Month: September 2019

One particular event that comes to mind was freshman year of high-school, where the class was assigned to read the book “Merchant of Venice” by William Shakespeare. I remember being disappointed that I had to read yet another book for a class that never had me excited for what it had in store, but this was one of the few books I had actively read alone until I finished the book within the first few days of it being assigned. I didn’t even expect it from myself that I’d completely finish the book so quickly, but one page led to the next, and so on and so forth until I reached the back cover. I’m not exactly sure why I had been overcome with this sudden eager feeling to read but it was definitely a moment worth remembering as I wasn’t an avid reader beforehand.

My experience with reading was shaped heavily from the first time I read a book that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was the only book that I read on my own time and gave me a different outlook on reading, writing, and learning in general. I was not very into reading and it would clearly show as I was not very expressive in the way I wrote or even spoke.
I was not very aware of it until I found an old notebook I had with some assignments I did. I think it was 7th grade and my writing just didn’t make any sense. They was very short, simple sentences that had no expressive thought behind it. It was as if a child wrote it. From the point where I had my newfound like for reading, I realized that without reading or writing, I wouldn’t really be who I am today. I read lots of articles and newspapers of the most random things and it definitely changed my perspective on how things worked and developed a different way of looking at a matter.
To put it simply, I was very narrow minded. I always viewed school as this constricted area that was more or less used as a prison. I used to hate getting up in the morning (and I still do) just to go to school where I’m not allowed to do as I please. Learning was just not for me. This was all the years prior to my experience of actually enjoying a book. The years after, though, were much more bright. I vividly remember waking up and actually being somewhat elated to go to school.
This was of course a new and odd feeling as normally I would never in a million years be happy for something such as this. School was no longer this prison where I was forced to do everything and not question why, it was now a prison where I was forced to do everything, but learn something new while I did it. English especially was my favorite class to go to because being expressive was something I suddenly realized I enjoyed.

Now pretty much all of this change had occurred over a book I actually enjoyed. This brings my attention to the education system, and why it should be at least slightly altered to help students feel more compelled to read. Every year we always had to read some book that was assigned by the teacher and most of the time, none of the students enjoyed reading it. If the books were changed to a topic or genre in which the students enjoyed, maybe it would shine a light-bulb in them that would leave them wanting to read more.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10La-XcmKHNYtkR5MTnj1JSRFrcTB3SoWmAEGUSfCqfM

My experiences with reading, writing and speaking is what made English not my favorite subject. I’ve had a few experiences in which I thought the English language might not be as hard as I think it is but whenever my teacher would give us an assignment that most of the time required a lot of reading and writing it always reminded me how hard English really is to me. The fact that English is not my first language has always discouraged me to try and be perfect at it because I thought that no matter how hard I tried I’ll never be as good as my “American” classmates. I only started taking English in fourth grade and my teachers were never American so I never learned the language properly or the way I always wanted to. Until I went to high school here and all of a sudden I’m taking difficult english courses. I remember the first week of this English class my teacher gave out poems and stories to read and asked us to write analysis, write 4 page essays about what the author is trying to say, figure out the tone and asked us to figure out things I never even heard about and was never taught, she said that her course over the next couple of years should prepare us for the AP test and that if we do good in her class we would do great on the AP test .I panicked when I heard what she expected of us in her class and also thought ‘wow I’ll never do good on that AP test and will probably fail this class’. Because I found myself in a class where all of my other classmates were American or at least spoke the language since they were very young and understood everything she was talking about and all of them could write at least 2 page essays in one class and I was the only one who was seriously struggling. I also didn’t know anyone in my class to ask for help or relate to so that just added to my anxiety. After class I decided that I needed to speak to my teacher to explain to her my situation and ask her if I needed to be taking an easier English course because I genuinely thought I was going to fail,  but she reassured me and told me that she is willing to go over my essays with me and give me tips on how to improve my writing and that if I pay close attention to her in class I’d be fine. She suggested that I fit in the front too. She really helped me overcome a big struggle and she gave me hope that it’s not as impossible as I thought it was. After thinking that I would never pass the class I actually ended up passing her class and getting a really good score on the Ap test. 

