I grew up listening to my parents speak in our Native language, Ukrainian. My parents were very worried that coming to America would make their children forget their culture and their language so at home my siblings and I were only allowed to speak in Ukrainian. My older sisters learned to speak English at school and when I was five they began to teach me it as well. It was difficult learning the language of this country from a seven and nine year old who were just becoming familiar with it themselves. When I entered kindergarten I had some problems speaking in English so I was placed in a special program for children that did not know English well. So everyday I would go to a counselor for two to three hours and she would help me with my English. Once I reached elementary school, I was fluently speaking in English but I still had problems writing in English, so once again, I was placed in a writing program designed specifically for students having trouble with English. …show more content…
I now have a hard time making my words flow and my paragraph focused. When comparing my writing to “Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay” I noticed that I have many errors in my writing. My paragraphs lack focus and a clear purpose. I need to analysis my evidence more as I sometimes forget to do so. I believe that I make a strong argument but the argument often needs more development. In terms of the lower order of concerns, I have trouble placing my commas and using the correct verb tense. I also find it difficult to be objective; I find it impossible because I wrote it. My biggest problem is probably my tendency to procrastinate which doesn’t allow me the time that I need to go over my work and revise it. I believe that with more time to revise I would be able to make my writing as strong as the writing that is present in “Unteaching the Five-Paragraph
When I read “Proficiency” by Shannon Nichols I really felt for her. I understood and resonated with her story perfectly, especially when she stated “After I failed the test the first time, I began to hate writing and I started to doubt myself. I doubted my ability and the ideas I wrote about.” (83). After I failed my writing assignment I was so embarrassed and didn’t want to write again but obviously, I had to. I always doubt the things I am going to say or which order I am going to organize the essay in. I try so hard to make sure all my sentences are cohesive and all my ideas connect to each other and the main concept but sometimes it just seems that when I keep messing with one little sentence or paragraph I just makes things worse.
In an excerpt of Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay," Marie Foley reveals how the Five-Paragraph Essay formula contradicts writing instructor's most basic goals. Foley shows that the formula deters from generating individual thinking. In today's society, essays are used by millions of people in order to express their different ideas. The Five-Paragraph Essay formula was originally developed to help retain the efficiency and clarity of the essay. Foley, however, believes that this process eventually separates the student from his or her written expression and should be used only as a first step tool for beginning student writers. Foley insists that the formula blocks discovery, squelches authenticity and undermines the reader's need for coherence. Foley shows that patterns of organization and more natural thinking can benefit the student.
One of the biggest weaknesses I have is not being able to transition from paragraphs effectively. In the Lord of the Flies and Asher Lev essays, I did not create a good flow through the essay, making it sort of choppy. I can improve this by increasing my knowledge of transition words and not expanding ideas too much. Also I have to work on slowing down my pace with writing and watch out for grammar mistakes. A way I could improve this is learning the placement of quotations in sentences, that they should be after a period in some cases. Another idea that I have to improve on is choosing the best evidence for my claim. In the Lord of the Flies essay, I had not chose the best evidences and it did not effectively show examples of the claim. I have to learn how to pick evidence that best suits my point of the argument and that I can tie in with my
For as long as I can remember learning how to read and write was a real challenge for me. When I first arrived in the United States I was enrolled at the nearby elementary school. Being from another country I was scared and embarrassed because I was different then the other children in my class. Talking and communicating with others was something that wasn't in the interest of what I wanted to do. I sat far away from others depriving myself of what they were doing or learning. Coming from Mexico and going to a school where no other children would speak the same language that I would or even play the way I did made me believe that I was some sort of thing that didn't belong. All these contributed to a low esteemed child that was unable to communicate. The world I was in suddenly became a place that I didn't know. To the kids and others in my class I was an illiterate person.
