Week 4 Autobiography: Orwell Misunderstood

When looking back at my schooled experiences with literacy, they were mostly beneficial except for my ninth grade year at San Bernardino High School. This is the only time that my schooled literacy experiences did not seem like a friend to me. This academic year was the only time that I did not finish the texts assigned to me and felt as though I could care less about the story or more importantly, what the author was trying to say. Without much reflection I figured it was just my attitude about school at the time, but now I see how influential the other factors involved were.
My English teacher also happened to be the water polo coach and it was immediately apparent that he favored his chosen sport over his teaching subject. Even his students that were on the team were favored over those who weren't. His attitude towards English affected me from the beginning even though I did not see it at the time.
My biggest failure, or should I say HIS biggest failure that year was the lack of interest in the literature. We were assigned to read George Orwell's, Animal Farm from start to finish but I had already finished after the third page! I never picked it up again. I don't ever recall being introduced to the author's background, or his purpose for writing the book which might have sparked my interest a bit more, but really, I think that I just picked up my teacher's attitude and uninterest for literature.
Usually I will not finish a book if I am completely uninterested in it, but I don't ever remember stopping after the third page. I am not interested in all the literature I have ever read, but I think this feeling was intensified by my teacher's lack of guidance and interest in his job. Today, I have yet to read this story but I wish I could have given it more of a chance. I didn't even give literature a chance to be my friend in this case and I regret this decision today, but I feel I had no one to show me how to be interested in it. This teacher had a big influence on my ninth grade literature, but not in the way I had hoped.