Ibrahim Fadhel

English 1101
July 14, 2014
My English Literacy
When I started high school, everything was different. Since English isnt my first
language, starting at an American school as a ninth grader was somewhat difficult. As a writer I
did not have the same abilities back then compared to now. Throughout my four years in high
school, my writing, reading, and presenting abilities improved in a very noticeable way. The start
is always the hardest, so was my ninth grade year. When I moved to the United States is really
when everything started improving.
Everything was different when I came here; it forced me to try to improve. I never knew
the importance of good reading and writing abilities until my first English class. The first week
of spring semester at East Mecklenburg High School seemed interesting, specifically in my
English class. It all started when my English teacher Mrs. Jordan started spoiling the book Of
Mice and Men by telling some interesting facts about the book. Our first assignment was to read
the first chapter and respond to it in a one-page essay. Thats when things started to hit me. After
trying extremely hard to understand what was going on in that chapter, I could only get so much.
I ended up with a D as a final grade in that assignment. Thats when I knew I was going to face
some trouble for the rest of my years in high school. I decided to improve and try to change.
I joined the writing club at the school and it was very helpful. My club mates made me
feel like I was the best writer in the world, which made me try even harder. Their topic choice
was very simple; they were very interesting that I could write about them all day long such as:
Why is soccer my favorite sport? How are you going to achieve your goals in life? Tell me about
you? It was one of the most important experiences that changed me as an English writer.
Involvement in general helped me, not only in clubs but also in sports.
My involvement with the soccer team also helped me a lot in many different topics:
socially and academically. My soccer coach Mr. Joel Eddie was an English teacher so he helped
me many times; he spent a good amount of time with me and taught me how to keep my
confidence on and off the field. He once told me, Confidence will only make you an even more
successful person. By the time my tenth grade year almost ended, I felt I was ready for the
bigger challenge, the senior exit paper; however, I really wasnt ready, but I was much better
than I was in the beginning.
When I started the first semester of my junior year, I did not have an English class;
however, in one of my classes I met one student-teacher who was a very nice, educated person
who was later on hired as an English teacher. We developed a strong relationship. Since I lived
really close by the school, I would stay after school almost every day to spend time with him. At
two-fifteen, I would always be through his orange door, walking between his yellow students
desks trying to get to his computer table. I used to sit about five feet away from his desk on the
uncomfortable chairs trying to work on my junior paper. He helped me work on my paper, which
to me was really difficult. He helped me correct grammar mistakes, gave me ideas, and much
more. This relationship developed to a more than a teacher and a student bond, but it also
became some kind of friendship. He didnt only help me academically but also gave me valuable
life lessons. We once had a conversation that I am still trying to get explanation for: You are no
different from any of those students who were born here, go ahead and do what you want, just
remember to always be yourself, he said What do you mean be myself? I replied Youll
understand later, he answered.
We sometimes go out for a cup of coffee and talk about what is going on with him, and
what is going on with me. The way he taught me how to think and research made me a way
better writer and reader. I would not be who I am as a writer if that relationship did not exist
between him and me. That gave me the confidence to talk to other teachers and get advices from
them; which definitely made me a better writer. But, nothing came without hard work and
dedication.
When it was time for me to take the SAT and the ACT tests, I was confident until I got
my score which was a nineteen. Later on, my mother suggested taking an ACT prep course,
which helped me in a very noticeable way. Due to the hard work and assignments that we had to
do, we had to read many books in a short amount of time, and work on analyzing paragraphs in a
very short amount of time. It all paid off at the end and resulted in a composite score of twenty-
seven and specifically in reading, a thirty-five.
When it was the time to submit my junior year paper, I was a very different writer than I
was couple years before that. In my senior year I was not only developed as a writer but also as a
person. When I started my English class at my new school, Mallard Creek high school, Mrs.
Blackwell, my English teacher started focusing on how to give a good presentation and get us
ready for the senior exit speech. We started to read big novels and at the end of each month,
present the book and talk about it. How did you like it? What where the most important events?
And all of these different questions that prepared us for the senior exit presentation. Throughout
my high school years, I have not only developed as an English reader and writer, but I also took
some Spanish classes which helped me to become a decent Spanish writer and reader. All of
these events are what made me the person I am today.