I remember just looking at the English book and contemplating when the time would arrive that I would get to know what these words meant. After several months of reading I began to understand the language more, but was still far from having a solid understanding of the language. Out of all of my classes, English was the most difficult one, even though I was learning and actively engaged. The learning process was challenging because I did not have the chance to talk to people outside of class, so what I was taught in class did not sink in. I tried to have conversation outside of school with my classmates.
I needed an outlet from the pointless assignments which inevitably turned into me writing my own short stories and blogs. Although I did not learn much about writing from this unproductive class, I learned a lot about myself. I found my passion. By the end of the year, I was ready to go into regular English, but in the back of my mind I knew I had to at least see what the next year was like. I felt as though I went through hell and back with the previous class, how much worse could the next be?
But why? Every students has their own personal reason. Some may have never fully understood how to read or write and was to embarrassed to speak up others may have disorders such as dyslexia which makes reading and writing difficult. In my case I had a passion for reading and writing when I was younger. As I grew up I did not like the material that had to be read or the papers that was required to be written; but since I knew the work had to be done accurately in order for me to pass the class I learned to tolerate the subject.
I always got a low grade, which was lower than D, when I had a writing test because I could not make my essay longer and clearer. It is extremely difficult for me to hold a pen or pencil to write something as ideas were in my mind, but I could not get those out of my head and down on paper. Being aware of my issues, Mrs. Ho said that reading was the best solution to develop my writing and my literacy, so she guided me how to read effectively and how to use reading to become a better writer. I knew how to get the general idea of a paragraph or an essay, and I could eventually concentrate on details. I figured out that it was similar to writing; at first, I needed to generate the topic sentence of a paragraph, then I could go into a particular situation in my writing.
I knew what the book was telling to my brain but transferred into the paper was another story. Most of my teachers and tutors tried to help me but the strategies didn 't work out as they planned. They told me and my parents that I am smart but have difficulty with school related works. During the years in middle school, I first started with the growth mindset and later on in high school, I turned into the fixed mindset. In the present, I come back to the growth mindset.
It was only until secondary school that my mother stopped making me spend more time on practicing handwriting. Now with my computer science major, I use laptop a lot, and my handwriting must be even worse than it used to be. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t touched a pen in days, and when I do need to handwrite something, I will feel uncomfortable at first. I used to write journal almost every day. However, that journal is for my English classes so it is more like a task, not a hobby.
When your parents immigrate to the United States in search for a better life there is many new things that you have to adapt to. My efforts to learn, read, write and speak English have been a significant challenge in my life. I always heard that practice improved the body, that it made it stronger and it changed the brain, but I never believed it. Now as I grow older I have noticed that learning something new doesn’t always take much time, and that my body is capable of doing many things. Growing up in Detroit, in a Latino household I entered school knowing little to no English.
I would never have expected that I would enjoy writing as much as I do now. In my former perspective, English was just composing mundane papers and a waste of time. However, the moment I entered English Composition 1 on August 29th, my entire perspective on English started to change. Several assignments in the course and reading through the textbook Patterns for College Writing by Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell assisted me when it came to writing essays and understanding the different techniques and aspects of writing. I found myself learning more and enjoying English in this college course compared to my previous high school English classes, where I struggled and did not have the resources to improve.
When I first stepped into the class, I was able to feel the high expectations towards my work once we were handed the scoring rubric for the produced in this class; I had a feeling I would be unable to meet that criteria. Throughout the first two years of high school, I didn’t work much on improving my writing. Getting through the English classes was fairly easy considering the material
I developed normally like other kids my age, only being behind in speech. A problem I did not know I had, a problem my parents thought would correct. It wasn 't until I started school that my teachers noticed that I was extremely behind in reading and writing. I began taking speech therapy, and this continued until I reached middle school. Meanwhile, I was always behind my classmates in basic math and English skills.