For a lot of students, high school graduation seems so far away; and in some cases, students don’t acknowledge how quickly time flies past them until they realize they’re in a cap and gown, with a diploma, and need to seriously think about what they want to do with themselves in post-high school life, whether if it is immediately applying to colleges or plunging into the working class at a job of their choice.

We have already completed one month of the school year…and more quicker than you can imagine we will be anxiously waiting for the final bell dismissal on the last day of school.

To help the students prepare for this transition into adulthood, junior and senior English teachers try to teach students good habits that will help them be successful in the future such as: late-night studying, group discussions and making flashcards.

Much of these techniques to studying can be applied for good use during the semester and cumulative school finals, as well as the dreadful SAT.

Even though typical studying tricks are useful for trivial things like vocabulary quizzes, it may serve little to no purpose when students, the seniors especially, have to highlight their writing skills and their individual personalities when writing essays for college applications.

Some students are truly timid and horrified at the thought of becoming an adult and moving on from their high school lives. However, the English teachers try to appease this fear by providing words of wisdom and sharing stories from when they were young to help students understand the heart of the lesson, or how Mr. Brown puts it, the real “meat and potatoes.”

Mr. Brown and other teachers alike, can successfully evoke a mentoring relationship with students and are able to help them grow as people and individuals. “From a bystander’s view, [Mr. Brown’s class] seems chaotic, but when you get thrown into the mix, you realize it makes perfect sense,” Quinn James (12) said.