Hold the Drama

Think for a moment about any break up song that Taylor Swift has ever written and a five-year-old beauty queen from Toddlers and Tiaras. That is about the level of drama that I was bringing to the table as a sixth grader at a small Catholic school in my hometown of New Castle, Pennsylvania. St. Vitus School had at most 150 students, with my class being made up of five children. Up until this point, the only thing I had ever written had been three paragraph essays with exactly one topic sentence, three detail sentences, and one concluding sentence in each paragraph. Those were the golden days when writing a mere fifteen sentences could grant you an “A+” on an assignment because it was almost impossible to receive anything lower than a “C.” This, of course, did wonders for my ego and I thought that I was the best thing since sliced bread. These easy assignments led me to believe that I could get away with doing minimal work. 

Looking back, I now believe that this mindset was a result of two things: my own pre-adolescent dramatics and encounters with uninspiring sponsors of literacy. Deborah Brandt is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison who has researched and written extensively about literacy and the factors that affect it (Downs and Wardle 68). She defines sponsors of literacy as, “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy — and gain advantage by it in some way (Brandt 72).” This means that everyone has had someone or something in their life who has played a role in impacting his or her literacy in either a positive or negative way. I did not truly have a positive experience with a literacy sponsor until I went into the sixth grade.

In sixth grade, my English teacher was named Mrs. Pisano and she was the kind of person that birds would follow if she sang. She allowed my class to cover her room in ridiculous drawings and sayings that were less than brilliant. My contribution to this was a drawing of a zebra cheating on a test and a cheetah saying, “don’t be a cheating cheetah,” which I think we all can agree makes almost no sense. I mention this just to showcase how difficult the feat of turning us into intelligent human beings would be for this teacher. I did not realize this at the time, but that year would turn out to be one of the most formative of my education. 

In one of our first classes, Mrs. Pisano told us that we would complete one major assignment by the end of the year. We would work on a research paper that had to be at least two pages and in proper MLA format. With this paper, we needed to follow the process of writing note cards, source cards, and an outline. If I were a spectator in the room at the time, I’m almost positive that I would have been able to hear five little heart rates accelerate to the point of full panic as the talk progressed. I can’t really speak for my other classmates, but I know that I was sitting there with a million questions, such as, “what even is MLA?”, “can someone really talk for two whole pages?”, and “what can I even write about?” 

This is the part when me being a dramatic human being comes back into play. I would go home after school for weeks and just lament the fact that I had to do a research paper, but I wouldn’t actually work on it. The other issue was that my pride was getting in the way and I was too embarrassed to ask for help. I remember that two weeks before our paper was due, our teacher took us to the computer lab every day to work. One day, she noticed that I was spinning mindlessly in my swivel chair and decided to come over to talk to me.

“Emily, you look confused. What do you need help with?” she said with a kind smile and I knew that I could no longer let my ego get in the way of my school work.

Now I don’t remember exactly what was said, but, knowing my sixth-grade self, it was probably something like, “I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m a failure. I will never succeed in life and will probably die alone.” 

I thought she would respond by yelling at me or making an example out of me in front of the whole class, but she didn’t. Instead, she calmly told me that I wasn’t a failure, I just needed to ask for help. One area that I needed help with was feeling connected to my topic. I can’t remember what my original topic was, but I do remember that it bored me to tears. Mrs. Pisano told me to scratch that idea and to pick something that I was passionate about. With that, my eyes widened, and my brain lit up with excitement. I decided to write about my favorite place on the planet, Kennywood Park.

Mrs. Pisano walked away from my computer, and my fingers began to type swiftly. I flipped through pages and pages of Google results, completely enamored by the amount of information that I could find. I was learning about the history of the park, the mechanics behind the rides, and the process of employing the park’s performers. It made me feel even more connected to a place that I already loved so much. I sat there searching for more information until I was interrupted by a loud, “RING!” For the first time, I was actually sad that class was over. 

However, the search did not end there. I went home that day, went straight to my family computer, and worked for the remainder of the night. Once I gathered all of my research, I found it easy to prepare my note cards and source cards. From my note cards and source cards, I wrote my outline, and from that, I wrote my paper. I realized that the process that she wanted us to go through was not so hard after all. All I had to do was start somewhere, and after that, everything fell into place. Of course, I didn’t do all of that in one night, but it was that first night of work that really guided me to my goal of a finished paper.

When the due date arrived, I was ready to turn in a piece of work that I had put a substantial amount of time and effort into. This was the first time that I put that kind of effort into an assignment, and therefore, was the first time that I was ever truly proud of something that I created. Grinning from cheek to cheek, I set my paper down in the turn-in tray and returned to my seat. Up until this point in my education, whenever I would turn something in, I would be extremely anxious to find out what my grade was. However, this time was different. I felt so accomplished, that a letter grade would not have been able to take away my joy.

In analyzing this story now, I can see that Mrs. Pisano was one of my prime sponsors of literacy. I already knew how to read and to write, but that wasn’t enough. Mrs. Pisano taught me more than what was written in the curriculum. She taught me how to be engaged in the writing process, instead of being afraid of it. She taught me how to break my bad habit of procrastination, instead of letting it control me. She taught me how to realize that no one can be perfect, instead of feeling like a failure.

I think of the advice Mrs. Pisano gave me so long ago quite often. Every time I feel like an assignment, or really any new task, is out of my reach, I can hear her kind voice saying, “take everything one step at a time, and don’t be afraid to ask for help.” I actually thought about her right before I sat down to write this very essay. It just shows the impact that positive literacy sponsorship can have on a person’s life. Mrs. Pisano gave me the tools I needed in order to be successful in writing, and also, in life. I will be forever grateful for the advice she gave me, and I am confident that it will help throughout the remainder of my journey.

Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing About Writing: a College Reader, 3rd ed., edited by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2017, pp. 70-99