Literary Narrative Here we are the first day of second semester of our senior year.

Jasmine, Brandi, and I walk in to our third period. A.P. English 12 with Mr. Cavnar. I remember dreading this class because, English was just not appealing to me and Mr. Cavnar sounded like this big bad English stickler. The big bad English stickler to me is a teacher who believes there is only one way of writing and it has to be by the book. For example they focus on the grammar and vocabulary rather than the content of the writing. For example my 11th grade English teach gave me and my classmates bad grades on our essays because she didnt agree with our points and because grammar was all that mattered to her. I was happily surprised to walk into a room decorated with fun and crazy paintings. Props hanging on the wall or scattered around the room reminded me of an older time maybe in the renaissance. There were clocks and old style lighting maybe from the Victorian era. Then standing in the front of the room was this young, excited looking teacher. My friends and I found seats that were at the front (not by my choice I might add). Once all the greetings to our fellow classmates had died down Mr. Cavnar spoke with enthusiasm saying "who here doesn't like English? I and a few others around me raised their hands. He laughed for a second and he said "well after my class that will change as long as you are here and pay attention". (I soon found out he wasn't wrong) By the end of the day he had talked about things from his felony scarred roommate in college to his bodyguard of a brother who worked as a bouncer/ bodyguard. He had me intrigued and made me think as to what will come from our next class. After the first class I was dumbfounded with how brilliant Mr. Cavnar was and he really impressed me. He was impressive to me by all the details he paid to his class and how the lessons he taught were open to change and he would often go off into personal stories and relate them to the class and the topics we were talking about. Mr. Cavnar seemed to know everything anyone would ask him or he would find a way out to help even if he didnt know. The enthusiasm he showed for his job really rubbed off on people. My first impressions of Mr. Cavnar was that of skepticism and scrutiny because he was so young and I really had no experience with young teachers. The experience I did have with young teachers were that of them being strict and mean as well as being sticklers for anything related to their subject. I thought he was going to be cocky and act like he knew everything. (Which it seemed like he did once I left his class at the end of the year). My sister Hilary who was a straight "A" and hardworking student had, had Mr. Cavnar the year before me had said he was a great teacher but I didn't believe her. All my English classes before this I have been informed my teachers were good beforehand to only be disappointed by how they felt to me. They were all the same teacher basically the grammar and vocabulary always dominated the class which seemed very insignificant to me. She was more suited in English than I had ever been but we always had the same teachers. Later I realized she was completely right and I should have listened to her. He seemed to know so much, which was disguised bib his eager and young demeanor. He had a certain air about him that said I know Im smart but you don't know. Lets fast forward a couple of days after the class dropping period was over. I and my friends walked into class and took our seats while Mr. Cavnar was nowhere in sight. Then the bell sounded saying class had started and here comes Mr. Cavnar just appearing out of his office talking in this confusing style of language. I was perplexed at what was going on then he dropped his style of speech and said "today class we will be discussing William Shakespeare" (who we later found out was Mr. Cavnar's area of expertise. Mr. Cavnar could have gone on for years sitting down with us talking about Shakespeare. No one had tried this approach to teaching with me before and something about it really clicked inside me. I understood exactly what he was saying. He used props and different accents to explain what he was talking about. He wasn't just telling us he had this style or used this phrasing. Mr. Cavnar taught us about the history or culture about where Shakespeare was in his time period and how people acted then. Shakespeare is so prevalent in English Education because he saw it as an art and innovated it in his work. He changed the way people

