. I myself would often trust a person until they
betrayed me when I could have easily prevented the heartbreak by just ignoring them. I was
actually quite excited about attending class the next day and talking people about what I had
read.
When I came into class the next day, we were instructed to put our desks in a circle to
discuss the book. Our teacher would bring up a topic and students would give input. At first I
was reluctant to raise my hand at first because I was not used to that type of discussion. As I
gave more and more input, my self-confidence grew. Before I knew it, I was an active
participant. This discussion allowed me to understand the book with a perspective different from
mine. It felt good to discuss what I thought
about the book with my classmates. We
began to make biblical comparisons with
Cain and Abel. I wasn’t familiar with that
particular story, but it was fascinating none
the less. She would often ask a question to
somebody and if that person got it wrong the next person would try until somebody got it right.
It felt gratifying to be able to answer thematic questions that many of my classmates couldn’t
answer. The book that I was initially scared to even open the day before was becoming easier to
digest. I ended up reading the entire book and doing well on the quizzes, the final test, and even
wrote a three page paper on the book. This experience was a major confidence boost for literary
abilities, I know longer dreaded to read.
I realized that it wasn’t that hated the act of reading, but I was just intimidated by the idea
of it. Mrs. Smith’s class discussions were the key to me overcoming my fear of reading long and
complex books. During class discussions I was able to better understand a books story and even
form my own unique understanding of the books. For the rest of the year, I read books such as
Cold Mountain and A Gathering of Old Men, without spark notes and was often commended for
my understanding of underlying meaning and thoughtful insight. I consider this experience to be
the biggest turning point in my literary life.