Sehun Bolaji
Literacy in Writing
During my 11th grade year in highschool, my English teacher was trying to prepare us for the English regents. So she would have us all work on our vocabulary and sentence structure in class and have us do various amounts of essays to ensure ours success before the exam. I was pretty confident in myself due to the fact that I always had a 90 or above inEnglish tests during that time. She said to me the reason I had such a good grade on the essays is because she could hear my “voice” in my writing and that I use a lot of vocabulary words. But the day before the English exam however, she told the class that for the argumentative essay that we shouldn’t defend the side that we agree with the most, but defend the side that has the most backup information. This was not something I thought of before and it did sound like the logical thing to do so for the English exam I had started to do so, but because of this I had gotten a low grade on the ELA Regents. I didn’t fail the regents but I thought that the grade I got wasn’t good enough for me. So I was scheduled to take it the year after. During the gap in between I didn’t really study, all I did was do what I usually do, go to school and go home and watch anime and play video games and occasionally go out with friends. Then, when it was time for me to take the test again I came in with confidence, I was determined the write the way I see fit, which was basically the way people in the shows I watch speak because when I do that I use words I wouldn’t think of using before. Additionally it is more fun to me that way. Furthermore, I defended the side of the argumentative essay I agreed with, not the one with the most evidence. When the test grades came back I had gotten a 92 on the regents which made me feel better about myself, made me more confident in my writing abilities.
Due to that experience I went through I find myself able to connect with my writing. For instance, when I write you essays, they are always opinionated. This helps me able to gain a better understanding on what I am writing. Additionally, keeping it original. Furthermore, I never stress over an essay because of the confidence I have gained in my writing abilities because of my personal experience. For example, the first time I took the ELA regents I was scared and nervous and didn’t believe in my writing abilities and had a low score of a 69, then when I retook the the essay the second time with confidence in myself I scored a 92. Due to this experience I see no reason to believe that confidence isn’t a huge factor for me when it comes to my writing. I had also gained a writing structure due to my English teachers lessons using the Schafer model. It helped me figure out ways to properly write an essay. I’ve been using Schafer Model to the point where I don’t realize I don’t even use it anymore. At this point in time I have realized that I use Schafer model and my own voice in writing in order to write my essays now. I had incorporated the words unfamiliar words from the shows I watch and the books I read into my essays which is how I came upon the writing style I have now. Since I noticed my writing got better in my opinion, I decided to write fictional stories in my free time when ever I’m bored and read it to my friends and see what they think about it. I find it entertaining and my friends do too. Some of them even started doing the same. I had also began to like my English class more. The topics that we go over in class gives me some more ideas to put into my writing, let it be stories or just into my tone of writing in general. The only thing that I disagreed with my 11th grade English teacher in was that we should only defend the side with the most information when it comes to arguments. I disagree with the statement due to the fact that if I defend a side I actually agree on it’s easier for me to use my writing style and put my voice into my writing, easier for me to find a sort of flow in my essays. It’s also easier to argue against the side I don’t agree with. In my opinion, it’s better for me if the other side has more information backing up their statements than mine, it gives me more things to rebuttal, which is something I enjoy doing. When I rebuttal it gives me more things to write about, which helps when I have to write long essays.
