An Essay About My Writing History

Have you ever read a word and pronounced it completely different than its actual pronunciation? Well I have! As a student, I have experienced many aspects of reading and writing. I am currently a junior in highschool so I haven’t experienced it all. English is a crazy language and the rules for the language are also very crazy. In this literacy narrative I will introduce my experiences in reading and writing and how they have impacted my life.

In high school I was not the best at writing. I did not find this out until I was places in advanced English. I was used to writing papers that had to be simple. So when I started receiving C’s and D’s I told myself something had to change. I finally realized that I could not write as well as most of my classmates. So, what I ended up doing was making my papers more complex and making my sentences stronger. When I applied myself I became a stronger writer. As I took the diagnostic test I saw I was making a lot of mistakes. At the end I made a 70. From this I could see why I encountered the bad experiences in high school and in college.

The impact both reading and writing have had on me throughout my school years has always been changing. While I have always struggled with reading comprehension, and anxiety in putting my thoughts into words when writing, I have found some relief when I am able to connect to a character in a book, or given freedom to find a topic I am interested in; which makes me excited and passionate about sharing my thoughts through writing.

My history as a writer began ever since I was in school. I have always loved writing. I also love to read. I find it easy to express how I feel on paper. Language arts has always been one of my favorite classes in school.

Last week we wrote a blog and one of the questions was “How did you learn to read and write?”  I found this question interesting because I never had really thought about the moment when I actually learned how to read and write. My mom was the first person to expose me to reading and writing. A popular tactic she did to make sure I was staying engaged was to read aloud stories and make me follow along with her. My mom would read me many different stories like Tarzan, Bambi, Aladdin, Peter Pan, Lion King, The Jungle Book, and Hercules. whatever I wanted to listen and follow along with, she would read with me. This really helped with my want to read. The books contained a lot of adventure, which made it easy as a kid to follow along with. I became to gain an imagination and then all of a sudden reading was easier.

During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing

During adolescence, I began reading and writing through a fundamental learning program called, "Hooked on Phonics." This program consisted of long hours spent reading short novels and writing

The thing that tripped me up though was the words that sounded one way and were spelled totally different. It was so frustrating sounding out a word and spelling it completely wrong. One day I told her, “It just doesn’t make any sense why these words have to be so confusing!” That’s when she said something that has stuck with me to this day. “Vince, don’t get upset. Sometimes things may seem to be one way, but that isn’t how they are at all.” This stuck with me so much because it can be applied to almost all aspects life. Shortly after that epiphany I became more confident with spelling words and began reading more and understanding more than ever before. Mrs. B also helped set the cornerstone Mrs. Reynolds would build off of to help me start forming sentences and writing to convey a message.

The relationship that I have with writing is complicated and we don’t always get along. Although we tend to make up even when I get frustrated and want to quit. When being assigned a paper I struggle with what to write. My words seem to never come out the way I would like and I’m always having to start over and over again. It starts to get frustrating after a while. Needless to say writing isn’t one of my favorite things to do but it’s apart of our everyday lives like texting, sending emails, posting on Facebook, Twitter, and so on. I personally have only used texting as my main daily form of writing since I graduated high school. So therefore I would like to refresh my memory of what I learned in high school and widen my use of writing while in this writing course.

In all honesty, I don't remember a lot about becoming literate. I didn't have a special moment or time when I knew that reading or writing going to take me somewhere. According to my mom she started to read to me when I was one, so there wasn't anything that could've excelled me much farther before going into kindergarten. One of the requirements in elementary school was to read every night which I believe was an important factor of me improving my literacy. Reading and writing used to me excite me because I would immerse myself into a book or write a whole new universe on a page. I made reading and writing something personal to me. I now realize that every book and every piece of writing can be worthwhile in one way or another.

When you’re young school is all about popularity and friends, but with a lack of word knowledge reading in class, especially out loud can destroy your credibility. I came from a blue collar background and none of my family ever attempted college, so I figured college wasn’t that important. During school, if it wasn’t interesting I didn’t want to participate or take the time to improve myself. Reading and writing was just another uninteresting, check the block, fake it till you make it, subject for me. I was a slow reader and often times I had to ask the teacher what a particular word meant. What was even worse was having to read out loud in class. Again, the fact that I was a slow reader and I often times mispronounced words caused me to be the subject of reticule and embarrassment. I started to hate reading because I couldn’t do it as well as the other kids; this continued from elementary

Pamela Quick was my speech teacher in elementary school. Apparently I struggled in every subject especially reading and writing. At a young age, I knew reading or writing didn’t come easy to me and I didn’t understand why. Before I started kindergarten, my parents were told that I had a reading efficiency. So because of that, I was introduced

Growing up I was one of the many people who struggled learning how to read and write and was considered behind when compared to my fellow peers. Through this essay I will be covering what my personal experiences leaning how to read and write through elementary, middle, high school, college and also the effects it had on my self-confidence as a writer.

How would I consider my writing history? When I first wrote an essay it was last semester on English 363. I had an opportunity to write an essay about emigration, and to describe my experience, thoughts, and feelings before and after I immigrated to the United States from Republic of Moldova in 2013. In ESL 363 we were required to write as much possible and to follow the prompt. To illustrate, grammar, vocabulary, transition signals, examples from our own experience, at least five paragraphs and to name a few. When I write an essay I usually make a graphic organizer which helps me to follow the prompt and to memorize the structure of an essay. Sometimes, I use synonyms to prevent repeating the same words all the time. Although, I like to add some quotes on my essay because that gives me an opportunity to explain the quote and to introduce my own point of view about it.

All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.