Personal Narrative: What I Learned In English 101

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.

The love for a better place for their children to learn and grow, drove my parents to move my siblings and me from Nigeria to America. The adjustment to a new community and culture along with the: education system, government, currency, social norms, and language were difficult for my family to adjust to. In elementary school, I found it difficult to communicate with other students; I tried speaking to them the way the people on old tv shows spoke, but they did not “catch my drift”. As I got more acquainted with the language I began joining clubs and playing sports. I was not placed in an ESL, English as a Second Language, program because I knew just enough English to barely pass tests. I was unable to keep up with the language and vocabulary

Having to write about my own literacy is hard to do, first of all it’s hard to recall things that happened when you were a child let alone when I started to read and write, I remember going to school playing, the teacher reading to us, making vowel sounds and learning to write my name; I recall the teacher giving out the spelling list and taking it home to practice before Friday’s test, I would go to school hoping and praying that I would not misspell any words; as usual I missed a couple of words and I knew what that meant.

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.

When I read a book, I step into a world careening with creative stories, elaborate settings, and earnest characters that worm their way through our hearts of thousands. Other times, I open a book to find myself in someone else’s words, or challenge my limits. There's no denying the power and beauty of literature, but understanding, analyzing, and creating so much power is no easy task. It’s why I'm so eager to join this class. I want to learn further with the best class possible, Advanced Sophomore English. I well understand the difficulty and effort that goes into the challenges of an advanced curriculum/placement, especially the motivation and risks you need as well. Throughout my life, I’ve had firsthand experience/learned many essential skills. In 6th grade, I lead a team of friends to win 1st place in Device Performance in the 2013 Tech Challenge hosted in San Jose Tech Museum where over 600 teams pitted against each other from across the Bay Area. That following year, I was the only selected student to attend Tech Trek, a camp hosted in many universities like Stanford and Sonoma State university dedicated to promoting the math and science field to young students. In 8th grade, I was awarded an English Department Award by my English teacher for my outstanding performance in leadership, writing, reading, discussion, presenting, and more. And most recently, I was not only accepted into our

In this class, I have learned many new skills to improve my writing, and I have also learned new grammar rules. In regards to my writing, I have learned the importance of freewriting when beginning to write a paper. Additionally, I now know to allow ample time for revising and editing because I can look at my work critically for mistakes and make necessary changes. Furthermore, I have learned about grammar rules such as pronoun-antecedent agreement. This rule is something that I know subconsciously, but being made aware of it has allowed me to find mistakes I make more often.

From a young age, I have had an interest in reading and writing. When my mother found out she was pregnant with me, my sister, Kaitlyn, was four years old. Kaitlyn had just begun reading when she found out she would soon have a baby sister. My sister, eager to share her reading skills, begged my mother if she could read stories to me while I was still in the womb. Once I was born, the story-telling continued. I gravitated towards books at an early age, most likely because my sister was reading by the time I was big enough to hold a book. Reading has always been around me. Bright colors caught my attention as a child. If a book had a colorful cover, I wanted someone to read it to me. When I was three years old, I started learning how to read in my preschool class. While learning to talk, my way of telling someone I wanted or needed something was to point. My mother would tell me, “use your words”. Because my preschool teacher

Savannah Hernandez Personal Narrative Part 1 UMUC Writing has not been easy for me in college. In high school I did well when tasked to write a paper, but I soon realized that writing was a challenge for me while in my first college English class. I realized I never knew how to correct mistakes or revise, that my teachers did not give needed feedback. I signed up for my second English class and thought it would be a breeze since I passed my first English class without any negative feedback from my professor.

Thank you for your helping with my case. I am so glad that I don’t need to add another reading and writing class in this semester.

Writing makes possible to us expressing in a paper what we cannot communicate by talking. For this reason, the writer must make his composition readable and understandable in order to get the idea by the reader of what he is attempting to communicate. This requires a whole writing process that I have experienced thus far this semester in my English Composition I Honors Course. I have recognized what my strengths and weaknesses in writing are. So that, focusing more on my weaknesses than my strengths will help me to improve much more my writing skills by the end of the semester.

I've loved writing since I was a young child, especially creative writing. It allows me to express myself, and it seems almost magical to be able to create things simply by writing down a few symbols and twenty-six letters in various ways. I've written many fictional stories of various genres over the years. Unfortunately, while I have done a lot of creative writing, I haven't done as much academic writing. I would like this class to help me become the kind of student who earns A's on her papers by assisting me in becoming more efficient in the overall writing process.

I have truly enjoyed writing for most of my life and after this class I will continue to enjoy writing hopefully with more skill. I have always viewed myself as a fairly strong writer and this class has reaffirmed that for me, but it has also shown weaknesses in my writing. As an introduction level class this has been one of my favorites; at some point I will take a higher level, even though it is not required for my major. Even though this class is almost over I am continuing to learn. I also love that this class will help me with literally ever other class in my college career. I am not a particularly strong reader, but as my writing skills improve so do the reading skills. While in this class I have learned a lot about everything from what I can improve, to subjects that interest me, and constructing a successful paper.

English is not a subject that a student can learn in a single semester, or even an entire school year. To learn the language and its intricacies takes years and cannot be covered in one class. As a result, most high school student take four courses, each building upon the last. I expect English III to build upon the knowledge and skills I learned from English II. With this honing, I expect to have the necessary skills to sufficiently write my North Carolina Graduate paper.

I gathered the Information and skills to learn this by writing a lot and always asking someone else their opinion or how to do it if I didn’t know it.

Maya Angelou once said “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” With that being said, is it important to take in all the thing people say about you? Personally I don’t think so. We cannot control what happen around us and what people says about us, but we do have the power to avoid getting control by people’s saying. My English learning journey began when I was around 4 years old. For me English is like a second nature; I use it so often that I feel like I’m more connect to it than Chinese. By the time I finish kindergarten my parent wants me to continue my education under a system that involve English. So they decided to send me to an international school. At the start I was thrill by the opportunity, but the best part of all is that I get to study at the same school as my sister.