Personal Letter Isn’t so Personal (Final)
The idea of writing yourself a personal letter, forgetting about it, and then having it sent to you later in life is something that many people have experience with (it’s also currently pretty much the closest thing we have to time travel, which is definitely cool). However, this idea may begin to lose its personal and meaningful touch when said letter is no longer private and is being graded.
Stephanie Martz is a student at Western Washington University who will now never receive this memento from the past. In her senior year of high school, one of Stephanie’s AP teachers decided to not only grade a “dear future me” letter for participation, but also as a genuine grade. When the teacher sent out a vague recap of the assignment afterwards, a non-specific (but obviously targeted, according to Martz) and sarcastic comment about a corny joke in one of the letters hurt and was taken personally by Martz. When asked how she coped with the embarrassment and other emotions of being called out in such a way, Martz stated that “I coped with it by trying to erase that assignment from my life. Deleting the word document, not turning in the letter, not thinking or talking about it ever again, as if it didn’t happen or didn’t exist. It was just too painful to have any reminders of her snide comments”. She also said that she didn’t remember what the corny joke actually was, but that “The joke was basic and not offensive in any way. I think it just was breaking the mold on [the teachers’] serious, no-joke, academic, writing that she hailed as the best ever… This could contribute to my joke coming across as not caring about the assignment possibly, but I’m not sure”.
Later in Martzs’ interview, she was asked if she regretted writing her letter, if her writing is now affected by the experience, or if she’d feel differently about the situation if the teacher had reacted in a different way. Contrary to what one may expect after hearing of how Martz was affected, she responded by saying that “I would like to say I would never have written that joke to avoid the hurt feelings and embarrassment, but in reality, that’s not the case. I wouldn’t change anything because like most events in life, it was a learning moment. It taught me that the things I value in my writing style did not coincide with that of my teacher or the AP rules. It also was a moment where I realized that I have been so hard on myself and my writing for not getting better essay grades and that was just one way of writing that won’t apply to me outside the high school environment, if that makes sense. This was just one teachers’ opinion and that did not reflect my writing ability as a whole, basically”. Paraphrasing, Martz also said that the experience has affected her writing, but not in the way one might expect. She says that now, she allows her personality and her humor to shine through even more than before due to the AP writing restrictions being gone and her understanding that one person’s opinion doesn’t change her, either as a writer or a person.
This interview was conducted after Martz had addressed the situation in an essay about literacy sponsorship. As an article on katiesolomon.wordpress.com defines, “Literacy sponsors support uses of literacy in ways that are beneficial to them, either politically or economically. These literacy sponsors influence people who are desire to use their literacy skills daily”. Due to the nature of the situation and the emotions attached regarding the letter, I asked Martz why this teacher is considered a literary sponsor when she negatively impacted Martz at the time and embarrassed her over some stupid corny joke. She answered by saying that “I think anyone or anything that impacted your writing or changed the way you view writing is a sponsor. You can always learn from positive sponsors, but there is also much to learn from
negative sponsors too. You learn what you don’t like, and you learn to forge your own ideas and beliefs that differ from said sponsor”. As the one interviewing Martz, her response honestly kind of opened my eyes and broadened my idea of what a literary sponsor is or what they can be. Not every single interaction that you may or may not have with someone is going to be positive, and academic situations are no exception. Teachers are obviously there to provide insight and education, but they’re also people at the end of the day. They’re going to have emotions about people, and they could hate someone just as easily as anyone else could. I don’t think that Martz’s teacher hated her or intentionally meant to hurt her in any way (and I think she’d agree), but there’s stuff to be learned from negative experiences and the bad in life. It’s not all sunshine and cupcakes and rainbows, but that should be okay. That’s just reality.
Memo: Both my professor and my peers suggested no revisions to this article, due to the fact that I completely spaced, forgot about, and didn’t go to the scheduled meeting with my professor (which I take full responsibility for) and the fact that I was having issues with my Internet connection on the day that peer review took place (which is out of my power). That being said, I hope the article is still enjoyed.
