If there is an English teacher that would bring the most nostalgia to those of us in my class back then, it would be Mr. O’Dowd. We remember him for being a chill guy, who gave us a lot of freedom not only to mess around but also in our classwork. But the one assignment that stuck with us the most was called “Somebody Wanted But So”, or SWBS for short. In that assignment we had to read a narrative book of our choosing then write a book report about it. So it was a pain to those who didn’t like reading, despite being in 8th grade PI, but a catalyst for the rest of us who did.

To find a book to do the SWBS on, or just to read for fun, I would first scan the titles of the books on the bookshelf in the classroom for an interesting name. Once I found a particular title, I would take the book out and take a glance at the cover. Even though we’ve all been taught not to judge a book by its cover, I freely admit that I still did. I think the reason why is because the cover does give some insight to what the book is about through its art. If it looks like a certain genre, topic, or trope I’d enjoy, then I’d likely pick it up. But the last step is opening the book to a random page, just to check out the author’s writing style. It’s not spoiling if I don’t know the details behind it, that is if I even still remember what happened. But compared to some people who just skip directly to the ending to see if they like it in order to decide if it’s worth reading the entire book, I think my method was a lot more valid as a reader in regards to the writer.

After selecting a book, when the time came I would start reading it and end up binging it in only a few hours. Now just reading the book was the fun part, but writing about it would take a lot more willpower. As I continued to write the SWBS’, I slowly started to get the hang of analyzing the text. It was through this assignment where I started to appreciate the deeper meaning of the text. For realistic fiction, instead of just reading it and taking the story for what it was, I was able to pick up on more of a character’s inner personality traits than just their shallow outside self. I was also able to make bigger connections between the characters by looking into parts of their relationships. But most importantly I was able to tell the author’s purpose—what the author is trying to suggest about society and what needs to change.

The assignment also helped my journey as a writer. Looking back in 6th grade, we had an assignment called Quotes where we would have to choose a quote and write about how we related to it. It usually had to deal with a life lesson and I would have to think of a personal experience where it would apply. For the most part it was just writing about what happened in a life story and not much analysis about the quote itself or about my personal experience. So when I read the papers I wrote for the sake of nostalgia, there was a clear difference between my writing capability compared to when I wrote the SWBS’. The SWBS’ introduced me to the paragraph format where you would have a topic sentence, context, evidence, and then reasoning. That later translated to the timed writings I had in that class for various short stories. Even though I struggled to finish on time and I still do, in hindsight it would be essential for my academic writing in high school. So no matter how much I memed on Mr. O’Dowd, in the end I have him to thank for growing my writing ability.