English Homework

In middle school, I was always told to read a specific book and write a report on it. Once I got into High School (same building as the Middle School because I’m from a small town), the teachers seemed to think that was a bad idea. I had two English teachers (Mrs. Bliss and Mrs. Lewis) who would assign readings that we would have to do for homework. But, on top of that, we had to do about one book report a month. They would not assign those books. We could pick ANY book we wanted to read. I mean ANYTHING. We would have to do a typical book report (and, for Mrs. Bliss, a "creative" project.) I loved those assignments. I remember that for one book (Robin Cook’s Sphinx), I wrote a report and for my creative project I made a photo collaged pyramid based off of scenes in the book.

My entire class loved giving our book report presentations in class because you never knew what someone was going to read. I’ve talked to my teachers since then (again, it’s a small town) and they both said they assigned reading were to cover New York state regents criteria but the book reports were meant to make us read. They didn’t care what we were reading as long as we read something. Mrs. Bliss also wanted us to write. Thus, once a week we had a journal due. It was written in a notebook, we only had to do the side of one page, and we could write about anything and include pictures or what have you. I still have those journals. I ended up going through 3 notebooks. There were days I would write and write and write. I think my longest entry was some 20 pages in length.

They were two of my favorite teachers and now that I think back on it, I know why.

Part of me wants to go back to the journals. I think I might actually do that once I finish the journal my mother gave me.

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