Mrs. Carnell

By Howard Hughes, Grade 12

For my school career I have struggled with English more than any other subject I have taken. Ever since I was in elementary school when we learned about verbs and adverbs I knew that English was not my strongest subject. 

This all changed when I enrolled in Mrs. Carnell’s composition class. My first day in her composition class is something I will never forget. My first impression of Mrs. Carnell was that she was this super sweet middle aged mom who actually cares about how her students are doing. I was ecstatic to learn that my assumptions had been correct when she told us all she cared about was that we tried in our writing pieces rather than how or what they were about. 

I remember one of the first writing exercises she had us do was putting a six word motivational quote on a piece of paper (mine obviously being the best) that would then be put on the walls of her classroom. This helped me start to get over my fear of what other people thought of my writing and taught me to just go for it. 

If I had to pick a few words to describe Mrs. Carnell’s teaching, they would be “Try, try, try”. Effort is the most important tool you can utilize when you walk through the door to her classroom. This not only helped me with writing, but with other obstacles I would face in my life. 

One of the most important pieces of writing that you will complete if you take Mrs. Carnell’s composition class will be your college essay or one version of your college essay. When I first found out about writing the essay I had no clue what I was going to write about and was even considering not giving all that much effort, but during one of the discussions about what to write about in our essay Mrs. Carnell told us “The worst thing you can do is not try.” With this mentality I was able to complete my college essay that I wouldn’t have been able to submit without Mrs. Carnell’s help.

These words would come to help me so much when I would write because at the end of the day as long as I was putting words on a piece of paper or an online doc I was writing and that was all that mattered. It was due to this that I felt I really thrived in her class when it came to writing and I overall became a better writer. Overall, I believe that Mrs. Carnell is deserving of the educator of the year award because without her I would not even be close to the writer I am today.