Developing as a writer is an important skill you need for the rest of your life. My papers have not been the greatest but they do reflect me as a writer. I chose to revise the works that I thought I worked hard on and did my best to get my point across in a neat and consistent manner. The papers I chose were the literacy narrative, the synthesis essay, and the argument essay. I thought these papers really reflected how I have grown as a writer and developed better writing skills.
The first work I chose was my first paper I had written in college. The literacy narrative which I had titled Think Quick, was a challenge for me to write. I would normally sit down at my computer and just start writing my paper from the introduction to conclusion. This time I decided to try something different, I started with the body paragraphs. I also found it hard to incorporate someone else’s work into my paper. Once my paper was finished, I read over it to find mistakes and correct them.
I had missed quite a few mistakes that I would never have thought of. Once I got my paper back I made revisions. ...
I found that I needed to completely re-do my paper. The thesis in the rough draft was unclear, thus, I wrote a clearer more concise thesis. The rough draft I completed seemed to be all over the place, and nowhere pacific. I needed to make the changes in my commentary essay, because the draft was rushed, full of grammar errors, and not clear to the reader. Sometimes, as a writer, you have to keep going back to the drawing board. I had a bit of difficulty with this particular essay, however, with the revisions in place, I feel more confident.
Growing up in a bilingual household, I have struggled with many things especially reading and writing. Reading and writing have never been my strongest points. The first struggle that I can recall, is when I was about six or seven years old. I was beginning my education at Edu-Prize Charter School. I was a cute little kid, in the first grade, just like everybody else. But in the middle of the school year, my mom told me that my great, great aunt, who lived in China, was getting really sick and old. So if I wanted to meet her, it had to be now. Being a little kid, I didn’t quite understand why she couldn’t just go see the doctor, take some medication, or let time heal her. Unfortunately, now I know it was my mom’s way of saying that she was dying. My parents made the decision that it was probably the best way for me to understand my Chinese culture, along with meeting my relatives on my mother’s side of the family. So for a month, I had to leave my dad, my brother, my school, and all my
Throughout my childhood, the idea of having a college education was greatly stressed. As a result, it was my duty as the next generational child, to excel in my studies and achieve a life of prosperity and success. Learning became the basic foundation of my growth. Therefore, my youth was overtaken by many hours spent reading and writing what was known to be correct "Standard" English. I first found this to be a great shortcoming, but as I grew older, I began to realize the many rewards acquired by having the ability to be literate.
It was finally time to head to gym class in the afternoon where we were instructed to take part of a physical test. This test would determine how fit or unfit we are based on a system that was implemented by those with greater authority, on which concluded that it was on such a scale society should be based on. So it was that afternoon that I preformed the tasks that were instructed on to me and my peers. I was able to completed them to my utmost potential which can be consider to be something not so distinctive. It was on this day that I was mocked by one my peers of my lack of ability to preform the instructed physical tasks, that was a no brainer to such a fit individual like himself. It
Regardless of all of these improvements, I know my writing is still far from perfect. My arguments still lack the emotional appeal that, if present, would make my audience consider my arguments a lot faster. My analysis still lack development because often times I just state what happens instead of explaining why. In general, I need to work on controlling my voice and tone throughout an entire essay, which can be fixed if I choose my words more carefully to make sure my diction is uniform. Despite all of this, I am satisfied with myself, I am satisfied with the ways my writing has changed, with the way my writing skills have grown. Why? Because I am learning, and I know that I will continue improving as long as I take chances.
Life is like a tree, it grows and develops branches and leaves that come and go as we progress. The environments we live in determine which branches wither and fade and which prosper. Every branch holds some form of learned literacy from the end of the roots to the trunk and highest branch. Literacy encompasses many aspects of life.
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
As a child, I have always been fond of reading books. My mother would read to me every single night before I went to bed and sometimes throughout the day. It was the most exciting time of the day when she would open the cabinet, with what seemed to be hundreds of feet tall, of endless books to choose from. When she read to me, I wanted nothing more than to read just like her. Together, we worked on reading every chance we had. Eventually I got better at reading alone and could not put a book down. Instead of playing outside with my brothers during the Summer, I would stay inside in complete silence and just read. I remember going to the library with my mom on Saturdays, and staying the entire day. I looked forward to it each and every week.
Literacy embraces reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Integrating all of these into a literacy program is key. Teachers must provide endless and ongoing opportunities for their student to read, write, listen, and speak.
All I could remember on my journey to literacy was my concern over my brother and sister’s ability to read and write including solving math problems. That did not really motivate not to become literate; I was extremely playful as a child. What I am able to remember is my first day of school, I cried like a baby when my mom dropped me off. I soon began to grow out of my baby stage and school became really interesting. Even though it was not as hard as it is now, the value that pushed me to be literate was how my teacher was able to discipline students if they didn’t give the best to their education.
Growing up in working class family, my mom worked all the time for the living of a big family with five kids, and my dad was in re-education camp because of his association with U.S. government before 1975. My grandma was my primary guardian. “Go to study, go to read your books, read anything you like to read if you want to have a better life,” my grandma kept bouncing that phrase in my childhood. It becomes the sole rule for me to have better future. I become curious and wonder what the inside of reading and write can make my life difference. In my old days, there was no computer, no laptop, no phone…etc, to play or to spend time with, other than books. I had no other choice than read, and read and tended to dig deep in science books, math books, and chemistry books. I tended to interest in how the problem was solved. I even used my saving money to buy my own math books to read more problems and how to solve the problem. I remembered that I ended up reading the same math book as my seventh grade teacher. She used to throw the challenge questions on every quiz to pick out the brighter student. There was few students know how to solve those challenge questions. I was the one who fortunately nailed it every single time. My passion and my logic for reading and writing came to me through that experience, and also through my grandma and my mom who plant the seed in me, who want their kids to have happy and better life than they were. In my own dictionary, literacy is not just the ability to read and write, it is a strong foundation to build up the knowledge to have better life, to become who I am today.
My relationship with literacy began when I started elementary school and that was the first starting point of my positive relationship with literacy. I really started to grow as a reader and writer throughout my middle school and high school years. Throughout my years of going to school I had many positive experiences that shaped my view of literacy today. My literacy skills have also enhanced throughout my educational years.
What standards are being used to judge these papers? Do my desperate all-night writing sessions, in ways I don’t understand, help me improve? How did I learn to write at a level that has helped me succeed up to this point? My early writing education is mostly lost to my conscious memory, but I do think that regular reading, from a young age, of books of all sorts loomed large in that education. I remember a prose piece from sixth-grade “honors” English And Reading class called “Mutants”.
This assignment has been a great research project. So often, in courses, the research that is required is not beneficial. With this project, I have learned so much. I decided to research Principle 8. This principle discusses how important parents are in their child’s learning (Tomkins, 2010). I feel that teaching can only benefit from parents being involved in the classroom. At the school where I work, we have a very big problem with parents being involved in their children’s learning. I chose this topic to hopefully help me learn how to incorporate parents in my classroom every day.
If a child is a seed, then the education he receives is the water that helps him bloom into a flower. In a country of one billion almost half of the citizens are uneducated and illiterate. The thing that I feel strongly about and which should be eliminated is the lack of education and literacy.