Personal Narrative: I Passed My English Class

In chapter five, by Cris Tovani, “Why Am I Reading This” explains how educators need to establish a clear reading instructional plan. In order to accomplish understanding students need to concentrate on main ideas from the readings. Tovani explains that it is vital for teachers to model how students should hold their thinking or slow down their reading. Throughout the chapters she gives examples as question strategies, highlighting text, or summarizing key points. As this will benefit students in their reading assignment. Tovani also explains throughout the chapter that teachers should model thinking aloud. This strategy will benefit students on how to negotiate difficult text.

Arriving in this class I didn’t really know what to expect, and having a fragile background in English I was a bit concerned on how I would perform. Carrying over twenty years of discouragement stemming from my high school years, I thought I knew enough but came to the realization I didn’t. After a few weeks of settling in to class it felt like doors that I didn’t know how to open could be now opened and ignited my desire for more knowledge. For the first time in my life I was excited to learn English and eager to use it. My reading was above normal along with my vocabulary, however my grammar, and writing structure was my weakest point and that’s what I wanted to focus on.

I was born in Mexico where I lived for 10 years and at that age I moved to the US. I didn’t speak English at all and also, didn’t know anyone in this foreign country. I was constantly bullied at middle school because I didn’t know the language very well and had an accent when I spoke. At that moment I vowed to myself to work hard everyday and never let anyone bring me down. I started reading out loud in my room, learning how to pronounce words and finding the definitions to everything I was reading. I was also, placed in a class for English as a Second Language and was enrolled in this course for my first two years during middle school. In 8th grade I was able to transfer out of this class into a regular English class. I got an award for English

When one enrolls into an honors or advanced English class, there are many worries that come to mind. These worries create thoughts such as ‘Am I a good writer?’, ‘Will I pass?’, or ‘How do I even start a paper?’. My teachers never specifically taught me to write. My teacher that I had for 9th grade English and my 10th grade honors English class always gave good grades. Once I got into my first AP English class, I felt as though my writing was inferior. In my distress, I went to the internet and I found that you do not have to be gifted in academic writing to get good grades on your essays, I found that organization is the key to writing a powerful essay.

Using this strategy allowed me to not get distracted and just focus on the importance of the paragraphs. Using these strategies helped me as a reader overcome the areas of difficulty in the

I was in your Rennaissance English class at Horn from 2001- 2004. I attended Stanford University for undergrad before moving to Washington, DC where I taught middle school math. After I left the classroom, I was a coach of first-year math teachers and then began coaching school principals on instructional leadership. This summer I moved to Cambridge, MA where I'm the Chief of Staff for the Achievement

As a Junior, in the spring semester I have grown more as a student and a global citizen.This spring semester I have gained more confidence as taking action and gain more knowledge. I have been able to take action in my community by doing a civil rights project for my AP Language and Composition class. This semester I have grown more knowledge as a student in my Digital Literacy class by creating a Fake News Essay to address how everything that is on the internet or media can be fake.

Looking back to when I typed my first AP Language and Composition paper, I can honestly say that my writing skills have drastically improved. I started off not knowing any writing strategies and thought that typing three pages was a lot for just one paper. After completing the course, I can now write a full eight paged paper using one of the three writing strategies that we learned. Before this class, I was never a skilled writer and the thought of taking APLAC intimidated me because I did not think I was capable of completing the course. I never imagined myself taking this class because In my mind I simply was not smart enough to take it. However, due to all the positive comments I received about the class and how it improved my friends writing, I

1. What strategies do I use before I read or view a text? How do they help me understand the text?

“I want to be a firefighter, construction worker, and professional race car driver when I grow up.” This was my proud childhood statement I would use when asked the question, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” This question in particular is one that will be asked awfully early in one’s childhood, as well as very late in a young adults final years before venturing out into the “real world”. Like many other young children, I grew up with the mindset of having a exciting, heroic, and lively job for when I got older. I dreamt of operating heavy construction machinery, saving families while extinguishing fires of a decaying building, and speeding past vibrant and heavily decalled race cars. However, as I grew older and gained more realistic

During this semester, I learned more about writing than I have throughout my whole high school career. The first thing we really covered was parallelism and that was probably the most used topic in all of our writing. To be completely honest I think this was the first time I had ever heard about parallelism and I still have no idea how to use it. We really focused on comma placement because in the beginning we were all just putting commas in random places, but now I feel as a whole we learned how to use them much more efficiently. We covered semicolons and where to place them, but still do not know how to use them either. During this semester I definitely improved my writing based on the fact that we wrote a ton, but I do not think my writing techniques have improved as much as I would’ve liked them to.

In English 1, I did not learn material that might be needed in Honors English 2. A few of my friends had your class during the first term. They told me some of the things I should learn, provided I wanted your advice. I was hoping you could tell me what to expect and if I ever need help what I could do. I do not know how to annotate, write pearls or thesis. I am aware it will not be easy, however, I know this could be good for me.

My growth in English 101 was a long and difficult journey for me this would be my second time around taking this class. The thing that was difficult for me in class was the fact my medication made me drowsy so it made it difficult for me to stay awake in class some days. I was lucky this time around I had a teacher that was energetic and kept me awake enough to understand what we are supposed to do in the next paper. When we did a new paper we learned a new style of writing and strategies on how to write it more effectively. I would say the most difficult paper that I had to write was the innovation research paper but I learned how to find credible resources faster. I learned a lot in this class and grew a lot as a writer. So the five WPA topics

My mom called me crying about a week ago, after she dropped me off at the University of Akron and helped me move in my things. In an attempt to console her I repeated that I wasn’t very far from my hometown, Brecksville, and it wouldn’t be difficult to see me. Between sobs, she asked me what I’ve learned from her; if I felt she had taught me everything she should’ve. I’ve never been so sure of an answer in my life. My mom has inspired me more than anyone and has taught me to be hardworking, independent, accepting of others and myself, and to never sell myself short. It has been my dream since fourth grade to be lawyer, so while it is difficult to be away from people at home who I love, I know that I am in the right place and doing the right

“Most of you did exceptionally well on this first test, but any one of you with a grade below a 70% should rethink how you study” said my AP chemistry teacher as he passed back the first test of the school year.