My Life With English Education

I walk over to the nine-year-old boy sitting across the room as I reach for my pen and sheet of paper. As I approached him, I halted. Quietly, I asked him what he needed help with. Looking confused, he asked me what the word bough meant. I froze. I didn’t know what the word meant. Embarrassed of not knowing a fifth grade word, I asked the teacher for some assistance and after she told me what the word meant I understood and was then able to explain to him that a bough is just a synonym for a branch. Noticing that David was still confused as to what he was reading, I sat beside him and allowed him to read the passage out loud to me. While I defined the words that he didn’t know and listened to him read the passage, I was able to classify him as an English learner who just wanted to be just as good as the other kids.

As our nation shifts towards a more culturally diverse population both educators and families have to find a common ground to ensure that English Language Learners are academically successful. All stakeholders must carefully consider the social cultural impact on an ELL education. The process of raising bilingual learners take more than a language a school and a language learned at home. The transition must have a purpose and a goal.

English 111 has made a positive impact on me as a student. I have learned a lot in English considering the short amount of time I have spent in the class. English has always been one of my strong points, but I have always looked to find ways to improve my English skills. During the class I learned several new techniques and skills to improve myself as a student. I am glad I had a smart professor to help guide me along the way.

As I look back on my English 101 experience, I have come to the conclusion that I have learned many new things that have improved my abilities as a writer. I have learned some new techniques that have improved my ways of approaching an essay. I learned all about the rhetorical appeals and how to apply them in my writing and how to look for them in a essay written by a author. I have also learned how to argue both sides of a argument, and how to look for reliable sources and to properly quote and site the author of the essay. I feel as if I have become a better writer and my improved writing skills are shown within each essay.

English in its entirety can be simply described as author, biologist and physician, Lewis Thomas had once said, “We pass the word around; we ponder how the case is put by different people, we read the poetry; we meditate over the literature; we play the music; we change our minds; we reach an understanding. Society evolves this way, not by shouting each other down, but by the unique capacity of unique, individual human beings to comprehend each other” (Thomas 120). The impact literature can bring onto others is simply amazing and is a gift that should be shared with everyone. This spring semester has quickly broadened my perspective. Being that this is my freshman year in college I prodded around ideas of what majors I had interests in. I

While my love for reading sprouted, I soon became obsessed with writing. My passion for reading only helped my writing skills to prosper. In fifth grade, I had a teacher who very well understood that reading and writing were important. Every day, we had a half an hour to write about whatever we wanted. Boy, my imagination ran wild. I often wrote fiction stories. My favorite part was when the teacher allowed us to share our stories with the whole class at the end of the week. This one activity really sparked the beginning of my love for writing.

Like many children, I learned to read and write around the age of five at both home and school. I learned to read by reading Dick and Jane. The writing was simple, but I loved the stories. That was always my favorite part

I was not always a fan of reading though. I blame this on the type of school teachers I have in my secondary level education. It was not until I got to community college where I began an appreciation for both reading and writing. The first book that grabbed me was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, which is Walls’ memoir that focused on the events of growing up with her family that, at times, caused her to be homeless--among other harsh situations.

Reading and writing in middle school were a different story for me. My love for reading slowly went

While I’m in class, I will make sure that I listen to what my instructors are saying and how they say to do something. It is also very important to take notes on what is being taught in the class, and whatever your teacher may right on the broad. In order to receive a passing grade and really pass the class I will have to complete all of my homework.

Literature has always been a close personal friend. I've always been surrounded and engrossed with books. One of the first books I ever read was Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I must've read that book a thousand times when I was little. When I was in preschool my friend and I comically read along to the book. I credit most of my ability to read early on to my elementary's school librarian. I remember vividly in kindergarten our librarian teacher holding a book in her hand showing off the pictures. I was completely enthralled, more so than probably other children in the class. As time went on and I passed from grade to grade, I started to read books from the school's library. Most books I read were about tornadoes. I've always been fascinated with how

Junior high English was where I grasped some key concepts of literacy. Key concepts like: in order to become better at being literate it takes effort and motivation. This was also where I

My English teacher, Miss Tingley, made us all write about a movie character that we felt connected to. Naturally, I wrote my paper about Matilda. I wrote about how we both loved books and how loving them made us feel different than the rest of our families. After Miss Tingley read my paper we became really close. She gave me tons of books that she thought I would be interested in. I would stay after school in her classroom and talk to her for hours about all of them while she graded papers. I told her her about my past experiences with reading and how I wished that my passion for reading could be useful. She then began to encourage me to become a Rebecca Caudill

English is a subject I have always felt strong with as a student, this area of strength has not only benefitted me in my this course but has helped me to succeed in every class I have taken. American literature so far has gave me a new and refined understanding, from read and writing to communicating my ideas in group discussions. Never before have I been able to have such a confident understanding of was I was reading and writing. I have gained a new and refined belief of what it means to annotate a text and why it is important, though I will always have reserved feelings about them. In discussion groups by referring to my annotations I am able to express my ideas and observations about the text. I have never before been so challenged with a piece of writing, throughout my career as a student prompts had always been specific and specifications were always strict. Writing literary analysis was not only a new type of essay writing for me but it required me to refer back to my annotations and think deeper about why I was having certain thoughts and opinions on a text to develop an argument. Whether it is reading, writing, or speaking the significance of everything I have mastered, and will continue to learn in english class will allow me to have fate in they way I express myself in the future.

As a child, my interests were more focused on reading than writing. In elementary school I fell in love with books. Initially I read simple children’s books, much like everybody else in my class, but it did not take long for my passion to drive me to read more difficult writings. Fiction books quickly became a replacement for any childhood toys. Instead of blocks or stuffed animals I would ask my parents for books. Since they were aimed at young readers, they tended to be short. I found myself going through them within days, and then soon several hours. Towards the end of elementary school I was reading series like Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events. I was captivated, and reading truly opened up a whole new world for me.