I’ll take a second helping of frees, please

Aidan Sprouls ’23 Web Opinions Editor

Growing up, I always struggled with writing.

I remember my parents sitting down with me to read every elementary school essay, marking my mistakes with a blue pen and making me go back to rewrite my piece.

is began to change in my sophomore year as I signed myself up for English Honors, joined Inklings and took Myth and Bible Honors during my junior year. With con dence from completing these classes, I ambitiously signed myself up for AP Literature lled with excitement for the challenges ahead.

is excitement quickly dissipated after the rst writing prompt, as I somehow missed that the wind in the short story was racist. I had personally never realized that a force of nature could harbor such insidious feelings, and after hearing that statement from my teacher, I realized that many underlying themes in texts go over my head and I only had one thought: I have to drop this class.

is was the rst time I had even considered dropping a class in my academic career, as I had always held myself to the highest standards and believed that dropping a class was just as bad as failing it. Immediately after dropping the class for a free period, I felt a burden lift o of my shoul-