“Why is it so personal?”
My past with reading and writing has not been a constant thing, I’ll admit. Growing up, the word reading would be met with a consistent groan by most of my family. Writing would probably hold a worse reaction, but no one in my family really wrote beyond the grocery list. When I was young, my favorite books were either the short informational books about animals, or the Spiderwick Chronicles by Holly Black and Tony Diterlizzi (I never read them, just looked at the pictures). The best thing about books was being able to leave class to go to the library and get read to. Books just weren’t very important to me, or anyone I knew.
Around the start of middle school, things began to change. My mother, who was a high school freshman drop out, went back to school to get her degree. Reading began to be a requirement.
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When I was young (up until about high school), I was very particular about writing. I would have to make sure the grammar was right exactly, my definitions correct, and my words factual. I’m not really sure what changed. Now, outside of school, I don’t use punctuation, or even use complete sentences. Sometimes I have to restrain myself from using emojis in essays. Commas, on the other hand, are either non-existent or used way too much in a never-ending sentence. (The Internet has definitely encouraged this.) My writing style changes a lot, but I would definitely describe it as laid back. Writing so “correctly” can be kind of flavorless and boring. I would definitely describe my style as more descriptivist than prescriptivism.
Personally, I think good writing is anything that can evoke emotion from your reader. Good writing is not something that can be decided by a committee. It’s less of an equation and more of an expression of the individual. If you deliver it in a personal and heart-rending way, I think grammar can be useless. That’s why a lot of poets tend to ignore
Ever since I was younger I have always tried staying away from reading. The only person in my family that likes to read is my mom; however, she does not read often. Once she picks up a book, she cannot put it down. My dad on the other hand, never picks up a book. He and I are one in the same; we do not like reading because we have a hard time comprehending what we read. My brother also does not like to read. He does not like reading because he has a learning disability. My mom always had an extremely tough time getting him to read. Overall, my literacy experiences at home are few and far between.
While writing might seem like a simple task, it can be a daunting task for a lot of people. Sometimes it can be hard to express the ideas in your mind in the words of a paper. This results in a disconnect with what a writer may actually think. A great writer is one that can transform his thoughts into words perfectly. This is a craft that takes many years to perfect, which is why writing is troublesome for a lot of us. Many students also have had bad experiences with writing. Maybe they had a teacher that didn’t try to support them and their writing. They might not have ever gotten the help they needed and may feel that they are in a hole where their writing can’t get better. At this point, they just accept that their writing will never get better.
Thanks to hours and hours of bedtime stories, I was able to read from the age of 3. In kindergarten I read to my classmates, and by second grade I was reading series like The Boxcar Children and Trixie Belden. Books allowed me to get lost in other worlds full of adventure and excitement. My love for what words can do has extended through high school. I pride myself on my book collection, anything from Hunger Games to The Picture of Dorian Gray. I’ve continued to read all the way through high school, some books four or five times because I love them so much.
My love of reading blossomed when I was a child, because my parents showed me how wonderful reading is. There were countless nights when I remember myself as a little girl refusing to go to sleep before ‘tucking dad into bed’ by reading him a picture book. Not only did I uphold that tradition though, but my mother is a preschool teacher, so she gets really into reading out loud, and she would help me read books such as The Boxcar Children set, The Secret of NIMH and The Chronicles of Narnia weekly until I didn’t need help anymore.
Reading and writing have been in our lives and around our lives ever since the beginning of time. It is something we are naturally born into. Almost every human being has performed some type of reading or writing, whether they live in the big city, or whether they live in the woods. They have all performed some form of reading or writing in their life. It is human nature. We are born into it. I have many memories of reading and writing, though I may not be very fond of it when it concerns schoolwork, it is something I have naturally adjusted to and it somehow has made me, and probably everyone else around me as well, who we are today.
In elementary school, I loved to read. Writing was not a big deal either due to the fact that we did not have to write four page essays. It was in first grade when I started to like reading. Reading has just been freshly introduced, considering we had only completed one year of school. My teacher always read to us and I wanted to read those books as well. Throughout elementary school I started to read Junie B. Jones books, which were my favorite. All of the books were about a first grade girl and her different adventures. I had always enjoyed reading those books. Each book had a different topic which I would always relate to in some way. Although I liked to read, I did struggle with reading comprehension which made me dislike writing as well. I hated having to read and then go and write about it. To this day, I still do not like reading comprehension, but my feelings toward reading and writing have changed.
