PR The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and the Experience of Memorizing

When I first started reading The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, I never thought I would have to memorize ballads from it later on. The story follows an ancient mariner who tells a story to a wedding guest who is stopped by his frightening glare. Before this, I had never thought of reading ballads as an actual form of reading. However, it was not as bad as I believed it would be. I greatly admired how each line was spaced enough to make me feel like I wasn’t reading a story at all, but a text message on my phone instead. The text itself, as could be expected in a Mr. Macknight classroom, did not make sense at all, which also made it considerably more exhausting to memorize. Also, the fact that we were forced to recite it afterward in front of our classmates made me and many others who struggle with public speaking not want to step foot in Brookes Westshore at all. Overall I’m not mad or sour over my grade I just don’t understand how making children feel bad in front of all their classmates relates to English or helps us in my future paths to greatness.