English is still not my strong suit but the way I struggled with it taught me a lot. It taught me to believe in myself and that if I set my mind to something, it’s achievable. 

A lot of people don’t like change(and I’m one of them) but change is inevitable and change doesn’t always mean something bad or negative, you might think it is but either way you’ll always end up learning something from it.

 

Kai Tyler

Professor Jewell

English 1101 TTH

9/15/19

Being raised by a Japanese mother who had been so adamant about me learning Japanese writing led me to not take much of an interest in the subject at first, Japanese or otherwise. I struggled Japanese writing, how could learning English writing be any better or easier? My mother only talks to me in Japanese, despite living in this country longer than she has in Japan. My father on the other hand isn’t really the talkative type. We rarely communicate and can manage to go weeks without saying more than 20 words despite living in the same home. One of my closest friends growing up was Japanese as well, born to two natives of the country. So from birth I was surrounded by a foreign language and culture, with little interference from my Father. 

Every Monday and Wednesday after school from the first to fifth grade was a 1 hr Japanese writing session, where I would practice writing and learning new characters (Kanji) to expand my vocabulary. From 6th to 8th grade I had tutoring 3 days a week to supplement my Mathematics, Science and Reading comp, never my English writing. Essay writing wasn’t a skill necessary for the SHSAT and that was my mother’s primary goal at the time. Neither of my parents were particularly strong at writing so it was deemed unnecessary at the time. I read a lot already so I feel like they thought that would somehow translate to writing. It didn’t. I didn’t ask for help because that would just subject me to potentially placing me in a Saturday school. My mother could help me solve quadratic equations or help me with two column proofs but she couldn’t confirm whether or not the paragraph I wrote had any spelling or grammatical mistakes. I was being unintentionally steered away from (English) Writing and to be completely honest I didn’t mind. I’ve never enjoyed writing, never thought I was good at it, and have basically tried to avoid it at all costs. I felt like I lucked out pretty hard going to Brooklyn Tech since it has a STEM based curriculum, a curriculum revolving around stuff I’d practiced all my life. Any papers I had to write weren’t exactly easy, but they were all expository essays. No emotions or opinions made it like all the other subjects which lessened the difficulty compared to, say, a narrative essay. I always did the bare minimum, doing however little I can to be done with it and do anything else.

Reading, however, I took to pretty young. So long as it was deemed educational, my mother would purchase it, no questions asked. I still remember the first book I chose to read on my own, rather than having it be a tutor or school requirement. ‘Eragon’ by Christoper Paolini was it. Quite a challenging book for a grade schooler. My main motivation for reading at it the start was that my mother used books or math questions as an incentive to play video games, every minute I read or question I solved was another minute on whatever console I felt like playing that day. ‘Eragon’ seemed easy as it was a big book with a dragon on the cover, and what kid doesn’t like a story about dragons? Unfortunately I didn’t realize what I was getting into and the vocabulary was far too difficult for me, stubbornly I pushed on. About halfway through the book I realized I was truly lost. An important character had died and I didn’t even notice. What else to do besides restart from the beginning? So I did, and I got lost again, this time 150 or so pages further than last time. With each reread I got further and faster and my vocabulary expanded, previous words that didn’t make sense I would learn through context. I felt a real sense of progression with reading, which pushed me to read more and devour whatever other fantasy novels I could find. I learned I loved lore and backstory, so whenever there was an accompanying novel or comic to a TV show or movie I enjoyed I would read it. Learn about everything they couldn’t include in the TV or Film medium, Harry Potter being a good example of this. I’ll always prefer to read and dislike writing due to my upbringing and don’t see that really changing ever.

 

 

“Fight it… Focus… Wait, what?… I can’t do this…”, I told myself as I sat at my desk with my face against the table struggling to keep my eyes open. My boredom was taking control. I could not withstand the immense power of my boredom as I slipped into my subconscious… Zzzzzzzzzzz…

A few days later I had found myself in the same situation, fighting to stay in control, yet again… Zzzzzzzzzzz… This clash continued, recurring frequently and I soon realized this was not a battle, but a war, a war that I was losing, a war that could not be contained.

