Year: 2019

My personal experience with reading and writing came from when I used to live in Maryland. I lived there for well over half my life and was also born there but for some reason for the first 5 years of my education I was placed in special classes for children who didn’t know how to speak English. My parents had always questioned why I was placed in those specific classes given the fact that I knew how to speak English. Honestly being in those classes changed my view on education because the work was so much easier than what was really expected of other kids in regular classes. When going into middle school I was placed in regular classes but since the workload and curriculum was so different from what I had been given, I ended up struggling and having to repeat the same grade the following year. From that point on the educational experience just kept getting harder and harder. As time went on I honestly felt like I was learning nothing but the bare minimum because my grades reflected that passing everything with 65-70%. Then 8th grade came and here I am sitting with a group of kids that weren’t gonna graduate in June, just the feeling of t being able to walk across the stage with my friends made me want to try harder and to see if I could actually accomplish what I wanted. Went through summer school moved onto high school and here comes the first few weeks I feel like I got the hang of things but as time goes on it comes back to me and what mean by that was the feeling of drowning in my work and all the stress was coming right back and I honestly didn’t know what to do I actually stopped going to school mid way through high school and was planning on dropping out because I was so far behind. Over the course of me not attending school my principle came to visit me with the intention of trying to get me to come back to school which eventually worked. When I came back I was receiving additional help in all my classes which obviously helped me a lot but also made me realize that I could actually do it on my own I just needed some support, the last year of high school, I had completed so much by the first half of the year that I only had two classes where I actually had to do work in order to graduate, which was very surprising for everyone given the fact that they knew I had tried to drop out and now a major come back. So I guess in a sense that reveals something good about my personal experience and also the educational system, which would be that you can accomplish whatever you want and with the right support in this case the educational support that I was getting helped me accomplish something that I honestly didn’t believe I was gonna do.

 

a kid having a learning disability like dyslexia can definitely be a factor in how ur educational experience turns out. As a 6th grader coming into my first year of middle school I wasn’t sure what to expect, I walked into my first class (english) and everything seemed fine until we got an assignment where we had to read this book and write a short essay response. while other kids finished around me I was still struggling to read and understand the book so eventually I gave up on reading and the writing and just sat there till the class was over. This kept happening and it wasn’t just in this class but every class that involved any kind of reading and or writing. This frustrated me to no end, it got to the point where I would start finding excuses not to be in the class room and then when that wouldn’t work I would just put my head down and waited for the class to be over. my personal experience is a pretty common one but not much is being done about it. I know that this might not seem like that big of a deal, people would always tell me things like “you need to study more” or “sit in the front so you pay attention” and “this shouldn’t be this hard for you”, all of the things that my teachers and parents would say to me made me feel like I wasn’t capable of doing things that I shouldn’t have any problem with doing and that it was my fault that I was like this. This lead to me ultimately stop trying at school in every way I could. I stoped doing my homework, would come to school and class late or not come at all, if something was hard I would give up instantly, and I stoped raising my hand because I didn’t want to get the answer wrong. As I got older things kept getting worse I was failing classes, going to summer school, and getting into trouble at school. because of all of this education wasn’t my main priority I put it aside for things I found more important such as sports and video games. however, now things are a lot different but my past experience still stays with me to this day. its hard for me to come in and participate in class because I don’t wanna say the wrong thing when called on or I really don’t wanna read to the class out loud because I don’t wanna sound dumb and get stuck on a word. When it comes to assignments like reading a passage or writing if its hard I tend to give up early or just do the minimum for the work. this has impacted my education so much because I wasted so much time not going to school and falling further and further behind feeling sorry for myself and thinking that I couldn’t do anything good in school. In the future though What I think should be done and what can be done in the for kids with learning disabilities is to not treat them like they are dumb but to give them extra help if needed and try and understand them and not get frustrated when they cant do something others can do.

 

 

Make America Great Again

Also known as “four legs good, two legs bad.”

 

I am a recent immigrant of America and I came in the year of election of the current sitting president. The importance of this time exponentially increases due to my exact location. I was a university student in the heart of the south, Tennessee. It was home to country music, good barbecue and most importantly, the confederate flag flying high alongside every American flag outside of each suburban household surrounding the campus. I was in the middle of rural predominantly white America and Trump’s strongest base. I was a black foreign person living in a space that was not mine and I realized that I was living Animal Farm in my daily life.

