Brett Babigian
Mrs. Fleischer
English 1A Sec 5
February 16, 2014
My
Experiences with Reading and Writing
My name is Brett Babigian; I grew up in Elk Grove
California and attended Franklin High School where I was introduced to their
STEM program which peaked my interest in engineering. I am going to college to gain a bachelors
degree in mechanical engineering because I like to work with my hands and build
stuff. My experience with technology has
always been pretty good since I have had computer classes since first grade and
my dad is a computer technician. I have
always found an interest and been good at math and science but when it came to
writing and English classes I have always struggled. Throughout my life my literacy has been
shaped from various experiences throughout my schooling such as phonics,
reading challenges, and finding a novel of our liking.
In elementary school I first began to improve my literacy
when I would go to my grandparent’s house during the day since my parents would
still be at work when I got out of school.
My grandfather was an English teacher and always would help me with my
homework and correct spelling and grammar issues that I would write and
say. He would also use phonics which is
a method to teach the ways to read and pronounce certain words or sounds. Since he would use this method to teach me
about the English language I tended to have better reading comprehension then
most other kids in my class during elementary school.
When I was in the fifth grade my teacher had come up with
a plan with another teacher in my grade to have a reading competition between
classes to get us to read more often. My
teacher announced to our class that the goal of the competition was to see
which class could read the most pages in a month’s time. To be sure that we actually read the book
that we said we did we had to write a summary of the book and turn it in with
the page amount and the teacher would check it before adding the page count to
our tally. As I read all the books I
could to attain the most pages possible I began realizing that there were some
books that I actually enjoyed reading and then there were others that put me to
sleep as I read them. When the last days
of the competition came to an end the teachers announced the winners and my
class won the pizza party. Our teachers
then explained to us that both of our classes would be getting to have the
pizza party and that the whole point of the competition was to get the students
to read every day, and increase our reading comprehension and speed. The books I read throughout the competition
varied and one series I began reading I actually ended up buying and finishing
because I enjoyed it so much.
During my English class my freshman year my teacher had
the class choose a choice novel to read and write a report on the one that they
enjoyed the most. She told us to only
pick the book if we liked. My teacher
helped us find a novel to our liking by having us complete a series of
assignments that pointed out our interests in book whether it be fiction,
folk-tale, mystery, or some other genre.
I chose to read the book “The Hobbit”, by JRR Tolkien because I had
already seen the other Lord of the Rings movies and thought they were
interesting so I figured I would give reading one of the books a try. The moment I started reading the book I was captured
by the unique storyline and how the characters and story connected back to the
later movies and after I finished the book I decided to read the other books of
the trilogy as well. Before my English
class freshman year, I had hated books and hated reading them since I was
always forced to read some boring literature that the teachers had assigned
me. Finally I was able to choose the
book to right a report on and I realized that maybe reading wasn’t as bad as I
always thought it was. My teacher taught
me to open my mind to other possibilities of reading other than the ones the teachers
assign us so that we might find out if we love reading.
Reading and writing will continue to play a vital role in
my life both in college and after I graduate.
While I’m in college most of my classes have me read some sort of book
whether it be in my economics class
learning about production lines or in my mechanical engineering class where I
must read about casting metal to make parts.
Almost all my classes also involve writing as well, where I will have to
put my English skills to the test to create a research paper or a report paper
to earn me an excellent grade. After I
graduate I will continue to need reading and mostly writing. As a mechanical
engineer I will be designing parts, creating machinery, and making new items
which I will have to create a report for that will explain not only how the
part works but why it is efficient and
how it can be of assistance. Most of the
reading I will do after I graduate and even when I am in college will also go
to reading up on the internet for reviews of places and people. Before I go to a place to get my car fixed or
to stay in a hotel I want to make sure that it has good reviews and the same
goes for when it is election time and I will need to make an important choice
as to who I am going to vote for president and other important political
positions.
I have had many experiences that have shaped the way I
read and write today that go back all the way to elementary school. These experiences helped me learn about
writing and reading and become the person I am today. If not for these experiences I probably
wouldn’t be very good at writing papers or reading novels and I know for sure
that I wouldn’t like doing it either. I
am glad that I have the ability to read and write fairly well since these are
key skills to have in college and the life after college.
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