“I need to conquer this…”, I thought to myself. I needed answers. I started to explore my mind, going through all of my memories for something that could give me a clue. I had finally found something. There is a saying to “fight fire with fire”, I’ve always wondered what that had meant. How could I fight fire with fire, if the fire was what I was fighting? I continued to search through my immersive collection of memories until I had tried everything I could’ve possibly imagined. I was finally ready to give up, I had officially disliked writing.

Years later I had found myself being placed into the wrong English class; Creative Writing. Through my research, I had discovered that this class required A LOT of writing. I instantly repulsed this class. I had gone to every possible length to change my class, but in the end, I was given a sickening rejection. “This year is going to be HELL!!!”, I thought. There was no way out of this class, I just had to accept my fate and face it.

As the professor discussed what the class was all about I had quickly zoned out. Every class I would fight a familiar battle with my boredom, trying not to slip into my subconscious within the first 5 minutes of class. As swiftly as I had zoned out, I was given my first assignment, my first “creative” writing piece. I stared at the prompt for hours continuing to draw a blank. The prompt asked for nothing specific, which was the problem. After hours of silence, I decided to write down random things to complete the assignment.

With each assignment, we would read an anonymous student’s piece while providing peer critique followed by a class discussion. As I read the piece written by the anonymous student I started to realize that what I wrote was completely different than what they had written. Nothing was similar in any aspect except a small relation to the prompt. “Shit… I messed up…” I thought to myself. As the semester progressed and as we read more responses I started to realize how different each one was. Even in the class discussions, each sentence was interpreted differently from each student. I was simply intrigued.

Randomly while doing some cleaning, I started to look through some of the old English portfolios that I had strangely saved over the years. I began to read each one and I saw my progression as a writer of the years. There was a common theme of a “standardized” essay format throughout the portfolios. From one assignment to another, none of them spoke my voice. I started to wonder, “Did I ever have a voice to begin with?”

As we read more and more responses throughout the semester I started to pick up on the different tools and styles my classmates used in their writing. These tools and styles were used to make their voices in their responses. I tried to imitate some of the writing tools, styles, and tricks that my classmates used to discover my writing voice. The more I tried to imitate, the closer I felt to find my writing voice.

Even though finding my writing voice is something I’m still pursuing till this day, I’ve learned so much from this experience. Out of all my years in school, I was always taught to respond to the prompt in the “standard” format. To start with a thesis, to add fluent transitioning, to include shreds of evidence, to have a conclusion, and to be as clear and concise as possible. I always thought there was only one “correct” response. Since my realization, I have been more open-minded. Reading books to discover different voices authors use, and how they go about infusing it within their text. Writing as a way of expressing myself and publishing my ideas to the world. And learning through the different lens the world has to offer.

   Life is like a wave,It has its high points and it low points.During these low points you tend to experience failures and disappointments, however if you continue riding the wave the lessons we learn can lead to future success and prosperity.One personal experience that affected me is the challenge of starting a new school, especially when I came from a different country. For me it was like I was an alien arriving on a new planet. 

   I arrived to this new world in the summer and it was wonderful.I went to many places with my family and it was a fun adventure. Coming up to my last couple of weeks of summer, it crossed my mind that school was on its way. Then I realized the quote “time flies when you’re having fun” was true and school came around.I instantly became nervous.I was worried I would not fit in or be looked at differently. 

     On the first day of school, my mom walked me there and when I was walking it was like I was having a nervous breakdown. There were butterflies in my stomach and I could not stop talking about things like “what if I don’t fit in”, “ what if I make no friends” or even be alone. However when I got there it was completely different everyone was nice except for two girls that made fun of my accent.Which really didn’t make me feel that bad since that’s how I met my first friend.He stood up for me when they made fun of my accent and showed me around. 

    When I just thought I got over the hard part, class started.It was not what I expected.All my classes were insanely hard for me and it was completely different from my school in Guyana.I especially struggled in English a lot since in Guyana we spoke broken English.I had a hard time writing, reading and speaking it. When I got home I was so embarrassed to ask my family for help.Since that day my family sat down with me every day and helped me with my homework.When I gave up and didn’t want to do it they would motivate me.Even when I didn’t have homework they would find me some kind of book or call my teacher and tell them what I needed to work on.English was my weakness. Since my family knew this they signed me up for after school tutoring which I hated. This tutor was crazy ,she gave me so much work and was always pushing me to do more .However it helped, after a long month of blood and sweat, my grades improved.I didn’t need help from my family and now English is one of my favorite subjects. 

