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Lauren Tabet

Mrs. Tubbs

ENGL-1301-054

07/17/20

Literacy Narrative Essay

Has anybody influenced you into becoming a better reader or writer? As a student I never

enjoyed English class, especially whenever we had to write an essay. Reading and writing never

really interested me and I never thought I was very good at it either. Ms. Fisher made me the

writer and reader I am today by teaching me the different elements of a story, how to write a well

thought out essay, and how to be a good note taker.

My middle school English teacher, Ms. Fisher, helped me become a better reader by teaching

me the elements of a story. In class when we would read a book we would then have to make a

diagram of the elements of a story. Before we read the book I had to figure out the author,

illustrator, and characters of the book. Ms. Fisher taught me how to pick out the different

elements of a story before and while reading the book. She taught me the four different types of

point of views by the use of pronouns the author uses in the book. Figuring out the point of view

is very important because it can help figure out whether or not the book is told by a narrator, the

main character or a secondary character. I always had trouble figuring out the plot and theme of

the story. Ms. Fisher would always break down the plot and take each step of the plot one at a

time. Ms. Fisher would also help us figure out the theme by asking us questions like “Are there

any motifs in the story?” ,“What was the purpose the story?” or “Why do you think the author

wrote this story?” and those questions would usually help me figure out the theme by asking
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myself those questions. By teaching me the elements of a story Ms. Fisher taught me how to

truly understand a book and the meaning of it.

Ms. Fisher taught me how to write a well thought out essay and I still use her advice and steps

today to write my essays. I learned these steps in creating a good essay in the sixth grade and I

used these steps all throughout middle school and in high school too. The first step was to pick a

topic for my essay. From there I would create a web of words using the topic of the essay. The

topic would be in the center of the paper and I would draw out lines and write words that would

describe the topic. After I had at least 25-50 words describing the topic I would then create a

rough draft using Ms. Fishers note taking method using stars, dashes, and dots. I would then take

the words I used to describe the topic with and make notes about the words but not form full

sentences yet. Ms. Fisher would then grade my rough drafts and would correct any spelling or

grammar errors that I had. Using the rough draft I would finally create my draft for my essay.

For the draft I would create full sentences using the notes I took from the rough draft and form

an essay. After I formed my draft for my essay four of my classmates would look over my draft

one last time to look for any spelling or grammar errors I forgot to fix. I always hated this part

because sharing my work with people other then my teacher embarrassed me because I would

think that other people would judge my work or think I am a bad writer. Once my draft was

critiqued and reviewed I was then ready to finish my essay. I am very thankful that Ms. Fisher

taught me these steps into creating a well written essay because I do not think I would be the

writer I am today without it.

Ms. Fisher also taught me how to be a good note taker. When I would take notes in class

whether it be for grammar, word of the day, for reading or while writing an essay I would use the

method stars, dashes and dots. The stars would represent the topic of what Ms. Fisher was
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teaching us at the time. The dashes would describe the topic in detail but the dots would describe

the dashes in greater detail and would go into more depth of the topic. Sometimes we would go

into more detail and had to describe the dots using open dots. On the side of our notes in the

margin Ms. Fisher would have us write our own notes about the topic or write down things that

we already knew about the topic. This method of note taking helped me to organize my thoughts

and my notes neatly and I used it not only in English class but also in my other classes.

I am very thankful that I got to have Ms. Fisher as my middle school English teacher because

she taught me how to become a better reader and writer. I still use a lot of Ms. Fishers methods

in reading and in writing by separating the plot of a story into sections and figuring it out one

step at a time rather than all at once, in creating a well written essay using three easy steps, and

being a good note taker using the note taking method stars, dashes, and dots. Who is somebody

that influenced you into becoming a better reader or writer and what advice have they given you?
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Reflection

My purpose in writing this essay is to figure out where my writing inspiration came from and

how I developed into the writer I am today. I hope to communicate that a lot of time and effort

goes into becoming a good reader and writer. I imagine my readers are Ms. Fishers old students,

her current students, kids that did not like reading or writing like myself, and kids that need

advice on how to become a better reader or writer using easy steps and methods. The effect I

want my essay to have on my readers is to change their perspective on how to write a well

thought out essay using three easy steps.

My process in writing this piece was using Ms. Fishers three step method in writing. I created

a web of words describing my topic and using those words I took notes and created my rough

draft. Then I used my notes to form complete sentences and put the sentences into an essay

format creating my draft and my mom and friend corrected any grammar or spelling errors I had.

From there I created my final draft. I decided to write about Ms. Fisher because she was the first

person I thought about and she really influenced me as a writer and reader and I still use her

methods till this day. I planned out my essay by first writing my information down on a piece of

paper and used Ms. Fishers three step method and then typed it all out for my final essay. I made

grammar and spelling changes and even changed my thesis a bit. The decisions I made about this

piece was deciding how I would plan out my essay and decide what to write about in my essay.

Responses and feedback from my classmates helped me decide what I wanted my topic to be and

how I should plan out my essay using steps instead of just writing it from the start with no

planning. Classwork that helped me write this essay was the free writing assignment we had to

do on zoom because it taught me I can write about anything for 5 minutes.