viewed English and made people look at it on a deeper level. I experience Shakespeare as a brilliant person with a drive to be the best. He nearly perfected his art and his genius was shown throughout all of his works that I read. We talked about etiquette and education during this time period. From how they didn't take baths to what people thought about Shakespeare and his group of actors. The next important moment in Mr. Cavnar's class that pertains to my literary life in a significant way is when one day he came in and asked everyone "How many of you plan to take the AP Exam? Only a few people raised their hand while most just sat there. Mr. Cavnar shook his head and said "I want every single one of you to take the exam for this class." After a few days of nagging people who then reluctantly signed up he assured us no one would fail. He went through step by step telling us what to expect. Our teacher had the dedication I have never seen before. Mr. Cavnar brought out a huge folder filled to exploding capacities with paper. He told us he hated the test and it couldnt gage our skill in English. He found a way to help us succeed so we didnt have to worry about the test and could focus on his class. Mr. Cavnar didnt want us stressing over a test he thought was ridiculous in the first place. He then went on to explain that this is a compilation of every question from every released AP English 12 test ever made. He had the percentages of how many questions of a certain type were in each year. For example many more questions were asked on Frankenstein than any other book. He then went on to talk to us about the free response section. We had just finished reading "Frankenstein" the preceding week to this massive review. Mr. Cavnar brought out free response question after free response question and showed us how to answer all questions by using only the book "Frankenstein" He literally is my favorite teacher so far in my academic career because, two weeks after our extensive review we all took the AP English test and all passed with flying colors. Mr. Cavnar's scores were the best in the whole state. He showed his pride toward our scores and what we had accomplished. He said he would prepare us and he certainly did. Our school showed much appreciation towards him and he wouldnt take any credit. He said we were the ones that accomplished this goal. All the parents in our community wanted their kids to be taught by Mr. Cavnar, because they knew by us what effect he had on the students in his class. This style of learning that he gave for us is the best style I have ever come up against and really grew in his class. He challenged us and brought the best out of us by putting himself on our level instead of putting himself above us, like most other teachers. I believe our class average was a 96. That is with 35 people in his class. He has prepared me for college because he showed me just about all the tools I need to succeed. He opened doors for me I never thought could move. My Literate life changed tenfold when I walked into the doors of his classroom. Figuratively once I entered his literal doors I opened an infinite amount of other doors for my future. Yet another example of how he had an impact on my Literary History is after the AP Exam we dove into head first life lessons. For example in time management he would give a lot of little unimportant things to do and would give us tons of deadlines to teach us what it means to be organized and keep everything straight. In a way he was strict but his strictness was directed in the sole form of preparing us as opposed to other teachers who were just strict in general with no apparent reason. Before this I had no time management skills and it showed because I was always doing things at the last minute or turning things in late. After his drills I became much more organized and readily available to devote time to getting things done. This improved my overall work because I had more time to do things which in turn enhanced my output. He also went into detail about college life and what decisions we should be making to better prepare ourselves for the world around us. Mr. Cavnar's history intertwined English class had to be the one most interesting and fulfilling classes I have ever had. He brings a new dimension then any of my other boring and tedious English classes. In my other classes it was basically straight drilling of commas apostrophes and a set form where

your creativity is stifled and your writing towards a set rubric. Mr. Cavnar believes in creativity and letting your own style form and that kind of "shell shocked" me. This got me to thinking, could all of my English classes before this show me the bad side of English at least for me. I wondered in those classes how anyone could like English and I finally figured out why they did. Don't get me wrong English isn't my favorite but, I started to enjoy it. My friends liked English better than me and both of them found a deeper quality of fondness for English. They wouldn't stop talking about the class and I couldn't either. This new found enjoyment for me in English had me remembering back in Elementary school when I would read and read and find so much enjoyment out of it. I stopped out of nowhere and suddenly out of nowhere I had an enjoyment again. Although this time I am quite busier than I was when I was younger so I couldn't read a lot. Even though I didn't have a lot of time I still read a little for example, I read the last book in the series that started with "Eragon" and I had fun reading it too. It wasn't like reading for a class where I did it because I had to. I did it then because I wanted too. If Mr. Cavnar can do that for me I had no idea of the possibilities to come about in that class because, I thought I would never read on my free time again. Another thing that was different about his class was that Mr. Cavnar talked to us like normal adult human beings and did not baby us. He didn't give us long drawn out lectures on things that really didn't pertain to us or our lives. I learned valuable life lessons. We talked about how important office hours are for us as well as our professors we will have in college. He encouraged the discussion side of literature and took what we had to say about things into strong consideration. He actually agreed with us on a lot of ideas we had like for example some symbols in the book Frankenstein like the monster killing people by strangling them really symbolizes his own feelings of being suffocated in the world around him. Mr. Cavnar taught us some valuable time management skills. He taught us things that any other high school teacher would just say that doesn't pertain to their class when in reality I became a better student all around in his class. My grades improved in other courses not just English. I thought AP English 12 was just going to be the same old story just a little harder when actually it turned into one of the most fulfilling experiences in class I never thought possible. I also recently found out Engineering has a lot more writing than I originally thought and my new outlook on English will help me tremendously in making this a smooth transition from broad schooling to specialized major work. The major conflict I experienced during this phase of my life is that I honestly thought I hated reading and writing and I probably did. All of my classes and life up until that point what lied in the center of my priorities was math and the sciences. I didn't care if I was good or even ok at English. Each English class I was just going through the motions trying to get through it but, really getting nothing out of it. I had serious problems with my attitude in English and I'm sure my teachers could tell. I dreaded going everyday probably since I started middle school (maybe even before that). I gradually worked through those problems with help from Mr. Cavnar. He encouraged my writing style and I thought of myself in a higher standard in my English from then on out. It's possible for anyone to like English they just need motivation and the right teacher like Mr. Cavnar. My friends could tell you I was the last person they would think to like English. If I had not taken this class I probably not be who I am today (at least not wholly). My liking for English has strengthened every day since I walked into his classroom on the first day. I wish he was one of my professors today. I believe all of my classmates would say the same thing. I have come to like English because of him and his teaching style. I believe over anything he has had the biggest impact that I can remember on my Literacy History. I would just like to thank Mr. Cavnar for the appreciation I have today for English. If I ever someday after I stop my job want to teach then I hope kids can see me in the

admiration that I hold Mr. Cavnar too. My enjoyment of English will surely continue to grow and it was all sparked by a high school teacher when I thought all hope was losses for me and English.