     The experience of the first time starting a new school taught me a lot of lessons and was a good experience.I learned that not everything new and different is bad.It also taught me that if I put my mind to something I can do anything. I turned my weakness of English into my strength. 

Saif Ali

I live in New York City, and in the city when you don’t have a car, the subway system is your best friend. I also love being on my phone and just browse or play games. However, whenever I am on the train I can’t use my phone to the extent I want it to because I don’t get signal inside the train. So I can’t play most of my fun games, browse social media, or watch videos to pass the time. I just have the ability to listen to music. I use the train a lot and for long periods of time most times so I always have nothing to do. That was until I downloaded an app called Webtoons. 

I was able to download and read manga from this app on the train which helped me pass time and emerge myself into different and crazy worlds. I told myself I will only use this app when I am on the train to pass time because I never really liked reading and to me it felt uncool and a waste of time. That was until I started reading this manga series Magician. This 400 chapter long story blew me off my seat and I found myself not only reading it on the crowded train while washing away all the unnecessary sounds and distractions and making an hour train ride feel like ten minutes, but also at home eating dinner or when I am about to go to sleep. I felt a whole new connection and feelings toward this series. 

It took me two months to finish reading this series and once I finished reading it, my perspective on English literature has changed dramatically. I learned to appreciate the effort authors put into a piece in order to control the emotions we feel while reading a piece. I learned to understand different aspects of storytelling. For example, Magician does a really good job at making everything come back in a circle. All the events and characters in the beginning chapters would make the reader think that they are not important in the story but in fact towards the end play a big role which left me shocked. This experience also showed me how important character development actually is. The story starts off with the two main characters as little kids and ends with them being adults. This may not seem too important but it really set the tone on how this series would play out. In the first season the story seems joyful and fun with a lot of adventures and exploring but in the later seasons take a dark turn where almost every situation is a life or death scenario. Every single one of these life threatening events has shaped the protagonists into something much more serious and mature and us as readers have seen every single step of this happen which also connected us with the protagonists in a spiritual level. 

After reading Magician I realized that there could actually be a lot more English literature where the plot can be exciting and the reader grows a connection with the characters’ hardships and fun moments they each face. Because of this typical manga piece I believe I can open my eyes and be more understanding about the deeper meaning in English literature.

Jevon Williams

ENG 1101

Navigating Writing

Throughout my early education, my literacy classes always had inspired me. However, I grew up not reading many books, newspapers, or articles. I believe reading is one of the most important aspects of education. Students that can’t read effectively fail to grasp important concepts. As an adult, I’ve acquired reading and writing skills that allow me to seek out information.

In a way, reading was and, still is, an integral part of my life. My mother would always press my younger sibling and I about the importance of reading more often. I never read a lot during my childhood and, even now, I don’t read many books or newspaper. The first time I realized how interesting writing was in the 4th grade. My teacher, every marking period, would make us choose a book to read from the class’s reading bookshelf. At the end of the marking period, we would have to write about it and a creative story to go along with it.

On its surface, Mark Twain’s the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a straightforward story about a boy and a runaway slave floating down the Mississippi River. But underneath, the book—which was published in the U.S. on February 18, 1885—is a subversive confrontation of slavery and racism. Huck, who grows up in the South before the Civil War, not only accepts slavery, but believes that helping Jim run away is a sin. The moral climax of the novel is when Huck debates whether to send Jim’s owner a letter detailing Jim’s whereabouts. Finally, Huck says, “All right, then, I’ll go to hell,” and tears the letter up.

After I chose the book I was going to read, the teacher handed out little “receipts” to everyone, so that when the marking period ended, the books we returned would be recognized as original by her. When school ended, I took the book home and read 4-5 pages a week. In the beginning, I had no idea what I was getting into. Before reading huckleberry finn, I’d often read short stories and little articles in the newspaper whenever I felt like it. This book marked the start of my fascination with writing.