Animal Farm, written by George Orwell, gives the view of the animals on a farm and in the beginning highlights the hard work and terrible living conditions they undergo while the farmer is “lazing around”. The animals bond together and execute an uprising, thereby removing the apparent user. The changes in the power dynamics and the idea of who is deserving of power comes to the forefront and the way the book illustrates the new oppression resounded deeply in my spirit. I was twelve and my worldview of my country’s class structures and communities that I existed in changed. I was twelve and I could see that words not only carry weight but creates emotion and every day one must actively choose to reject herd mentality that creates more oppression so when I continuously heard the mantra “ Make America Great Again” I instantly remembered Snowball’s intentional reduction of the Seven Commandments of Animalism.

“Four legs good, two legs bad.”

A phrase repeated several times until it was the only thing the sheep remembered from Old Major’s speech on the need for animal unity in the face of human oppression and devolved into the simplicity of its very words. Orwell portrays this repeating example of how the elite class abuses language to control the lower classes. Although the slogan was at surface level helpful at first, enabling them to clarify the essential principles that they were fighting for, it soon becomes a meaningless sound bleated by the sheep (“two legs baa-d”), serving no purpose other than to drown out dissenting opinion. By the end of the novel, the pigs changed the mantra to “ four legs good, two legs better” in so doing, reverting to what the problem was once more. This was my issue with Make America great again. It was reductionist and incendiary and I could not do anything but exist in the farm.

I was boxer the horse, with my head down and since I was not personally affected by the issues African-Americans faced, I continued not noticing the issues with the community I lived in. this was until it directly affected me. The racism and unsheathed hatred that came with this mantra did not affect me within my micro ecosystem of my campus because I was foreign before I was black t those people but I was faced with this reality when I went hiking with my friends. We stopped at a gas station on our way to the hill and I didn’t get out the car along with my Muslim and Spanish friend because as we pulled in a couple of men on a truck stopped washing their cars and went to stand in front the store. My two white female friends went in and got our supplies but the tension for those few minutes was thick with aggression.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others” perfectly describes what I experienced that day. There was a sense of entitlement and superiority laced with the aggression of these men’ actions. The word “equal” becomes a relative term rather than an absolute one, meaning that there can be different degrees of “equal”-ness. The small, almost imperceptible changes within the core ideals of Animal Farm allowed for gradual corruption. The speeches of trump allowed for this seeming uniqueness and self-appointed superiority of these men. This is our reality living in today’s society. History repeats itself but it’s a shame that there will be an animal farm part two.

Yasminah Carmela Jn Baptiste Raymond 

Profesor: Ms. Jewell 

Date      : 09/17/2019 

  Direction: Write a literary essay that talk about your writing and reading experience

        Learning to read and write in whatever language is crucial. However, I considered it as a basic skill in school education. When I was in first grade, I applied myself to be able to write and read in French. As a result of I became aware about what I read in books, and whatever sources in that language. To sum up, based on my writing I was able to enhance my reading comprehension.  

        Therefore, my native language is Creole.  However, I made a great stride to be able to write in French. When I was in kindergarden, I didn’t acquire any knowledge of it. Even the alphabet seemed unfamiliar to me. I became fascinated with writing in French when I was in first grade. The reason was because I saw my cousin creating foreign words with beautiful handwriting. So, I imitated him. I sought assistance from my French teacher. When he taught me French he first began to show me how to do the letters of alphabet. I remember my right hand trembling with holding it to help me did the letters. I also remember that I cried when I didn’t know how to do capital Y. However, as an eight years old girl I experienced resistance. Even it was difficult for me to write, I kept doing it until I could make words with the letters. In summary, my love for writing helped me go farther. 

       According to my own experience in reading in first grade, it was a little bit burdensome for me to read in French. The cause of that was while I learned to write I sometime combined letters to make words with them. As a result of when I was reading a book I was familiar with some words. But, sometime I didn’t understand what I red.  

      Unfortunately, words like basketball, and volleyball were strenuous for me to pronounce they were words that French borrowed from English. I knew they came from English because my French instructor told me that. To solve this issue I  asked my nephew to teach me how to articulate them. Then, while he taught me how to utter them I had some difficulty to say them correctly. However, after many practices I was able to pronounce them perfectly.  

     All in all, the reflection of my writing upon my reading made me to understand French. In my own experience, I made a lot of efforts to to be able to write and read in French. Moreover, my curiosity made me knew to items. Firstly, after those two experiences I learned that writing is related to reading. Secondly, after I crossed the boundary from learning to write to learning to read I discovered that some terms in French derived from English. 

      

 

Due September 19–Please post your revised literacy narratives!

Think of a title that encapsulates your piece. Please click on the “Literacy Narratives” category when posting.

Peruse your classmates’s posts. What can we learn about reading and writing as a result of these shared pieces?