does not teach Helen the theory without the reality; "everything that could hum, or buzz, or sing, or bloom had a part in my education."

Miss Sullivan comes from a lowly background and she has had her own difficulties. Having previously had an operation to restore her sight, she is partially sighted herself and this ensures that she never takes anything for granted. This contributes to her own appreciation of her surroundings and she wants to share everything with Helen, realizing that Helen will learn best from personal interaction with her subjects wherever possible. She even teaches Helen geography by taking her to Keller's Landing and making clay maps and using pebbles to construct miniature dams. Helen knows that it is Miss Sullivan's methods and dedication, her "genius" that have made her teaching so interesting and that have made Helen's "first years of my education so beautiful." 

Anne Sullivan, who overcame severe adversity as the child of poor Irish immigrants, including near blindness and consignment to a poor house, became Helen Keller's teacher, mentor and lifelong friend. In Keller's idealized telling, Sullivan was the sun around which Helen revolved, and was tirelessly hardworking, persevering, loyal, protective and loving toward her pupil. So profound was Sullivan's effect on Keller's life that Keller described it in spiritual terms:

Thus I came up out of Egypt and stood before Sinai, and a power divine touched my spirit and gave it sight, so that I beheld many wonders. And from the sacred mountain I heard a voice which said, "Knowledge is love and light and vision."

She brought, Keller said, "the light of love."

Sullivan persevered with Keller even after the child angrily broke a doll at her feet, and later persevered in teaching Keller to speak and write:

But for Miss Sullivan's genius, untiring perseverance and devotion, I could not have progressed as far as I have toward natural speech. ...

Had it not been for the persistent encouragement of Miss Sullivan, I think I should have given up trying to write altogether.

Everywhere Keller went, from the World's Fair to schools, Miss Sullivan was at her side. When Keller went to the "Cambridge School:"

Each day Miss Sullivan went to the classes with me and spelled into my hand with infinite patience all that the teachers said. In study hours she had to look up new words for me and read and reread notes and books I did not have in raised print. The tedium of that work is hard to conceive.

Mr. Anagnos, director of the Perkins Institute for the blind, also attested to Sullivan's hard work and perseverance:

  "She was obliged to begin her education at the lowest and most elementary point; but she showed from the very start that she had in herself the force and capacity which insure success.... She has finally reached the goal for which she strove so bravely.

Others who watched Miss Sullivan with Helen at various noted the way she protected her charge from "unkind" comments.

Miss Sullivan's loyalty was remarkable. She seemed seldom to stray from her student's side and knew her mind so well that observers saw their communication as almost telepathic. Helen Keller could not have been more fortunate in a teacher: Sullivan, who suffered from the disability of poor eyesight and who had been formed in the crucible of poverty, understood Helen's need for love and had the perseverance to teach her. 

To write a character sketch of Miss Sullivan based on The Story of My Life, you will mainly have to focus on a short portion of her life.  Miss Sullivan entered Helen's life when she was twenty and her pupil was nearly seven.  Helen's autobiography ended less than twenty years after that.

Anne Sullivan's mother died when she was a child, and her father left her and her younger brother. She and her brother were sent to live at the Tewksbury Almshouse, shortly after, her brother died. Miss Sullivan contracted trachoma when she was a young girl, which caused her to lose much of her eyesight. She was eventually able to go to the Perkins School for the Blind, where she received an education. During her time at Perkins she received multiple surgeries that ended up improving her eyesight. Sullivan stayed at Perkins until she took the position as Helen Keller's teacher.

Due to Miss Sullivan's determination, Helen was able to learn how to communicate.  The devoted teacher patiently spelled letters into her young pupil's palm.  It was in this way that Helen learned how to read.  Miss Sullivan stayed with Helen as she went to a boarding school, and then on to college.  Miss Sullivan always assisted Helen.  Though Miss Sullivan was Helen's companion and teacher for the rest of her life, The Story of My Life ends when her pupil is in college.

The Story of My Life is Helen Keller's autobiography.  She wrote the book to record the events of her life up until she was in her early twenties and in college.  Annie Sullivan arrived in Alabama to be Helen's teacher and companion when Helen was six-years-old.  This time period means that only about fifteen years of Annie Sullivan's life are covered in the book, which I detail below.

Anne Mansfield Sullivan was sent to Alabama from the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston.  Helen described the day that Annie Sullivan arrived as "the most important day [she could] remember in all [her] life."  Ms. Sullivan was determined to teach and train Helen.  She found this challenge to be more than she had expected because of Helen's extreme stubbornness.  After many attempts to teach Helen the manual alphabet by fingerspelling into her palm, they had a breakthrough moment.  One day, Annie Sullivan led Helen to a water pump and let the water flow over her student's hand while spelling the word into her palm.  Helen described that moment in her autobiography, saying that she "knew then that 'w-a-t-e-r' meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over [her] hand."  From this time on, Helen became an eager learner.  Miss Sullivan was Helen's teacher and her companion.  She accompanied Helen as she travelled, met famous people, and attended school.  Annie Sullivan supported Helen and continued to communicate with her using the manual alphabet while Helen went to high school and college.