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Lessons
College has just arrived and my
biggest fear comes with it. I’ve heard rumors of how hard college is and that
it’s just going to be a waste of time. Bu for me I know it won’t be a waste,
I’m going to make something out of it and hopefully get over my fear and
improve on it. So you’re probably thinking how is it possible for someone to
improve on their fear, well I guess it just depends on what your fear is. My
fear is not that I am going to college and I have to make friends or anything
like that. My fear is not being able to pass my English class or improve my
writing skills.
English
has always been my fear ever since I was a little boy not only because I did
not know how to write properly but because I wasn’t a good speller. I remember
when I was in middle school; my friends would make fun of me for misspelling
things and writing things that just wouldn’t make sense. I know that they
wouldn’t make fun of me to discourage me from writing but I guess they would do
it to get laugh out of it. While they were there making fun of me, my
confidence in writing went down and I felt dumber and dumber every time. Then I
had some friends that did not make fun of me but they try to help me out with
my writing and I was grateful that I had them there for the help but It just
made me feel so dumb because I always needed there help. Another thing that I
did not like was when we had to write an essay and present it to the class
because not only would my friends know that I was not good at English but the
whole class.
I
always blamed my past teachers for how I write now because it seemed like they
wouldn’t spent that much time on teaching English and just focus on teaching
the other subjects.
I assumed it was because they thought that English was just common sense and we
should already know how to write. But in reality it wasn’t and there was a lot
to learn about it. Since, I really didn’t learn anything in English and I
wasn’t a natural writer like other when I got to high school I was always
placed in the dumb English classes[K1] .
Once I was placed there I was nervous because I thought that English was going
to be a lot harder since we had much more to learn. When I arrived for my first
English class my teacher told us to take out a piece of paper and to grab a
dictionary and write down the 20 definitions on the bored and once we were all
let him know so he can put on a movie[K2] .
When we heard out teacher tell us this we all looked at each other in shock
like is this guy serious. And he was, we did not just do this for the first day
of school but for the whole year. Through my whole high school year with my
luck I always got teachers like that at that point in time I did not mind
because English was so easy and I did not need to do much work or feel dumb
anymore.
Now
that I am going into college I realized that I’m not going to have the same
type of teachers that wouldn’t teach much and that I was going to have teacher
s that expect much more. I start to worry and panic because my high school
years were just a waste of time. Me thinking that it was cool to have it easy
in high school was a big mistake because now when I come to college it will not
be the same. When I went to register for my college classes they told me that I
need to take a remedial class for English. At first I was kind of embarrassed
that I had to, then I realized I will learn the English that I have always
wanted to learn. Maybe now I can overcome my fear and improve on it. Now that I am an
adult I know not to blame my teachers for how I write even though they were
suppose to teach me how, I look at the person in the mirror and blame him for
how I write.
Hi Michael!
ReplyDeleteI think the main strength of your essay is how you use a lot of great details to paint a picture of your not so nice experiences with English in the past. I especially liked the detail about the English teacher who'd make you write dictionary definitions on the board and then let you all watch movies. That makes me cringe!
One question I had while I was reading was how these experiences shaped you as a writer today. I like how you've included insights and reflections into your reasons for your lack of confidence, and I think that goes pretty far, but how would you characterize your writing skills?
One suggestion I had was to try to connect this essay to the Richardson article. I especially see connections to the article where you talk about how your teachers must have assumed that writing as something everyone should just know, and that you felt out of place because you weren't "naturally" good at it. Richardson says that's all b.s, so maybe by quoting or paraphrasing him, you'll strengthen your points.
Overall, I think this is a very thoughtful, insightful, and strong paper. I think the way you write makes it easy for others to relate to your experiences. And by the way, your ending is really powerful!
Hope this helps!
K.
Overall I think you wrote a great essay. You had very good details and past experiences that explained why you may have struggled in English and it made me think if my head of what actually you were saying. I cant believe in high school your English teachers did not teach you how to write but just to do definitions! That makes no sense to me but for not being taught the write way how to write I think you did a really good job.
ReplyDeleteYour essay is really well structured. The details that you gave were really helpful. I like how you expressed your feelings for every part of your essay. Express how your feeling changed from when you first started high school to when your entered college.
ReplyDeleteYour essay sounded very effective. I really like the way you made the structure of this writing it is very clear and the way you talked about your childhood with writing you get through the point of it.
ReplyDelete