Mrs. Wilson And A Daydreaming Student
There are some teachers you don’t forget. Dee Wilson was one of those for me.
She was my eighth grade English teacher. (Highland Park friends!!) Mrs. Wilson had us writing five part essays every week. I had no idea what a five part essay was. I hardly had five independent thoughts. I probably had less than five working brain cells. I know my attention span often didn’t get to five minutes.
But there I was, every week, writing that five part essay well into the night before it was due on Friday. I chewed the tops of many pencils trying to figure out what on Earth to do.
Mrs. Wilson taught us how to write those introductory statements, she taught us how to organize a paper, make a point, write a conclusion, stick to the topic, and not blather on and on. I often had a lot of red ink on my paper when she was done with it, and I did not always get A’s. But I read the suggestions and learned from them.
You can imagine how happy I was when Mrs. Wilson came to one of my panels at the Tucson Book Festival this last weekend as I talked about my books and writing. As she was also a very, very close friend of my late mother, Bette Straight, who was an English teacher alongside Dee for years, this was an extra special visit for me.
Mrs. Wilson, you were one hell of a teacher. And yes, I know you would have told me not to use the word ‘hell’ in any of my essays, but you really were. You were a gifted teacher and helped me enormously on my road to becoming a writer. Thank you, truly. It was wonderful to see you.
Glad you could have such a great teacher, we need more of those, but there always seems to be some!
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