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, a public high school with my
graduating class topping 650 students. Throughout my time there, I became
interested in engineering through their STEM program. I’m currently going to
college to obtain a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering because I like
to work with my hands and build stuff. My experience with technology has always
been a lot since I have had computer classes since first grade and my dad is a
computer technician. I have always been interested
and good at math and science, but when it comes to writing and English classes
I have always struggled. Throughout my
life my literacy has been shaped by various experiences throughout my schooling
including phonics, reading competitions, and finding a novel of our liking.
In elementary school, I first began to improve my
literacy when I went to my grandparent’s house during the day since my parents were
still at work when I got out of school.
My grandfather was an English teacher and loved helping me with my
homework. He always corrected my
spelling and grammar mistakes that I would write and say. He would also use phonics, which is a method
to teach reading and pronounce certain words and sounds. Since he used this method to teach me about
the English language I tended to have better reading comprehension than most
other kids in my class during elementary school.
When I was in the fifth grade my teacher came up with a
plan with another teacher to have a reading competition between classes in
order 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. To be sure that we actually read the book
that we said we did, we had to write a summary of what we read and turn it in
with the page amount. The teachers would check it before adding the page count
to our tally. As I read all the books I
could to conquer the most pages possible I began realizing a distinction in
different types of books-there are some books that I actually enjoyed reading
and then there are others that put me to sleep when I read them. When the last days of the competition came to
a close, the teachers announced the winner and my class won the pizza
party. Our teachers then explained to us
that both of our classes would be getting a pizza party because the whole point
of the competition was to get us to read every day in order to increase our
reading comprehension and speed. The
books I read throughout the competition varied, but one series I read stood
out. I eventually ended up buying and
finishing the rest of the books in this series because I enjoyed it so
much.
Later in my academic career, my freshman year English
teacher had everyone in the class choose a choice novel to read and write a
report on. She told us only to pick the
book if we found it interesting. My
teacher helped us find a novel of 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 any other genre.
I chose to read the book “The Hobbit,” by JRR Tolkien because I had
already seen the earlier Lord of the Rings movies and thought they were
interesting and figured I would give reading one of the books a chance. The moment I started reading the book, I was intrigued
by its unique storyline and how the characters and story connected back to the
later movies I had already seen. This assignment opened my eyes to a collection
of books I loved, and after I finished “The Hobbit,” I decided to read the
other books of the trilogy as well.
Before my English class freshman year, I hated books and reading them because
I was always forced to read some boring literature that I had no interest in
just because the teachers assigned them.
In this class I was finally able to choose a book to write 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 to spark my
passion of reading.
Furthermore, 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 require
me to read some sort of book whether it’s in my economics class learning about
production lines, or in my mechanical engineering class learning about casting
metal to make parts. Almost all my
classes also involve writing, where I will be forced to put my English skills
to the test in order to create a research paper resulting in an excellent
grade. After I graduate I will continue
to need reading, but mostly writing. As a mechanical engineer I will be
designing parts, creating machinery, and making new items that I will have to
create a report on. These reports will have to clearly explain not only how the
part works but also 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’m in college will be reading the internet for reviews
of places and people. For example, before
I go to a place to get my car fixed or to stay in a hotel I’ll make sure that
it has good reviews. The same goes for when it is election time and I’ll need
to make an important choice as I vote for president and other important
political positions.
In conclusion, I have had many experiences that have
shaped the way I read and write today that go all the way back to elementary
school. These experiences helped me
learn about writing and reading and shaped me into 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’m
glad that I have the ability to read and write well since these are key skills
to have in college and life after college.
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ReplyDelete1. The thing I like most about the paper is how you talk about going from hating reading and writing to learning that it is not that bad if its about something that interests you. I like this because I can relate to exactly what you mean.
ReplyDelete2. This paper is about how you have transformed in a reader and as a writer over time. This paper stays on topic the whole time and does a good job at answering the main points in the prompt and fulfills all the necessary requirements.
3. There needs to be more detail where you talk about the series of books that you continued reading and what it was about that series of books that interests you.
4. Each of your paragraphs discusses only one idea and everything in the paragraph is related to that specific idea.
5. You're introduction is great. Once I read that I had to keep reading. In the second body paragraph you talk about reading a series of books, try expanding on why you liked that series and tell us what the series of books is. Your third and forth body paragraphs flow very nicely, They have good transition sentences and your conclusion wraps everything up nicely. Overall the body paragraphs support your thesis and you remain on topic the whole time. I did not find and grammar or spelling mistakes either. But I would suggest maybe a little stronger hook in the beginning of the introduction.