Author: Mia (Page 7 of 8)

An experience that shaped my view on education happened during the pandemic when we were doing online class. The pandemic hit in the middle of my freshman year of highschool and then continued my entire sophomore year. During the pandemic I really lost the motivation to do my assignments and to even get on zoom and attend class. Seeing people not attend the classes and not participating during class really made me feel like there was no point in getting on the zoom and then I felt lethargic so I didn’t wanna do the classwork on top of that. It made school feel very optional because I could sleep during class or just not log in to zoom and it wouldn’t matter to me. This led me to failing a class for the very first time. While at the time I didn’t feel like doing my classwork, I still cared about my grades which made me feel very helpless because I was torn between feeling like I was failing but also not having the energy to do anything about it.

In the midst of all this, there was one class I didn’t skip or miss my assignments and that was biology. While I was still fairly new to the school and didn’t even know the teacher that was teaching this class, It was still my favorite one because of how entertaining he made the class. Not only did he make the class fun, he made it so that we were learning at the same time. He would make new slide presentations every week which would show what we learning for that week, he made us do kahoot games, we had to do our own slides on a specific animal and someone different would present everyday which would keep the class interesting. He also made us do more activities that were not just online we also had to do stuff with things we had at home. It kept me engaged in the class because we all had to share out and we all learned some new facts and animals we might’ve never heard of. Thanks to my biology teacher, I realized that learning isn’t just taking tests and memorizing boring stuff, it can be informational and fun at the same time. Thanks to this class I could feel a little more motivated to do my work and perservere through my sophomore year.

From what I’ve read so far, the ingredients of the education narrative genre is to include a personal story that relates to the topic you are going to write about. In this  way, it can pique the reader’s attention in the narrative and perhaps even offer a relatable experience. Jose Olivares writes for a specific audience which is teens who feel like they don’t belong anywhere. He uses his writing as an outlet for the things he lived through as a Mexican-American person while also trying to show the readers that they too have a voice and hopefully feel less alone in their similar experiences. He wrote about a lot of different things which I could relate to myself, which made me feel understood and keep wanting to read more. To start my own education narrative, I want to be able to successfully connect a personal narrative I may write, with whatever topic I’m writing about. I want to get my point across in a clear way while also being able to write in a way that the reader can put themself in my shoes if they don’t share the same experience.  A question I have regarding this topic is, when the time comes to write our own education narrative, is it gonna be based on a specific topic or are we gonna choose our own? A concern I have is if I’m going to be able to write an interesting education narrative in order to keep readers focused on my writing.

What I think Mike Bunn means by saying “you are already an author” is that when we read anything like an email or an article, we already read like writers because we try to find exactly what the email or article is saying and  in the end we begin to start thinking like a writer. Getting in the point of view of the writer by analyzing every word and the connotation or context behind the writing and thinking about what the author wanted to convey with each sentence is reading like a writer. While trying to analyze the text, we can find things that we might wanna use in our own writing. Reading in this way can help us write better because we might pick up on writing strategies used by other authors and apply them to our own work. Some of the things I write are emails or texts and I think that after reading this article, trying to find different writing styles and ways to catch the reader’s attention can help me write better and target the audience I want successfully. For example, something Bunn did in his writing that I want to try to do in my own writing is starting my essay with a question or a quote that gives context or is related to what my piece is going to be about. This way I can capture the reader’s attention and prompt them to read more. Another thing I can do is start with a descriptive anecdote that can transition into the topic I am going to write about. I want to use these techniques in my own writing so that I can become a better writer. Additionally, when reading an article, I want to remember to ask myself questions like what is the targeted audience or what is the purpose of the author’s writing.