The Power of Choice

Up until my junior year in high school I saw essay writing to be a necessary evil. Required writing was tedious and pointless in my mind so the concept of even enjoying it a little was ridiculous to me. However, when I was first given the option to choose my essay topic, a whole new world of possibilities opened up to me. Before my junior year I already knew that I found my English classes to be easier than the rest of my classes, but it wasn’t until I found a teacher who I could relate to that I actually enjoyed them. The first thing my junior year English teacher did on the first day of class was introduce himself and provide us with some knowledge about his past. It turned out that teaching was not his first choice. In fact his initial dream was to become an actor and he went to an acting school in New York for a few years prior to changing his mind. A light bulb turned bright on in my mind that day. I had finally found a teacher who was like me, one who wanted to become an actor as well. Opportunities presented themselves immediately, not only could this teacher understand me, but for the first time I could write about my passion for an adult who would truly understand it and not think it was just a pipe dream, or cute.

Perhaps it was the fact that I was finally tuned in to what a teacher was saying in class, but I did surprisingly well in English that year. I enjoyed the reading, while always visualizing the novels characters on stage and myself in my favorite role. I began giving presentations on books as if the classroom was my stage and not just a torture chamber. The best part of the class though was the first time I wrote a true research paper. Our teacher told us to choose a person, alive or dead, that we admired and to write a five page paper about them. Being prone to my musical theater obsession, and at that particular time the musical “Chicago”, I chose to write about the shows choreographer, Bob Fosse. I had recently seen a musical based on his dance style, and which was named after him, and I loved it. So I chose to research and write about Bob Fosse, and as I researched two things ran through my mind constantly: (1) My teacher will really enjoy reading my paper, because of our mutual theatrical passion, and (2) I better write a really good paper, because my teacher probably knows more about my subject than I can research about. After all Bob Fosse is one of the top three great names in musical theater choreography, so my teacher was bound to know him.

I researched and researched for this paper, and I must have edited it at least ten times. When I turned it in I had the best grade in the class, and after a final edit (allowed to the class), I had achieved full points on the biggest project of junior year English. I found myself helping my fellow students with grammatical errors and phrasing choices in their essays without knowing what I was doing. My teacher even asked to keep my paper to use as an example in classes he would have for the following years. With the ability to choose my writing topic and a little understanding from my teacher I excelled that year and realized two things: (1) It is okay if I want to be an actor today and later choose to be a teacher, and (2) I really liked the idea of becoming the latter.