Reflection On My Relationships With Reading, Writing, And Speaking

My relationship with writing is hard, my writing doesn’t always flow well. My writing also doesn’t always come easily to me. More often than not, I have to sit and think for long periods of time, for to come up with ideas on how to start my essays. When I start with paper and pen my hand will start aching, and that makes it difficult to concentrate on what I am trying to express through my writing as it takes my mind off what I am currently thinking of writing down. Writing is the course I have always struggled with the most throughout high school, and through my first year of college.

If I could describe my relationship with reading and writing it would most likely have to be, improving. Of course I would assume the same happens to all students that their reading and writing skills improve as they continue with their education. For me reading has been a passion, so my reading skills are pretty advanced and I can say I am able to read well. In my case, being a child of two Hispanic parents, I do have a slight accent that can get in the way and make my reading a bit rough. Usually it is not so bad, only on certain words that either I do not know how to properly pronounce or certain letters that my accent acts as a physical barrier where I have to sound it out more carefully or work around my accent. While that is the #1 major setback I have during reading. Even with that setback I can still say that I am confident in my reading skills, reading at a well speed, improving, reading various books all that combined allows to be able to read almost anything. What I do enjoy about reading is that I see it being able to bring myself into that world that the author is writing about or to envision the story they’re telling as a movie. I like the idea of just sitting back or laying down with a good book for hours and getting deep into whatever I am reading. Personally once I pick up a good book it is usually hard for me to put it down without the paranoia of not knowing how it ends will eat me up and I usually finish a book within a few days.

In the last chapter we read about literary sponsors so I am going to start there then go into my analysis of a writing experience. Literacy sponsors help people in many ways, they help people define themselves and learn about most things in life when you think about it. Everybody we meet teaches us something about a situation. Sometimes good and sometimes bad, it just depends on how you look at it.

Throughout my years of schooling, I have become ambivalent about reading and writing. I have struggled in school to make myself enjoy writing. I didn’t mind reading as much, as long as it was to my interest. It has differed throughout the years I have been in school. Some years I have enjoyed both, reading and writing, and other years I have not liked either. Getting myself to enjoy reading and writing has been quite the adventure.

I grew up with a stutter. I wished I had embraced my speech impediment and allowed myself to promote the ways in which I am able to communicate effectively with people instead of dwelling on the difficulty I had in my speech. It was tough for me to speak in front of people throughout grade school, as I would try to get all my words out as clearly as possible even though it was difficult for me to do so. Instead of embracing my slight fallibility, I was ashamed and did not want to acknowledge that I had an impediment. I spoke little in public. As I progressed through high school and the early years of college, I made an effort to improve my speech by forcing myself to take advantage of speaking opportunities. Even as my speech improved, it was still uncomfortable for me to admit that I had an impediment. It was not until my junior year of college that I realized I could use my other refined capabilities in communications in order to connect with people. In lieu of my speaking, I capitalized on my written communication skills and it showed through creating health education materials, assisting show production at CNN, developing a communication for development media initiative in the Solomon Islands, and now currently as the Editor-in-Chief of the Yale Undergraduate Journal of Public Health. Consistent development in my writing ability allowed me to develop the confidence upon improving my

When I read Frederick Douglass’s story “Learning to read and write,” it reminded me of when I was learning how to read and write. I was very young so I didn’t know how to write or read. I remember when I was in the second grade that’s when I started to notice that I was going to enjoy writing even though I would have trouble with it especially on how to start it of.

After living most of my life with a completely unpredictable speech impediment, after seeing a speech therapist for several years, I had long lost all confidence in public speaking and many other aspects of ordinary life. I knew that it could come up in any situation and fitted my life around it. Although I know this is something that may very well stay with me for the remainder of my life, I now feel as though I have overcome it. I know I will continue to face many barriers and obstacles throughout high school and beyond, but through this experience I have gained the confidence to face and handle

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.

“I either go to television or turn on the radio in my car” (Whitefield 2011). Before I started this class, that is what I thought about when someone asked me “Do you keep up with the news?”. Most people do not get the opportunity to learn about what is going on around the world in their everyday lives and how they can help out. I feel that being in this class I got the chance to learn more about life and what is happening everywhere, not just insignificant matters such as who Kim Kardashian is now dating or why Kylie Jenner got more lip injections, I am learning about the important things. I am getting the chance to learn about how I can participate in the world to make big changes because of reading The New York Times, “Why Local Newspapers,” and “Freedom is Intended as a Challenge.”

During this past school year, I had various obstacles that I had to overcome in order to properly learn and grow. One of the most impacting obstacles that I had to overcome was my father’s death. Unfortunately, my father passed away during

I attended Grand Blanc Academy in Grand Blanc, Michigan. I was sitting in a hard yellow chair with my name tag at the top of the table. My Pre-School teacher Mrs. Stringer would hand out writing paper to practice our writing. The paper contained a row with the letters provided for us to copy on the row below. After all the letters in the alphabet were completed, we would move onto do the same thing with numbers 0-10. After we completed our writing practice for the day, Mrs. Stringer would have us repeat the letters and numbers after her. Once we were completely finished with the lesson for the day she would hand out mini colorful mints. This was my first experience I remember learning how to write and the very beginning of learning how to read the letters and numbers.

My relationship with writing, reading, and speaking has developed throughout the years. I acquired my knowledge in writing and reading from my parents, and I was able to improve it with the help of my teachers when I was growing up. Since my first language is Spanish and I suddenly had to move to Brownsville,Texas, I felt like I had to start again. Furthermore, I had to put extra effort to obtain the sufficient literacy skills to succeed in a new country.

Public speaking is a large part of any young adult’s or professional’s life. It is said that if you can’t express your ideas in an understandable and complete way, that you might as well have not thought of them at all. Being able to express your opinions on matters is a life skill that will never stop being useful. To have nuanced and intelligent conversations, you need to be confident enough that anxiety does not get in the way of your ability to convey your thoughts. Being a collected and thoughtful speaker is an invaluable skill that will help you excel in life in not only social, but economic matters as well. Public speaking is a challenging subject to cover since it is not a traditionally taught class. There are not any formulas to learn and for the most part, it is not a passive skill that you can pick up from just observing. The only way to tackle both the anxiety of public speaking, and the struggle to communicate your ideas in a coherent manner, is to get up and do public speaking, and fight through the struggles.

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s

This course has expanded my knowledge and view of reading and writing vastly. Following each paper, reading, and class discussion I learned more about myself as a student, and the world as a whole. I have found the books Rules for Writers and Ways of Reading thoroughly helpful throughout the course. This class entails a variety of aspects of the problem-posing concept of education; it truly involves the students and teaches them to think, read, and write individualistically, analytically, and clearly.