I would describe the writing process I experienced through my learning years as very limited and poor in skills. I can definitely say that my writing techniques and methods are simple and basic. Since English is not my primary language I feel really pressured by this subject and I'm expecting too much from myself. I remember when I was in 8th grade at the beginning stage of learning a new language, my English teacher focused mainly on teaching her students how to spell the words correctly, show the proper grammar, and form the correct structural sentence organization. The difficulty I am experiencing in writing any essay is the language barrier and not
I can somewhat relate to that because I rarely saw my father pick up a book and just start reading. He would sometimes read the paper to stay caught up on the news, but hardly ever did I see a book in his hand. I do however remember my mother reading quiet often. She would just sit on the couch with her cup of coffee and read for hours. Shoemaker stats that “when I was younger, both my father and mother were never home to neither entertain nor read to my brother and I” (348). That was completely opposite with my mother and I. She would read all types of books to me like The Hungry Caterpillar, Giving Tree, or Dr Seuss. I don’t have a lot of memory of when I first learned to read, but according to her I didn’t read well until the end if Kindergarten. On the other hand, I do remember her taking my brother and I to the public library where she let us check out a maximum of four books each. We would mostly check out nonfiction sports books like biographies of athletes such as: LeBron James, Vince Carter, Allen Iverson, Mark McGwire and many
There can be many interpretations of what good writing means to someone. In my eyes, it means to deliver a topic while using your own words. Being able to use the correct grammar and organization plays a significant role in this. Along with these abilities comes the little skills, such as punctuation and spelling. Although having someone tell you that your writing is good can be helpful, it’s not necessary to find out whether it actually is or not. You are able to identify that your writing is good if you are able to clearly read and comprehend what you have written.
Expression is the process of making known one’s thoughts or feelings. My process for writing is laced with confusion; Confusion towards a product I am happy with and proud of, confusion towards which steps to take and when, confusion about if I am processing my literature correctly. As a current college student, one would hope I had grasped the concept of how to write an essay long ago; to write a complete essay in one sitting is an elementary skill for most. However, as for I, at age 18, 2 and a half years of college years to reference and an abundance of information to recall from a freshly passed high school, have yet to master, or even intermediately understand, how to properly produce a piece of
Reading has been one of my favorite hobbies since I was a little child. I grew up as a normal child should grow and eventually I had to start learning for me to fit in society. My literacy started many years ago, after I knew how to talk and communicate with people. Reading my alphabet was quite stressful and I had to be given a hand by my family members. I remember my parents reading with me and it was the most meaningful and memorable way to spend time with me. This is because I liked reading a lot and I was eager to learn so that I could fit in with my older siblings. My favorite books were storybooks taking about adventures and fairytales
Reading is something that is taught to everyone in their early childhood, the time I learned to read I was very fond of books. I loved to read novels to myself and to read them out loud to my sister. I like reading action, thriller, historical fiction, and mystery. During my early childhood we would have challenges of reading such as wrapped up and reading, golden dragon. These were reading challenges for students to read 20-25 specific grade novels during the school year and at the end you got a party if you read at least 5-10. I used to love reading and at that time I would read at least 20 books because I wanted to go to the party and win something with the lottery tickets I got. My childhood was fulI of reading, even if I read because I was greedy and I read because of the party, it still improved my reading level. As I grew and grew my reading
At this point in my life, reading would definitely not make a list of my favorite things to do, but this wasn’t always the case. Some of my youngest memories involve reading, and many of these memories are enjoyable. Every night before bed my mom would read to me, and I remember begging to read just one more before she tucked me in almost every night. This is when my love for reading sparked. Throughout grade school, I continued to read frequently and never found it to be a chore; however, once middle school hit I no longer included reading as a past time or found it pleasurable. Looking back now I realize this was when English class included more forced literature, and school consisted of reading extensive pages in textbooks. Reading
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.
From an early age I loved to read. At just two years old I would beg my mother to enroll me into school. I watched as my older sister meticulously picked out her outfit each night in preparation for the next school day. At such a young age I somehow knew that this thing called “school” was the answer to something spectacular. My home was chaotic and reading became an escape and helped distract me from the unpleasant family dynamic.