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The earliest books I remember reading as a youthful child consisted of those by Dr. Seuss and Mo Willems (mainly his wide variety of Pigeon books). -
In third grade, the earliest memory I have of my first writing experience was when I wrote an informative guide about hurricanes. -
During the same year, I was exposed to slightly more mature books, consisting of classics such as The Adventures of both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. -
When I proceeded to a new school for fifth grade (Carrigan), my humanities teacher exposed me to books of historic events, mainly about war, such as The War That Saved My Life. -
In fifth grade, I was assigned to write my first biography about the famous conqueror, Leif Erikson, as well as on a copious amount of other people the same year. -
During my time at Bailey, I read many books of which I highly praise to this day, such as A Long Walk To Water, Look Both Ways, The Outsiders, and was subjected to read many classic poems by writers like Edgar Allan Poe. I also wrote many argumentative essays in the ICEE format for the first time, and was introduced to other various types of writing, including Haiku poems and memoirs. -
My freshman year at West Haven High School involved a consultation of many history novels, including All Quiet On the Western Front, Night, and even allegorical pieces like Animal Farm. As for what I wrote that year, it primarily focused on famous historical events, some of which tied in with the books I read, such as African imperialism, World Wars I and II, and the Russian Revolution. -
My sophomore year at the High School was a bit of a challenging one, as I was now reading the iconic classics of American literature and producing essays on almost all of them, such as The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, and much more. I also was assigned many essays that year from both my history and English classes on various topics, but the format remained the same for the most part.