Writing has always been challenging for me because of the complexity of multiple rules. In the beginning of the semester I constantly worried about the structure of my writing and its overall material. In high school it was important for me to complete my essays by answering the questions that I was given, but in college, students go more into depth such as focusing in grammar, and well structured ideas that flow along with rich analytical content. After given my first assignment I was pushed to improve my overall work by focusing on organization and thinking more analytically. For example, the weekly readings and writing assignments helped me improve my overall work. Later on, these two techniques, organizing and analyzing work were useful
During my kinder year, I was put into an after school program type. I had to stay in the classroom, after every child had gone home, watching educational videos that helped me learn English. Sometimes the teacher would sit with me and read books to me. She would point out a word in the book and pronounced it slowly so I would be able to capture her mouth movement. Other days she would make me write basic words to learn to pronounce and write them. It was a lot of work for me to learn the standard English everyone knows. When I was in elementary school, no one at home knew English, so I would have to stay after class to ask for help when trying to do my homework. My sister assisted the same school I did, and she too had to stay after class, when school was over. It was very hard for my sister and me at first, but we both overcame our
When I turned eight, I discovered that English was an essential tool in my life, and no longer resent from it. As a Hmong child to three siblings and a single mother, it is tradition for a male descent such as me to firmly hold onto my roots. After my parents were divorced, my family lived in poverty. My mother spoke in broken English, and she had trouble finding ways to meet our needs. We were very limited to education. My siblings
In the essay, Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay, Foley Marie expresses her discontent with the way that the five-paragraph technique hinders preparation for the real world. The five-paragraph formula remains alive and strong in many schools preparing students for college and even in some colleges. Teachers are forced to teach an overwhelming number of students in our overcrowded school systems. The simple formula that the format brings is too tempting to pass up when teaching such numbers. Professors, such as Foley Marie, must spend time on correcting the the misled student’s writing skills to not revolve around the format. The format handicaps a student’s growth in ideas. The widely taught ,”structure invites students to fill the five slots
When I first came to this country, I wasn’t thinking about the language, how to learn it, use it, write, how I’m going to speak with people who are next to you and you want to talk to them. My first experience was in Veterans School, it was my first year in school here in United States, and I was in eight grades. The first day of school you were suppose to go with your parent, especially if you were new in the school, like me. What happened was that I didn’t bring my dad whit me, a woman was asking me a lot of questions and I was completely loss, I didn’t have any idea of what she was telling me and I was scare. One funny thing, I started cry because I fell like frustrate, I didn’t know no one from there. Someone seat next to me, and ask me in Spanish what was wrong and I just say in my mind thanks God for send me this person, then I answered her that I didn’t know Engl...
In my summer, timed writing piece I was very brief and uninformative. I was writing just to finish the essay rather than write a good piece for someone to read. Such as, “Finny struggles believing that Gene did this to him”. I could have written it as, Finny struggled to understand why Gene would do something like that to him, and even denies that he did it in the first place. There was a lot I could have fixed in that essay, but I chose not to because I didn’t want to spend any more time on it. In my most recent timed writing my word choice is limited and is only written to get my point across “People are naturally kind creatures. We are social beings who can share things and not fight all the time.”. I don’t have any evidence to back this statement up and I could have made it flow better. Throughout the year I seemed to get better in some places and get worse in the places where I already was good at. Timeliness was also something I struggled with throughout the year and I am very thankful for all the extensions I got and for Mrs Moore to be so understanding. I think I may have grown a little bit now that I think about it more, but I still think I can do
Moving to a different country was very difficult. It can be a very stressful experienced. Everything is unfamiliar: from language, weather, food, and fashion, to values and customs. Learning a new language is what I considered to be the hardest part of adjustment. Before I came to United States, I already know how to speak the language, English, but it was not that perfect. I remember those days where people would laugh at me because of my broken English. My pronunciation and grammar were not perfect. I had to take English as a Second Language courses for three semesters. After taking English courses, I started taking college courses at Eastern Florida State of College. I was only 16 years old when I started going to EFSC. I was very nervous
I was terrified and isolated, since I was concerned of my English skill that I wouldn’t able to communicate to others and make friends, and I didn’t know anyone in my school. I endured the difficulties, after I challenged myself to speak up. I began to make several friends from different countries and enjoy the school life of America. I didn’t have any trouble to fuse into the American culture because I had experienced in different countries’ culture. My family used to move around from countries to countries. Before we settled down in Hong Kong, we had lived in Japan and America for one to two years. Although English was still my biggest concern, the experience of living in different countries provided me the passion to challenge and learn a new language. I was in ELD in my first year of school. Since the class didn’t provide sufficient resources to teach the students learning English and my parents is not an English speaker, I learnt English by myself most of the time and got help from my friends and the people around me. After two years of struggle, I got into the normal English class, eventually. I was proud of my accomplishment in working hard to learn a new
I was born in the United states and went to Mexico to study, until I was 10 years old, I came to United States, into 5th grade half of the school year I knew some english but not as much as I know now, I still remember the first day I came to class it was test day, it was weird for me to hear English everywhere because I only heat Spanish, I didn't have a lot of friends just one, after some weeks of being there I talked to more kids, but those kids were teaching me things bad things I didn't know and i listen to them.
My family emigrated from the Dominican Republic when I was two years old. At the time, none of us spoke any fluent English. Due to their limited education,
As I received essay 3 back, I realized I had the same mistakes from all my previous papers. I have a habit of missing words in my sentences. Usually when I write papers, I spend hours typing away at the computer screen. My words run into each other and everything made sense to me. The teacher suggested I read my papers out loud and that’s what I plan to do in the future. I also think time management contributes to this problem. In the future, I plan to manage my time more wisely so I can have time to come back to my essays and revise them. Hopefully my writing mistakes will diminish if I stick to this