narrative

English 101
Literacy Narrative Essay
September 9th, 2013
My Struggles With Literacy
English was always a challenge for me because I grew up in China and that was my first language i’ve ever learned to write and speak. So coming to the U.S. and learning a brand new language wasn’t the easiest thing for me to do. After fourteen years of being here I still occasionally have a hard time with writing papers, using correct punctuation, and grammar. Even with struggling to write papers I still did pretty good in my english classes in high school, except my freshman and Sophomore year. This all began late August 2009 when I first started high school.
When I first walked in my english class I thought it was going to be easy like middle school, but I was wrong. My teacher Mrs. Shoemaker told the class that a four page essay is do in three weeks. I was thinking to myself like any other freshman who think, “how can she give us a four page paper to due when school just started?” She also told the class to check out a book called To Kill a Mockingbird and explain what chapter one is about and this is due the week before the essay is due. I already hate this class. I am the worst at explain things that came out of a book, but a week later I had it finished. It took me about four to five hours to do, but I got it done. Now fast forward to eight o'clock at night, the day before this big essay is due. I wait till the last day to do the paper. This happens kind of a lot and I don’t know why, maybe i’m just unmotivated to do this paper because I hated writing papers in general. Four hours later it’s midnight and I finally finished my paper ready to turn in tomorrow. Three days after turning in the paper, I finally got it back and I was shock on how many little punctuation marks was marked missing or incorrect. As I was heading home after school that day I was still thinking about how I made these little mistakes on my paper. I felt like giving up on writing any other paper because I felt like I didn’t know how to use proper punctuation marks. The very next day I talked to my teacher about my paper because I want to learn how to use the right punctuations on a future paper. Her information was good, but I still did not understand it. As time we by the reading and writing ISATs were coming up and at that time I didn’t really care about it because I didn’t really think it was required. I thought that was just just like any other test, but it did not count as a grade. After I bombed it, I later found out it is required to graduate. I was so angry at myself for just guessing on those tests and not taking it seriously. Now I can’t retake it till my sophomore year. I started to think to myself why even try in english class anymore, so I started to slack of quite a bit. More time past I started to pull myself together to start trying again. I was doing really well in english until I had to read the Odyssey and shakespeare, which was written in an old language. My teacher wanted a paper translating what the Odyssey is and what shakespeare’s play meant. I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea what any of these old style of writing meant. All of that stuff was gibberish to me, like trying to learn another whole new language again. Luckily I have a friend that was kind enough to help me write this paper since I have absolutely no clue how to translate old english to english we speak now. Once we finally finished the assignment, we were so relieved it was done and over with. As time rolls by more essays were due and I still get punctuations marks wrong with some incorrect grammar. Over the months of writing essays I felt very frustrated. I again began to not care about my english class in addition to slacking off, also my grade in the class was slipping. Since I didn’t care anymore about that class, the end of the school year come by with me failing the course. I was truly disappointed with myself and told myself everything will change next year.
So sophomore year has begun, along with me think I would cruise through this class. Again I was wrong. My new teacher Mr. Berry was rumored to be an easy teacher as well as a essay teacher. I knew it was too good to be true. I just said whatever and just accepted all of the essay along with the book reading responses too. Throughout the year I just stopped trying in my english class because I just didn’t completely understand the material. So i’m starting to repeat what I did my freshman year in my sophomore year. I knew this was a bad habit, but I was really unmotivated to write anything that had to do with literacy. Doing what I always do when I don’t completely understand something, I just gave no effort in my writing assignments. Before I knew it the ISATs were coming up and I told myself that I needed to pass in order to graduate. My buddy Michael is very good with reading and writing, so I asked him to help me study up for the upcoming ISAT testing. He agreed to help, then after a week later of studying for the ISATs the day has finally come to actually time to take it. As I sat in the computer room taking both the reading and writing test, my mind goes completely blank on the evaluating as well as the “how to use the punctuations correctly” questions. After sitting in there for about ten minutes not knowing what the answers to the questions were. I just guessed my way through because i’ve just given up at that point. The next couple of hours or seemed like an eternity to me. I just wanted to be finished and go home. When I finally finished I was very disappointed when the scores pooped up. On the computer screen show that I did not pass. Later that day going home frustrated, disappointed, and my hate for reading and writing kept growing as the days passed. This felt like freshman year all over again. The remaining months left as a sophomore has passed by and I justed barely passed the class. I wanted to just never try in english anymore or on my reading and writing ISATs, but I never gave up and I kept on trying.
My final two years in high school was probably the best years for me academically. I finally was beginning to understand literacy during my junior year. It felt pretty good to know how to finally write a correct paper for once with little to no mistakes with punctuation marks. As my literacy skills improved I began to enjoy writing a little bit more. Fast forward to senior year which was a great year for me in english class. I had a total of three essays over the whole course and a senior project paper. I nailed all of the three essays, but the senior project paper I wasn’t so sure about. I handed it in and hoping I would do well on it. When I got it back a week later I was so happy about my score on my paper. Inside I was jumping with joy, you could see the joy on my face. I got a ninety five on one of the hardest papers of the year. I wished that I had scored a one hundred on it, but ninety five was good enough for me.
Coming from a different country and learn how to write as well as speak a completely new language. Through the struggles with literacy not only in my freshman and sophomore year in high school, but also in all of the other past grade levels. However through all of this I still kept on trying to see how can I improve with literature even when I kept on failing or barely passing my classes, giving up was never an option for me if I ever wanted to graduate and go to college. As you can tell I kind of have a love hate with literacy. In the end I kept trying and never giving up on improving with literature. All of my hard had finally paid off and I was so happy on how much i’ve improved over the years.