Cover letter

This essay is about me not knowing how to read at an age I was expected to and my mom dedicating her time to help me and push me to my full potential despite the fact that I didn’t know how to read at an age when I was meant to. I focused on this specific time in my life because it was a difficult journey that I successfully completed. A meaningful insight I gained in this phase was using multimedia because for example, I have never used a photo in an essay which I then found creative. I used my rhetorical choices to appeal to my audience by using pathos. I used pathos by expressing some emotions during my story. My reason for writing this was to show how determined I was to learn how to read and not give up. My audience is the people who would want to know more about my struggles with reading.

Starting this essay was tough for me because I had to reflect on a crucial aspect of my life that had a positive value for me, mainly how I used language and literacy. I enjoyed writing it because I was able to go into greater detail about key events in my story. Rhetorical concepts, specific context, and exigence is writing principle that has influenced my writing. Those two are mostly concerned with breaking down specific aspects of the story. It also helped me learn more about the author and gain a better understanding of their past. Another concept that has influenced my writing is the purpose, which helps me decide what will be the point I’m trying to make.

This phase’s assignment has helped me achieve many goals. For instance, it has helped me achieve “Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.” While reading many experts like “Mother tongue” by Amy Tan, has helped me realize certain aspects of why it is a personal essay like explaining what her mother goes through because of not knowing proper English and the examples she used. Also, While listening to “Why I Keep Speaking Up Even When People Mock My Accent” by Saleem Safwat, it made it easier for me to understand and get to know Saleem by completing the rhetorical handout because it made me do research about him and he thoroughly explained his embarrassment with tone.

 

                                                                       My worst nightmare

Reading was never my favorite thing to do. I remember being in the first grade entering my new school, I would get picked on to read out loud in class. I would feel my palms getting sweaty as my face would turn as red as a tomato. There would be days where I would tell my mom I didn’t feel like going to school because I knew my worst fear was getting picked to read and that’s what happened most of the time. I would try to hide my face from my teachers or distract them from making me read since I didn’t like to. My anxiety would be so high because I liked participating in class but when it came to reading, I wanted it to be perfect. However, little did I know I had to continue practicing.

Until one day, my worst nightmare became a reality. I was sitting in class when my teacher asked who wants to participate and read the do now for today. As I slowly turned my head around scanning the classroom, I started to realize that no one had their hands raised. This caused me to start biting my nails as a form of feeling nervous. I had a feeling my teacher was going to call on me. I tried distracting the teacher from not calling on me by asking if I can use the bathroom. I instantly regretted doing that. My teacher said, “No you cannot use the bathroom right now, but you can go ahead and read the do now for us.” I didn’t know what to do. I knew I couldn’t read properly and was going to make a fool out of myself. As I tried sounding out the words, I burst out crying. 

Everyone else in the class would read without a struggle and that made me feel bad because I felt so behind. I would then go home and complain to my mother all the time about how I felt so discouraged to read in front of people because I felt embarrassed every time I messed up. My parents never doubted me and told me that everything takes time and they would be right there next to me to accomplish whatever I wanted to.

As days passed, I would take time out of my day after school to read by myself and choose one of my favorite books which were Junie B. Jones. But I didn’t know what I was doing since I was young and wasn’t fixing my own mistakes. I would cry myself to sleep just hoping that one day I would magically know how to say every word.

Sooner or later, my mom thought of many ways on how to help me while making it easy and fun. Although my mom came from an immigrant household, it wasn’t easy working a double shift to come home really tired and dedicate time to me to make sure that by a certain time I was going to be at the pace I was supposed to be in but she did it. 

 One way my mom helped me was by reading me bedtime stories every night before going to bed to help me get familiar with a couple of words. I would then try to memorize what she read to me so I can point out the words when I saw them. Also, when going to target or my favorite toy store my mom would let me pick out a toy. But before being able to buy it, I would have to try my best to read the name or sound out any letter that I can. This would be a way my mom encouraged me to help me read while satisfying me with what I wanted.

All the hard work that I was putting in ended up paying off. Sitting down in a classroom and being able to read anything was a great feeling. I was able to participate more in class, read anything that was given to me, and my vocabulary improved a lot. I now had more faith in myself when it came down to reading. I wasn’t the best or the perfect reader, but not being able to pronounce a word correctly, to reading sentences, was a huge difference. 

Now, one of my favorite subjects is English because I put so much time into it when I was younger and realized the importance of this subject. Looking back to when I was younger and putting so much stress on myself, I now say “Don’t ever think you can’t accomplish something.” “You got this.”