Fear And Failure Analysis

Fear and Failure: How I Earned an ‘F’ in English I can’t remember a time in my life when the shelves in my room weren’t overflowing with books. Over nineteen years, I curated a collection of books, such as references, plays, anthologies, etc. In addition, there are folders full of PDF files covering topics like the commodification of culture to the philosophy behind horror movies in my laptop. Reading and writing has always been a way to explore my love of learning. In theory, school should have been one of my favorite places, or I should have liked it more than the average person at least. I wanted to like English classes; I really did. However, I hated them. I hated doing worksheets. I hated memorizing where commas went. Most of all,

Out loud the concepts discussed in class didn’t seem as intimidating, so I wasn’t as afraid to be told that I was incorrect. I saw that I was raising my hand to contribute more than I was to move the class along. Even more shocking, I realized I cared about the texts I was reading. From dissecting the revivalist movement’s religious propaganda to drawing comparisons to the witch trials and the red scare, I was finally understanding how these pieces of literature reflected and shaped my country’s current atmosphere. These pieces weren’t just assigned to fill out a lesson plan, but to also serve as way to show us the zeitgeist of the era in which they were written. Authors were not being hailed as literary geniuses because they wrote a book we still read today; instead, Mr. Saldivar encouraged us to be critical of the themes, imagery and word choices they implemented throughout their

I’d like to be able to say that I went through the rest of the school year without a hitch and earned an A. I didn’t. My apparent lack of motivation was just the beginning of my problems. Even with the pressure of not wanting disappoint Saldivar again, I still struggled to write. Not wanting me to fail a second semester, he made all my assignments due at the end of the term with reduced credit. I couldn’t understand myself. Why would I wait? Why would I let myself fail?

My English classes going forward caused similar stress, but it was never anything like Saldivar. That became my motivation. Nothing was as difficult as writing eleven essays for Saldivar in two nights. The grading was never as demanding. My teachers weren’t looking for these large-scale concepts, but I still wrote as if I were getting my essay critiqued in class the next day. Saldivar’s standard became my