I remember sitting in an often dim, slightly damp, and strangely quiet English classroom during my 10th grade year. My teacher, Mr. Chandler, sat behind an oversized desk placed in the front of the room; he was middle aged, but his weathered face made him look much older. Each crease around his eyes and mouth deepened as he gave a look of contemplative thought when faced with a question. Looking back now, it was oddly appropriate that his favorite book was The Old Man and the Sea, and he so resembling Hemingway.
It was in this classroom that I learned about the limitless possibilities entrenched in literature. In Mr. Chandler’s classroom it was okay to write an essay of varying opinion as long as you could prove your argument. It was in this peculiar room that I learned the basics of writing a well-constructed academic essay. It was in this classroom that Romeo and Juliet came alive, that A Brave New World opened the doors to idealism, and that The Old Man and the Sea illustrated to me the beauty and strength of the written word. And it was in this classroom that my life was changed. I found that literature provided a wealth of knowledge and keen insight into other lives as well as my own.
-- Jennifer Sherman, Florida Atlantic University