I wasn’t a scholar of English or literature, but even I could tell, just from the first few pages I read that this book was well written. It wasn’t easy trying to read unfamiliar words, sentence structures, and more while simultaneously writing. As I struggled to read this in different environments, I began to get distracted, so I just started writing whatever stuck in my head on paper. My job was to only write a 1-page report on the book, so I just focused on key points and major details. I had no intention of reading the entire book, so this was a win for me.

After my job was accomplished, I put my report in a folder until the marking period was over. I spent 3 months on the report, leaving only the creative story to do. The creative story was optional and was more of a free write to help us develop our writing skills. I didn’t realize it at first, but there was more to reading than just reading. You are reading to learn about writing.

When I returned to school, I compared my report with those who also had finished early. Some of the other students’ reports were 2 -4 pages long. I was kind of confused about it, so I just assumed they had more to read than I did. Then they explained to me that they read more so they wrote more. I decided to read more about HuckleBerry Finn, and eventually finished the book. I revised my report and did a creative story to go with it. A week before the marking period ended, everyone submitted their reports and returned their books to the bookshelf. When the marking period did end, all our reports were graded, and I got the 5^th highest score in the class.

Tiffany Muse                                                                                                              Eng 1101 

 

       Throughout all of my years in school from elementary to high school English/ Language Arts has always been my best subject. It was always my highest grade and I was always on a higher reading level for my age. It naturally came easy to me up until my junior year when I joined my mock trial team. When I joined the team I was introduced to a new and different side of language, being legal terminology, and how it is and needed to be used. I knew that I wanted to be apart of the team and compete and was even confident enough in myself to try out to be one of the main attorneys instead of an alternate or a witness. It was well known and believed that having the part of an attorney was more challenging and required more work and preparation than having the part of a witness. Mock Trial was a way of acting and playing a part. Whether the part was as an attorney or a witness, you had to be believable and convincing and prepared in order to win. I tried out and got the part of the attorney, like I originally wanted. I was on the team the year before, but I was not only a witness I was an alternate. This basically meant that I did absolutely nothing the whole competition season and had no need to prepare or learn any of the jargon used. I would spend every single practice of that season doing homework for my classes since it was after school. At this time I lost all confidence in what I thought I could do and felt useless. The following year I wanted to make sure I proved myself before I graduated. I tried again and became an alternate… again, but this time for an attorney. At first I started to have ptsd of the previous year and was about to quit thinking I would not get to do anything for a second year in a row. Luckily enough for me the person I was alternating for neglected his responsibilities and got kicked off the team. I was consistently showing up to practice and was trying to prepare in a way. It was getting close to the first competition and I was thrown into this thing pretty late into the game. I had to write a cross and a direct examination which I have never done before and also had to learn different objections and other legal terminology to sound remotely like I knew what I was doing during competition. Standing in front of a courtroom with an immense amount of eyes watching my every move and ears listening to any possible mistakes that may be made. Standing in front of a judge, who was actually just a practicing attorney, the power they still possessed over me and the validation they owned I needed and wanted in return. This was my thought process in preparation for a competition that I had very little time to prepare for. I was asked to write my own direct and cross examination for the case we were competing as well as an opening statement, which what is used to introduce your side of the case. Needing to be aware of the proper legal terminology to sound legit required me to learn these words and phrases that were being used that I was not aware of which made me feel unfit and in over my head about being able to succeed in this competition and overall field. As a result I would go on quiz let and review certain terms that were frequently used such as the different types of objections and certain wording that was more proper to use when determining what was needed in the case whether it was civil or criminal. I would go over the terms constantly until I remembered what they meant and how they are supposed to be used. During practice I would have to focus on many different aspects of the language I used having to emphasis every point. Not being aware of these terms put me at a disadvantage since it was my first year actually competing and everyone else on the team had experience from the previous year. This discouraged me at first because of my struggle to learn these phrases for the first time when it was just a refresher for everyone else. Nonetheless I was determined and continued to work hard on learning, practicing, and perfecting what I needed to in order to compete. I focused and prepared and my team won our round in the competition. I received praise from the judge as well as the attorneys and coaches that worked with my team. This made me feel that all the hard work I put in was worth it and I was able to achieve my goal of proving myself and my abilities being on the team.