Personal Narrative Final Draft

Matthew Haulot

Ms. Fleischer

English 1a

2-12-14

Personal Narrative

            I hated reading and writing growing up, I absolutely hated it. Growing up in the Bay Area schools were always over crowded. I was never the best student, never the best writer. I struggled with writing mostly because class sizes were too large and the teacher could not focus on one student at a time. The fact that I didn’t read much and didn’t have a large vocabulary didn’t help either. I hated reading, it was boring and the pages seemed to never end. Every time I flipped that page I only had more to read. I loved watching movies as a kid. My favorite movie growing up was “The Sandlot”. It described my childhood perfectly. Summer days were always spent riding my bike around my town with my friends, I was always outside whenever I had the chance. Unlike most kids, I was never a tech savvy person. Computers were too complicated; I enjoyed the simple things in life. I have never enjoyed reading but I have been lucky to have several teachers like Mr. Riley and Ms. Donovan who have pushed me to be a better English student.

Reading books was never fun to me but I have learned that there are some books out there that I enjoy reading. Out of the twenty or so books I have I read I have only enjoyed about half of them, if that many. It takes a special book for me to like and want to keep reading. I like books with action in them, something that I can

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get excited about. I want there to be a character that I can relate to in some way or a character that I look up to because of what they have done. One of my favorite books

is “Always Running” by Luis Rodriguez. It talks about growing up in L.A. and cruising the streets with gangs. I liked this book because it gave me reason to keep reading. Everything that the writer wrote pulled me in closer and closer, always wanting more. It is books like these that I enjoy, books that keep me on my toes. Another one of my favorite books is “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck. I like this one because the story was so good and exciting. My favorite scene is where Lenny has to tell George that she killed the girl. This ruins all of the plans that Lenny and George had. I like this scene in the story because the way that Steinbeck makes George react later in the book and makes me as a reader want to keep reading. It never got boring to me and most books that I do read always seem to have boring storylines or boring characters and it has been that way all of my life.

            From fifth to eighth grade I struggled with writing. I wrote very simple papers. I tried to write as much as I could, not paying attention to structure or the tone of my writing. Somehow I still managed to get good grades and was told by many teachers that I was a good writer. I never thought that I was a good writer because I never put any time into it. At the end of my eighth grade year I had to write sixteen poems for an assignment. I thought for sure I was going to fail because I wasn’t the most creative writer. I worked hard at it and in the end when I turned the poems in my English teacher Mr. Shirley asked if he could keep them as

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examples. I was shocked when I heard him ask this. After that I had gained

confidence in myself and started to believe that I was a good writer. Teachers were

telling me this for years and I started to believe it just as I started high school, which would come in handy for the next four years.

            High school English classes were easy for me, mostly because I had good teachers were good ones who explained everything thoroughly. I had confidence in my writing and started to do well but my junior year would be a challenge. My British Literature teacher Mr. Riley was tough and mean. Real mean. He was very picky and had very high expectations. I thought I would do well in the class at first but when I got my first paper back and saw that I had received a C, thoughts started running through my mind. I didn’t know what I did wrong and was honestly scared to go talk to him about. It only took one more bad grade for me to walk in there and ask where I was going wrong. Surprisingly, he couldn’t have been more helpful. I started to see my mistakes and understand them more than just a couple of words scribbled in the margins. Mr. Riley taught me how to write with meaning and it was Ms. Donovan that taught me how to write with detail.

            At the start of my senior year in high school I was placed in an expository writing class. I thought it would be an easy A and a waste of my time but I found out that it would not be a waste of my time on the first day of class. The teacher Ms. Donovan was very helpful, always willing to look at my work before I turned it in. She was the one who taught me to write with rich detail and to never leave anything out. I went from writing narrative stories with no description to writing narrative

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stories that almost had too much description. It became hard for me not to describe an object in my writing or not to give reason to why something happened. It was a good thing I learned this because I didn’t read, and that’s where you pick those types of things up. Out of all the classes I have ever taken this has been my favorite. I say it has been my favorite because it made me look at writing differently. Before I always saw it as a report or an essay I had to do but after this class I saw writing as a way of putting my thoughts into words to share with people. Now I know that is basically what an essay and a report can be but to me it is a completely different concept.

Reading and writing is one of the most important skills that anybody can ever have in this world, and I am fortunate enough to have them. Right now they are important to have because in order to make it through college you must have them and be able to do each one well. Reading is more than just reading the words on the page. Its understanding what the writer is saying being able to apply that meaning to something. Inside of school reading and writing is helping me get good grades and understand what I am learning about. Outside of the classroom reading and writing is helping me communicate and get things done. Without them I would be lost and the whole world would be a mystery. Once I graduate from college reading and writing will be crucial. In order to become a firefighter you must have good communication and writing is a big part of that. Reading and writing are helping me study to become a firefighter and pass all the exams that I have to take. Being able to effectively say what I want to say is going to be very important in the future to my own success and the success of others because communication between firefighters

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can be life and death in some cases. There is no doubt that reading and writing will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Once I understood how to write good papers I started to enjoy writing. The problem was that it took me so long to figure it out. Writing all those poems in eighth grade gave me confidence and having Mr. Riley made my writing have meaning. I know that without him my writing would be much worse. Reading and writing is something that will stay in my life forever and it will be a big part of success. Its not going anywhere so I may as well learn as much about as I can while I am here in college.