Personal Narrative: What I Learned From English 101

In all honesty, I don't remember a lot about becoming literate. I didn't have a special moment or time when I knew that reading or writing going to take me somewhere. According to my mom she started to read to me when I was one, so there wasn't anything that could've excelled me much farther before going into kindergarten. One of the requirements in elementary school was to read every night which I believe was an important factor of me improving my literacy. Reading and writing used to me excite me because I would immerse myself into a book or write a whole new universe on a page. I made reading and writing something personal to me. I now realize that every book and every piece of writing can be worthwhile in one way or another.

The final weeks of my first semester in college are coming to an end. My Columbus State english class has written a total of three projects, and a total of four papers. There are a lot of grammatical issues that, at the beginning of the year, I had issues on. However, I have improved on these errors drastically, and have become a better writer because of it. Even though I am still working on many aspects of my writing, I do believe that I have become a better writer. I believe that my biggest issues while writing are run on sentences, making a strong thesis statement, and having quotes stand alone at the beginning of a paragraph.

I have grown as a reader, thinker and writer thanks to this course. These are the things that I have worked on and improved over the past couple of months and I feel that my work shows this. In no way do I mean to sound over confident, I know I still have plenty to learn. However, I am extremely surprised and proud of myself. I will admit I had thoughts of previously giving up, I allowed myself to focus too much on the negative. Now, however, I feel differently. I have learned through this course how to write, how to express myself, and how to find the answers to the things that I don 't know. Most importantly, I learned to

The love for a better place for their children to learn and grow, drove my parents to move my siblings and me from Nigeria to America. The adjustment to a new community and culture along with the: education system, government, currency, social norms, and language were difficult for my family to adjust to. In elementary school, I found it difficult to communicate with other students; I tried speaking to them the way the people on old tv shows spoke, but they did not “catch my drift”. As I got more acquainted with the language I began joining clubs and playing sports. I was not placed in an ESL, English as a Second Language, program because I knew just enough English to barely pass tests. I was unable to keep up with the language and vocabulary

Having to write about my own literacy is hard to do, first of all it’s hard to recall things that happened when you were a child let alone when I started to read and write, I remember going to school playing, the teacher reading to us, making vowel sounds and learning to write my name; I recall the teacher giving out the spelling list and taking it home to practice before Friday’s test, I would go to school hoping and praying that I would not misspell any words; as usual I missed a couple of words and I knew what that meant.

From my experiences, I have learned that effort and dedication are the key factors needed to gain magnificent literacy skills. Even though, I had to start from the bottom all over again, I was able to succeed in a new language.That’s why, I feel that it is extremely important to keep expanding our knowledge in order to develop our understanding, imagination and language. Although, I feel that I have improved my literacy throughout my 19 years, I know there is much more to learn.

Thank you to all the students, professors, and my coach for your support, encouragement, and feedback. As I previously stated in my introductory post, I love read but hate to write, which was probably not the best words to say entering an English class, but with your support, not only have I made it through this course, but I have also enjoyed the journey.

Freshman year English would certainly have been completely diverse without Ms. Karen Minor as my teacher. Through the thick and thin, she understood my struggles and understood how to accomplish specific assignments that for some time I did not fully comprehend. For example, she assisted me with our Personal Odyssey (Adventure) Video project; without any ideas, I personally asked her how to find a perfect event. She gladly and happily offered some ideas, asking questions about what vacation(s) I have been on recently, and she expanded the horizon even more, asking if there was a certain time I felt “at home” on a vacation. Having said this, I finally realized that there was a perfect time to use for my project. With her help, I was able to

My growth in English 101 was a long and difficult journey for me this would be my second time around taking this class. The thing that was difficult for me in class was the fact my medication made me drowsy so it made it difficult for me to stay awake in class some days. I was lucky this time around I had a teacher that was energetic and kept me awake enough to understand what we are supposed to do in the next paper. When we did a new paper we learned a new style of writing and strategies on how to write it more effectively. I would say the most difficult paper that I had to write was the innovation research paper but I learned how to find credible resources faster. I learned a lot in this class and grew a lot as a writer. So the five WPA topics

Savannah Hernandez Personal Narrative Part 1 UMUC Writing has not been easy for me in college. In high school I did well when tasked to write a paper, but I soon realized that writing was a challenge for me while in my first college English class. I realized I never knew how to correct mistakes or revise, that my teachers did not give needed feedback. I signed up for my second English class and thought it would be a breeze since I passed my first English class without any negative feedback from my professor.

On the first day of class, having forgotten how to write over the blazing summer, I had high hopes I would gain some writing skill. Over the course of the last 10 weeks I learned not only that I am an extreme procrastinator, but that I had a lot to learn in the writing world. I learned many things about writing, including grammar, organization, and expression. Through late nights studying and practice in class, I can proudly say I'm a better writer than I was before.

I can still remember my heart pounding out of my chest. It was my first time in Writing 1, and my nerves were mostly the result of a friend’s advice. Winter quarter, my friend told me about her struggles in her writing class and she advised me not to take Professor Bernstein for Writing because as she said “he is really tough and a very hard grader.” However, I had no other option but to take writing with Professor Bernstein because all the other writing 1 classes conflicted with my schedule. Nevertheless, nine weeks have past since I first stepped foot in Writing 1, and I can certainly say that I have learned more than I ever expected. Yes, it is true, this class has been a challenge like no other, especially for me, being that English is

I've loved writing since I was a young child, especially creative writing. It allows me to express myself, and it seems almost magical to be able to create things simply by writing down a few symbols and twenty-six letters in various ways. I've written many fictional stories of various genres over the years. Unfortunately, while I have done a lot of creative writing, I haven't done as much academic writing. I would like this class to help me become the kind of student who earns A's on her papers by assisting me in becoming more efficient in the overall writing process.

The sun sat on top of the distant mountains ready to mark the end of the day, and I was still driving along the long narrow road. Pines trees gathered on each side, and I deeply breathed in the refreshing forest air. The sweet butterscotch smelling sap that oozed out of the trees every spring lingered through my rolled down window. I was on my way to my mother’s house, which I should have been at hours ago but my alarm clock didn’t wake me from the deep slumber I was having.

Today is my mother’s birthday. November 17th. I am not sure how old she is turning. This time last year I was in the process of moving and the year before that I was in the process of staying afloat so forgive me, Mother, if I age you up a bit in my mind. Your bubbly child still loves you despite never getting you a real gift other than the hand turkeys from 3rd grade. But, maybe that’s where this started. Maybe my third grade was the grade when I realized hand turkeys can’t conjure up love out of everyone.