Year: 2019

Cesar Cordero

 English E11

Ms.jewel

 

          One of my experiences with reading and writing was this one time in my english 12 class we had to write an 8 page essay about the way we think about today’s government.It was basically our final exam in that class, I remember how I felt very under pressure because if i didn’t hand it in time.All of the hard work that I did in that class wouldn’t pay off. We had to hand it in less than four days so I started researching things about today’s government and learned a lot of new things and current situations happening around that time that I was making my final exam . I started being very self aware of my capability to read and write because i was so intrigued in this passage I found on the internet .At first it was a bummer to me because I didn’t want to write that much but i learned that you must get yourself out of your comfort zone sometimes and do what  you have to do .This assignment made me open my eyes even more because you can learn new things just by reading a book or newspaper etc. Now in this day and age i like the concept of learning new things especially when it can help in future situations . I learned a wide spread of new vocabulary just by doing my assignments in english class and other classes. I remember when I handed it in, I was so happy and proud of myself that I completed my task.

 

Shamefully holding up a fake smile just to point out that “I’m not hurt,” to show everyone else that having a lisp wasn’t really a problem and that their jokes and laughs didn’t effect me, but it did. Growing up I was always know as different wanting to interact with people and always answering the teachers questions, but still somehow always quiet. I kinda was in a rare condition where I wanted to be alone at times but I didn’t at the same time, creating strong friendships and short and unwelcome friendships that impacted my life drastically. It was one day in class which I was participating like there was no tomorrow showing different emotions depending if I got something right or if I got something wrong. Throughout the day my teacher wanted everyone in the class to take turns reading, and since everyone had assigned seats based off their last name I happened to be the last person reading. There was only 2 pages remaining so I didn’t feel pressured at all until the moment I had to pronounce words such as “Ship,Time,Thought and  Choose.” These words had such a strong impact on me at the time because of my lack of ability to pronounce words correctly due to my strong lisp. Hearing laughter after one mistake push shivers down my back and caused my hands to shake, having eyes glued to my face forced me to lose my train of though causing more and more mistakes.

I experienced Limited English Proficiency when I came to United States. I never went a middle school so my first year was freshman in high school. Since I am from a country where English is not spoken much. I was having a very difficult time understanding lectures in class and giving my response. Most of the time, even when I knew the answer to a certain question, I still wouldn’t be able to express my thoughts and ideas. It was my biggest weakness because it made me an anti social person. I always felt that people are going to judge me because of the way I speak. I learned a good amount of English in couple months but I still had a accent that would make me feel insecure about how I sound when I try to communicate with others.

I have been in the US for 2 years. In this two years, I face a lot of difficult things because my language problem. English is my second language, I have been learning English for three years. At the beginning, I am very afraid to communicate with people who speak English, I don’t want others to know that I am not good at English. I also heard this situation in this class. I know very well that this is what I have to experience as an immigrant living in this country. In my process of learning English, the biggest difficulty is grammar, because the English grammar is different from the Chinese grammar. So just try to remembering words every day is not enough. When I took my first English exam, I found an English word can represent two or more meanings. It means that I need to analysis what the word belongs to in the sentence. My major is related to biology, I found so many unfamiliar word appear in biological articles. Before the class, I need to do more review and preview, I should translate and understand each paragraph. I never thought that English would be so important. After leaving my country, I lost most of friends, So I want to build a good relationship with the people who around me. Learn good English is my first thing to do. At last, I will try my best to teach my parents how to understand and use English, I hope they can better adapt to live in the United States.

An experience I had in reading was being placed in a literature group. These groups were made based on ur ability to read. You were texted privately with a teacher, where you had to read an excerpt out loud and they would grade. I remember having a huge amount of anxiety and practicing so I wouldn’t look bad in front of my peers. The reading levels were ranged for Q-Z with Q being the worst. After my shaking and stuttering times I believed that I failed and I would be made fun of. From listening around I heard that being put in Q was frowned upon. After every every other student was tested each one was told their letter out loud for everyone to hear. After waiting in what felt like the longest list since my last name started with an S, I was placed in V. This was shocking to me because I felt like I “performed” very underwhelming.

After having an experience like that I had more faith in my reading and comprehension skills. This allowed me to write and read aloud stories without feeling like I was doing a horrible job. All in all, my experiences in reading paid off for me throughout all the anxiety and pressure I felt. When always having English as my lowest subject while doing well in math and science it was an experience I’ll never forget.

