Author: Julia Khutsishvili

                                        Homework 1.6 First Draft of an Essay 

                                                by Iuliia (Julia)  Khutsishvili 

      There were a series of important and huge events in my life,the ones you can actually call life changing. One of them was moving abroad with my family in the middle of my school years. We moved to the US when I was in the middle of my sixth grade. First destination was St.Louis, State MO. I finished my 6th grade there. Loved the middle school, looked just like I imagined and saw in every American school movie . But we didn’t like the state and lifestyle so ended up that we packed our stuff and moved to Brooklyn, because of everything accept the school was not a right fit for my family.As soon as I saw my middle school in the city,I was honestly terrified and it reminded me of a prison,well let’s be honest those security or whatever they called bars on the windows are actually looking a little depressing . As soon as we entered the building I was a little more shocked by the hallway and classroom looks,but it wasn’t the end of my shock ,than I have been told that I will not go to 7 grade,because of the NYC doe school system.Apparently my age fits the requirements of an eighth grader,can you imagine,I am skipping the whole year of school… But honestly it ended up being not a big deal,and at least my mom was happy about it,because she counted up that I will graduate senior year at the same time as my friends and classmates from my home country will graduate in the 11th grade. And yeah,here I am already mentioning a huge difference between the school systems. In the United States there is a division of classes,where kids have to go to pre-k,then kindergarten,elementary,middle and after all the high school,well back in my country all different. Same school until you graduate,and instead of twelve years of education there are eleven. Yeah of course the classes and teachers are changing but the building stays the same,the floors a little higher are for middle-high school classes and the first and second floors are dedicated to elementary kids .Also right here, I can mention another difference between the school systems that was odd for me . In high school in the US everybody has their own schedule which is preferred and chosen by students,well accept the mandatory ones. Rather than back in my home country, there is another system. You don’t really get to choose the classes and you have an assigned “class” , which means that in all subjects you will have the same classmates around you and all types of classes like science,math,literature,art etc are mandatory and you have to take all of them.

       For the first year, I felt really uncomfortable with the school system here and also I have struggled with my English.I started learning it when I was a kid but mostly it was British English grammar and writing , not that much of speaking. So yes,I can say it was tough for me at first,I felt really insecure about my English skills and couldn’t really understand how everything works. But my teachers were really kind, supportive and understanding, they would take their time to explain everything to me and would expand assignment deadlines personally for me,which I felt really thankful for and still do. But there is again a cultural difference,in all post soviet union countries all teachers are really strict, and that’s not some type of stereotype, it is actually true based on my and my friends personal experiences . No one is going to stick around after work time with you to explain stuff,especially for free. Same with expanding deadlines , if you missed it then that is absolutely your problem,even if you were sick you had to do all the stuff and then bring it to school when you will be back. Don’t get me wrong,not like the teachers are really bad , you can actually make friendly relationships with them that will last and help you for a long time and what about the strictness,it doesn’t seem that bad when you are really used to it,that’s how the school system there worked for years. The overall system is much harder and stricter ,one of the examples could be math learning material. When I moved to the US, in the 11th grade I was taught math problems that we solved back when I was in the beginning of sixth grade back home,which is a huge perk,that I was kind of ahead of everyone else in the class.

      I can’t really tell which school system I like better,I feel like there is room for both,for different teaching styles and cultures. Even though I have struggled,and felt like really giving up a few times,nowadays I feel really thankful that my school journey went like that. I have a huge bag of life experience behind me,because I got to see and be in three different schools with different teaching methods and languages , which gave me a bunch of different knowledge.

 

Word Count : 867

Throughout the twelve years of school and the fact that I have changed three schools in different countries and states, has given me a bunch of knowledge. Knowledge in the difference of school systems, educational programs and what it can give to the kids and knowledge as if throughout experiences in different communities. I questioned myself, so what was the most memorable thing that the time you spent in school gave you. The first thing that came to my mind was my high school English teacher, here in NYC. She was my English teacher twice, the freshman year English class and then the AP English in my junior year. What was so memorable about her? She was one of the strictest teachers ever, with a lot of rules and morals that everyone else had to follow. I still remember how shocked everyone was after leaving her class on the second floor, the class was one of the best looking, cleanest in the whole school and a bunch of natural light coming through the window, but the teacher…I remember how everyone hated her and her class as well, they referred as if “You can’t even take a breath in that class, she will fail you. ” After hearing all of that commenting, I felt really scared for myself and my grades, because I’m not that best of a student, it is hard for me to focus, and I often forget about homework’s.  Few months passed by and to be fully honest I disliked the teacher too, she in fact was absolutely the strictest person in the whole school. But then I realized something. The way she was teaching us, her methods and a really strict deadlines for assignments, made me actually study and keep track of everything better than in any other class I was taking. I mean, I had no choice but to do so, otherwise she would surely and easily fail me. Honestly after a year’s passed by, I am really grateful that I had such an experience with that teacher, may sound a little weird, because I still know classmates who to nowadays don’t even want to talk about that teacher and refer as if she was their high school nightmare. But I am a 100% grateful to her, the study methods that she used, made me actually do stuff, remember things and be more responsible in a way, to even nowadays the information and knowledge she provided to us, is really handy and useful and in my opinion that’s really important!   Post made by Iuliia(Julia)Khutsishvili

Based on the articles we have read so far; the conventions of the educational narrative genre seem pretty specific and clear. All of the three authors talk about their personal life stories or the points of view(s), that while reading they want a reader to go through and understand their choices and feelings. In their writing they specify the characters that are involved, mostly the stories were about the immigrant parents and themselves / the authors. I loved how they prescribed their feelings/emotions so that the reader can get into the story deeper, one of the examples I took from the text “Fourth of July” page 1 “In it, the readers can see the anger that spurred much of Lordes writing” and then further in this writing piece we can see how people / family faced all of the struggles such as racism, sexism and homophobia. The other convention for this genre is the way that story overall goes, story structure is also one of the important parts. In my opinion the good place to start with my own educational narrative piece is to jot down or break down the whole idea of the story I want to talk about, understand if I want to write only from my point of view or add the other people’s perspectives as well. For now, I do not have any questions or concerns about a writing piece of my own, if I would have any, I will add it into the comments under this post. Post made by Julia (Iuliia) Khutsishvili