Personal statement extract- English Literature and Creative Writing

 As a literature student, I believe that not only do we have a duty to examine the world around us, but also to make it into a better place. The transformative powers of literature and words are what motivates me to study them; stories are, in my opinion, an integral part of what makes us human.At a young age, I was identified as being Gifted or Talented in Literacy; I am now a passionate and enthusiastic English student, who actively seeks to discover new ideas through literature. Alongside my studies, I completed an Extended Essay comparing Poe's The Raven and Max Porter's novel Grief is the Thing with Feathers. This project enabled me to develop independent research skills which are invaluable in higher education, and to use evidence based critical thinking that I may not otherwise have been able to do in school.I aspire to go into a career that involves writing; however, I also believe that to become great writers, we must first become great readers. I consider myself to be a well-read individual, with an interest in a huge variety of diverse authors and texts, from Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which gave me a greater understanding of multiculturalism in British society, to Orwell's 1984, which shaped my view on world governments. Reading a variety of texts has helped me to be an inquisitively minded student who is fascinated by the world and what we can learn from it.