{"id":3283,"date":"2022-10-19T07:56:19","date_gmt":"2022-10-19T11:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/?p=3283"},"modified":"2022-10-19T11:40:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T15:40:26","slug":"josie-green-why-english","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/2022\/10\/19\/josie-green-why-english\/","title":{"rendered":"Josie Green: Why English?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never considered a different major for college. Since middle school, I\u2019ve figured I would continue down the path of studying English. Though I won\u2019t say there aren\u2019t other majors I can\u2019t complete, no other major <\/span>feels right, feels like me<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the few consistent interests in my life has been literature, both in school and beyond. I vividly remember reading <\/span>Divergent <\/span><\/i>by Veronica Roth in the sixth grade and being captivated by the story. This was the first instance where I read a story with characters I cared about in an environment that was so like mine in terms of societal interactions yet so different in structure. It was the first instance of me connecting with a story in a way that wasn\u2019t academic.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The upsetting ending of the series\u2013 an ending that made no sense to me based on the main character\u2019s characterization\u2013set off my interest in analyzing books and writing choices. I brainstormed alternative endings that could\u2019ve fit the storyline, and my interest in critiquing stories has continued over the years.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That same year, I felt a deep connection with books I was reading in my Language Arts class, such as <\/span>Little Women <\/span><\/i>by Louisa May Alcott and <\/span>Jane Eyre<\/span><\/i> by Charlotte Bront\u00eb<\/span>. <\/span><\/i>The classic genre was entirely new to me, but I fell in love with the strong female characters and the ways they fought back against society.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In high school, I started learning <\/span>how<\/span><\/i> those books I loved were crafted; how authors used their characters and writing techniques to create stories with meaningful plots and purposeful themes, such as <\/span>Little Women<\/span><\/i> pioneering strong heroines exposing misogyny.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My senior year, I read <\/span>Frankenstein <\/span><\/i>by Mary Shelley. I had so much fun picking apart of the characters and deciding how they functioned in the story in terms of symbolism; how the main character, Victor Frankenstein, represented the ugly and hateful aspect of humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n

With all of these novels, I was deconstructing the story, picking at the author\u2019s writing choices and figuring out how they played into the story as a whole.<\/span><\/p>\n

My interest in thinking about purposeful writing culminated in me joining my high school\u2019s newspaper. As the Co-Editor-in-Chief, I spent much of my time doing final revisions on articles before they were approved for publication. Here is where I discovered my passion for editing, specifically.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I loved breaking down the articles, looking at them from a structural standpoint and at the sentence level. Whereas I had been looking at stories from a structure standpoint in school, in journalism, I learned to adore picking apart specific word choice and sentence structure, figuring out optimal ways to tell stories while also helping the reporter stay true to their voice.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though I had no interest in pursuing journalism after high school\u2013 frankly, that scrutinized and politicized world scares me\u2013 I knew I wanted to leave my mark on the world through my writing abilities. I knew that I didn\u2019t want to give up my passion for literature. I wanted to continue reading and writing and working to polish the skills I had been building throughout high school.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I decided that majoring in English Literature would allow me to continue working on and with the elements of literature I love. Journalism was fun in high school, reporting on interesting events or students, but I am drawn more to the creative element of English Literature that I\u2019m afraid journalism will not allow me the freedom to dabble in.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The few English courses that I have taken at Ohio Wesleyan have only fueled my interest in continuing to study English at a higher level. I find myself enamored by the literature and authors I am being exposed to and drawn in by the conversations surrounding the pieces I\u2019m reading. For example, the class \u201cExploring Creative Writing\u201d offered by Professor Amy Butcher has offered me a fine balance between reading and discussing engaging stories and breaking down the story elements to apply them to my creative writing, which is a branch of English I have always been intrigued by but never had the motivation to explore. Until now.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I look forward to seeing what studying English at Ohio Wesleyan will expose me to, how it will challenge me and force me to grow as both a reader and writer. I\u2019m not sure what career path I\u2019d like to pursue, but I know I want to continue reading and writing in my daily life whether I pursue it as a job in publishing or continue it as a hobby I indulge in on the sidelines of whatever career path I take. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019ve never considered a different major for college. Since middle school, I\u2019ve figured I would continue down the path of Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2170,"featured_media":3331,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-why-english"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2170"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3283"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3357,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283\/revisions\/3357"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.owu.edu\/engblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}