Young Writer

Literary Narrative I had to write for my first semester. Scored a 97 on the first draft :)

For as long as I could remember, I had always wanted to be a writer. Constantly, you would find me with a notebook in one hand, and a pen in the other. It didn’t matter where I was or what I was supposed to be doing… I’d be writing instead. The year my brother was going into first grade, 1996, I decided I had wanted to go to school too. I was jealous that he’d be gone all day, learning all of these cool and interesting things. Being only four years old I didn’t understand that I was still too young to start kindergarten, but after begging my parents over and over again, my mom finally decided she could enroll me in the pre-k class they offered at Black Rock Elementary School. I couldn’t wait to start.

 Finally, the day had come, my first day of school. Together, hand-in-hand, my mom and I walked through the huge double doors into the school. The halls were long and wide, almost as if they were never ending; I wanted to explore the whole building. Artwork and papers marked with A’s proudly hung on the walls; some self portraits done by the third graders, others being the alphabet written out by the new kindergarten students. I couldn’t wait to get inside my classroom and begin to learn… I probably had more ambition to do so than any other four year old in the school. Down the hall and to the left… The door was wide open. Filled with more excitement than nervousness, my tiny heart began to throb, beating harder and faster with each and every step we took. The smile I was wearing was so big that it began to hurt. As I entered the classroom all I could hear was what seemed like billions of kids my age running around laughing and shouting, playing with one another. Looking around, I was amazed. This place seemed like tons of fun. Strung across the windows on its own clothesline-like rope, artwork hung…paintings upon paintings, so many colors merged with one another; the typical artwork of a young child. In the middle of the classroom was a cluster of desks, arranged in the fun elementary style circle with mounds of crayons (with every color you could ever imagine), and stacks of coloring pages. The majority of the children were now on the far end of the classroom, all sitting on a rug that sang the alphabet in bright colors. A lady, who I assumed was the teacher, was reading a story to the kids just until she had noticed my mom and me standing at her desk. With the most welcoming smile she introduced herself, “Well hello there, I’m Ms. Kavanaugh and I’ll be your teacher this year. Would you like to come join us for story time?” Before heading over to the rest of the group, she dug through a pile of name tags. As she hung mine around my neck, I had noticed a picture of a penguin in a top hat that stood beside my name. Feeling prouder than ever, I had realized that I was officially a student, and boy was I ready to learn.

            Throughout the school year we would learn about many things, usually according to the upcoming seasons and holidays. In autumn, we would learn about the things that change colors, like apples, and why they were either red or green. Throughout the colder months, Thanksgiving and Christmas would be the main topics of discussion. Holidays had a whole new meaning to me after learning about how the pilgrims and Indians had met and had a feast together, or even after finding out that Christmas ran deeper than just Santa Clause going down the chimney and leaving tons of presents. Followed by a lecture was usually a fun craft that accompanied the topic. Believe me, I loved doing arts and crafts, but I was kind of disappointed. Painting and coloring pictures was not what I wanted to go to school for. I wanted to learn other things, not particularly about holidays and seasons, but about what? I was not only bummed about the lack of knowledge that I craved, but I was also confused about what I actually wanted to learn. Soon I had discovered that the majority of the students in my class had special needs, whereas I was special in an entirely different way. I had gained the title as a “role model student” because I was much more advanced than the average four year old.

As the school day was coming to an end, Ms. Kavanaugh would have her students settle down on the alphabet rug for story time, my favorite. I was amazed as I watched her read each and every word off the page, telling a story. At that moment I had realized what I wanted to learn to do: read and write. As Ms. Kavanaugh continued to read, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, by Laura Numeroff, I zoned off into my own little world, imaging myself writing… But I knew before I could even start, I needed to learn to write my own name first.

            Soon after arriving home from school, I eagerly ran to my mom, with my puppy, Buster running beside me, begging for me to play with him as I usually would. “Mommy, I want to write my name.” We sat at the kitchen table together, papers scattered about in front of us, and a pen in hand. She had written my name several times on the papers, first all in capital letters, then another time in lowercase. I had learned to properly grip the pen in my small hands, which seemed to have come naturally. At first she helped me glide it across the paper, shaping out the letters correctly, giving me an idea of how to move the pen on the paper.  Slowly, I glided the pen by myself across the paper, practicing each and every letter as I spoke them, trying to memorize the spelling, “C….H…R…I…S…T…I…N…A.” By the time I had successfully written my name at least ten times, I jumped up and down in excitement as I had perfected it.

            Over the next couple of days, I was not only practicing writing my full name, but soon my brothers, and eventually my parents too. I must have sat at the table for hours at a time, writing the names of my family members over and over again until they too were perfected, and then soon moving onto my dog’s name. Since I had been so intrigued by writing, my brother had joined me at the table, practicing his name too. Despite the fact that he had been in school for a whole year longer than me, I had not only perfected spelling his full name, as well as writing it too. I felt even prouder when I had discovered that my penmanship was neater than his. Bragging to everyone I knew, everyone started to congratulate me and tell me how I was the smartest little girl they knew.

            The next time my pre-k class had met, I had run straight from the car to my classroom with my mom following close behind. Excited as ever, I jumped up and down as I reached Ms. Kavanaugh’s desk, nearly throwing the paper in her face showing her what I had learned to do. “Good job, Christina,” was all she said, showing no excitement what so ever, or even if she really cared. Handing me back my paper that I was ever so proud of, Ms. Kavanaugh pulled my mom aside nearly scolding her what I had done. “She is too young and too advanced. You need to discourage her from wanting to learn anymore!” My mom walked away with a grin on her face, taking my teacher’s remarks as a compliment. Although I knew that what she said was not good, I hadn’t lost my motivation. I wanted to continue to learn to write, and just because my teacher had said it was too soon wasn’t stopping my mom from teaching me.

            Over the next few months, I practiced my writing, learning new words each and every day. My brother and I would sit down together and make up stories, trying to write them down as best as we could. Generally, the stories were usually about our favorite TV show characters, like the Rugrats from Nickelodeon. The plot would consist of what it would be like if the babies had grown up and started going to school, and their experiences. After spending hours striving to succeed in writing our stories, I had realized exactly how much fun it really was to write. At such a young age, I had decided right then and there. That was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be able to write books and have other people read them some day. I loved the fact that I could write down my thoughts and share them with others.

To this day, you could still find me with a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other. If I hadn’t found my love for writing when I was four years old, I probably would have never found it at all.