A Passion for Writing
Carroll, Antonio (2009-04-28)
>>ANTONIO CARROLL: Hi, my name is Antonio Carroll and I want to tell you a little bit about my literary story. My mother was a fifth grade teacher so quite naturally, around the house she always had some kind of books. For me, as a child, she had Little Golden Books. They told all the little stories and that is when I began to have a passion for reading. From that passion for reading, my mother began to teach me how to read and write. I began to feel what it was like to be a writer. She would talk to me about my writing and tell me there is more than just hand writing, that is has to be with content and what you are writing about and how that influences you. 
>>ANTONIO CARROLL: When I was in the fifth grade I got a chance to go to the library. We had a small school. One book that stuck out to me, that I decided to read, was a huge book. I only picked it up off the shelf because it was large and I wanted to see if I could complete the task of reading it. It was Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. I read the book and it took me a long time to read it. But I did some research afterwards and I asked my fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Lawson, could she help me with it. So what happened, we began to cover the slavery movement and the Civil War. We talked about how influential this book was in stirring up the passion for the Civil War. That began to mull my mind about how writing is, how influential it is and how you can use that passion for writing to express yourself. 
>>ANTONIO CARROLL: Now, to fast forward to when I was a senior in high school. In Arkansas they consolidated the small schools and I lost my small school. I was very, very angry about this consolidation and this anger was fueled in my spirit and soul about it. When I got to my freshman composition class I wrote about it. I look back on that paper 44 years later as I begin to graduate college, and I see I was a very angry individual. But it showed me that when you write, you can write about your passions and you can write about what motivates you. That motivated me and has driven me throughout college. 
>>ANTONIO CARROLL: One thing before I take it away is that also as a freshman I wrote a story about my uncle who served in World War II at the Battle of Okinawa. You know, when I was writing this assignment I wrote it and I enjoyed learning more about my uncle. But I didn't know the impact it would have over these forty years. This past February, my uncle passed away at the ripe old age of 84, and I was so glad I could look back on his story through my literary writing. So, literacy is important and writing is important. If you can take anything away from that, it is just let literature and writing be your passion. When it is your passion, you can always learn something from it. Thank you.