When I was 14 years old, I started taking a Latin course at [name of] High School. I was required to take two years of a foreign language in order to be on the college track. My Latin teacher required the students in our class to take every new vocabulary word that we learned that day and keep a spiral back notebook. We had to write the Latin word in the notebook — the new Latin word — write the definition of this word, and then find three English words derived from the Latin word. We had to write down the English word below the Latin word, define the English word, and then write a sentence correctly using the English word. I used my mother’s Webster’s Collegiate dictionary to do my assignment for Latin class. It was a wonderful assignment because that year, I tripled my vocabulary in the English language.