To kill a Mockingbird was a book that i cherished while growing up. It left a powerful image in my head to go against odds that are trying to bring you down. Growing up I never was into reading and often skipped on reading assignments because they was dreadfully long and boring. This takes me back to 7th grade when my teacher introduced that book she gave the class a brief background about the book but of course I wasn’t paying but i did hear he say something about a white lawyer defending a black man for a crime he did not commit. I’m thankful that we started reading as a whole class because if it wasn’t for that I would have missed out on this beautiful book. After a couple days of reading in class I caught myself actually reading at home it only felt natural. I completely fell in love with that book the characters were amazing and well written. It also taught me a couple lessons one of them as i said before go against your odds and don’t judge others by the color of their skin. To kill a Mockingbird  was a book I consistently read and it allowed me to be ahead of most people in the class. I was able to participate in class and completely understood what I was supposed to do. To kill a Mockingbird is a book that really stood out to me my whole entire life and i still remember a lot of things from the book and I would very much grab that book and live those moments again.

A room of people waiting in silence, for the blue screen from a Dell 20’ monitor to change. I looked at two short #2 pencils placed on both sides of the desk. Sitting on an office chair with cushions, I was doubting my ability to pass the test. 

I stretched my back against the back of my chair, then rolled my neck back and forth. I massaged my eye sockets, pressed down to the bridge of the nose, pushed on my temples, then the back of my neck and finally my ears. 

None of this, an attempt to relax my body, did anything but make me more anxious. I have two dictionaries with me, a thesaurus that cost two dollars from the dollar store, and an old Oxford pocket dictionary that my wife gave to me. The inspector tells me that I can only bring one into the exam. 

Since English is my second language, taking a test without the resources I needed was a disadvantage. Frustrated, I chose the normal dictionary over the thesaurus due to the fact that I needed to understand the words I would use before writing. The test started with a timer whose big red numbers alerted students of their remaining time. I felt that time was slipping by,  60 minutes had already passed. I wrote the paragraph summaries, developed my ideas for a response, provided a personal experience, and drafted a conclusion. Five minutes before time would be called. I rushed to the conclusion and finished it.

     I never really thought of myself as a reader or writer. Throughout middle school and most of high school I hated reading and I hated writing. Why is that? We have to read certain books that was a part of the “curriculum” the school had, everyone knows that. It was like I had to read a book and understand all the metaphors and the ideas of what the author wanted us to know. After that came essays we all had to write every single time and there was always a specific thing we had to write about and find details to support it and if you wrote something wrong you had a bad grade. There was always instructions to write essays and maybe that was the reason why I hated it so much. During Junior year, I had a teacher that was so passionate about teaching students how to write well. And I think that’s when I actually started liking writing in a way. We still had to write essays but she was different, she always gave us options in what we ,the class, wanted and what we were comfortable with. Yea that’s definitely when my perspective on writing changed. Also, my writing itself got better, I no longer how a ton comments from my teacher on what was wrong about my writing and it felt good but I still had. But that’s not my greatest experience with writing. In senior year, I took classes that were college level to prepare myself for actual college. This experience actually came from my science class. We were watching a movie about the Soviet Union and it’s time around there and we, the class, had to write a three page essay on that movie. It was that kind of writing like a movie critic. I honestly don’t think I have ever worked so hard on an essay before, I guess because it was a college class I had to up my game. At first I was so nervous I saw that movie at least three times before I actually started writing. Of course this was a prompt but it was really vague, just comparing that time period to this time period. I worked on it a couple of days till may be one in the morning just writing and rewriting and fixing grammar and all that. After watching it so many times I thought that maybe overdid it. While writing it, I felt so proud of myself that I was able to accomplish a big assignment like that. When I got that paper back, right on top was a one hundred and a small smile. I looked through the pages and had no comments and when I saw the rubric all it said was “perfect paper”. That moment honestly felt like the greatest accomplishment I had done in my education and yet it was just one paper. It was like all my writing education in each grade just prepared me for this essay, this was college level it was what I had to get up to. Not only did he write that on my paper, my teacher had said “ there was only one paper that got a one hundred, I didn’t have to write anything else, it was perfectly written, the best paper I have ever read in my whole life of teaching”. In my head I thought it was someone else in another class even though I got a one hundred because I never had that kind of complement in my life. But no he said “Nataly you did an amazing job”. What a weird feeling to feel a type of way because of a writing assignment.