Language and Literacy Narrative essay.
Lissette Lucero on Abstract: while doing this essay I had to think and have the courage to share something that is private but this story was a good one to share because it had everything In order to write a narrative essay about a significant event in my life where literacy and/or language changed my outlook. It includes rhetorical situations and the structure of a formal essay such as a well-told story, Vivid detail, and some indication of the narrative’s significance.
Lissette Lucero
Instructor Megan Skelly
FIQWS 10115
Fall 2020
“Unforgettable mistakes”
It all started that April, the room was big enough to fit thirty students but there were only eight during that time. The big windows let me see the leaves falling from the tree that morning, the noise from the children’s playing in the playground suddenly became silent. When I heard my name being called by my ESL teacher who was sitting at the end of the table. He was looking down at the big textbook telling me that I had to read paragraph number two. The moment it was my turn to read my hands became sweaty, the cold freeze from outside didn’t help the cold sweat I felt at that time, my face became so read the moment I started reading, all those eyes looking at me made me anxious. At that moment my mind went blank, everything became silent, the voices were gone, I felt alone in that big room full of books, and computers, you may ask yourself why? Well, a year has passed since I first came to this country, and every day I had to attend a special class to learn English with students that already knew perfectly English, but needed some help with their writing since they lacked writing in English perfectly. For me, that class was for learning English. In my native country, I had a class in which we learned English but we only learned from what a textbook gave us but that wasn’t an English to communicate with since it only consisted of the alphabet and basic pronouns. And we all spoke the same language and had the same culture. But those kids were all from different places that consisted of different languages and cultures.
In the middle of my reading, I missed pronounced a word that made one of my classmates laugh and repeat the word I just read how I pronounce it, which made the rest of my classmates’ laugh, and that made me feel embarrassed and wanting to disappear. The only thing I wanted at that time was to hide from all the eyes and laughter but I couldn’t. I had to stay there pretending that everything was fine as if it was just a joke and not something to be taken seriously, as they will put it, but in reality for me was more than just a joke. They made me feel uncomfortable in my own body. That beautiful sunny day suddenly became gloomy. Those two minutes for me felt like I was in that class for hours as if timed became slower than usual. When the class ended I went to the bathroom and started crying. The incident made me feel insecure about reading out loud or just participating but it also made me work harder and learn English faster to be able to understand my classes better and have better grades. I was able to learn a new language at a grown age pretty fast since for kids older than three it makes it more difficult to learn since they can’t longer easily absorb information. I constantly looked for ways to improve my English and study hard every day.
That incident made a big impact on my school life because I never participated or talked with my classmates. It also gave me a lot of low self-esteem in my life that still haunts me to this day because of the fear and anxiety I get every time I have to read out loud. After that I would always rehearse lines and perfectly articulate my words in front of people in my head, but can’t physically say what I want to say properly in front of people when I’m put under the spotlight, my anxiety always gets the best of me. I feel that I’ve improved over the years, but still get this very often in a new group of people. I learned to handle it better and make myself enjoy reading comfortably since I realized that we all make mistakes and we learn from them and that it is okay to mispronounce words but its not okay to let an event control your life.
From writing this piece I learned from myself that I am capable of writing things about myself and putting a story together not only for me but for others to read and probably feel related to it or just learn from it. I also learned that I am in charge of my writing and I can develop my story anyway as I want it and the final product depends on me and how I want my readers to interpret my story. It helped recall memories from which helped me become the person I am now. Not from my writing but from my classmates’ work, I learned how to revise my work and look for details that can help my story and to see what my writing needs to improve. Regarding my writing process, I could have put more time and effort into my story and make sure that what I intended to share is right and well done. I could also revise my work to make sure there aren’t any mistakes or have someone else read it since sometimes I can’t see my mistakes. When it comes to grading myself, it makes me be more critical about my work since I tend to be hard on myself since I know I could have done better and that I need to improve more as a writer. It also helps me to improve my writing since I can see in what category I need to improve or do better and also see my strengths and weaknesses.
My essay narrates a specific incident in the form of a story 20-points.
I incorporated vivid details in 20-points. My essay explains why the narrated event was a significant 20-points. My paper’s structure is well-organized and coherent 10-points. My paper’s conclusion summarizes my work presented 10-points. My writing is polished 10-points. 90/100.
