Tucker Caulder

English 111

Professor Williams

Due Date: October 5, 2022

My Ups and Downs of English and Literacy

Literacy is something that is important and present in my life and in the lives of many

elementary, highschool, and college students. For many, English and literacy is an area that they

find they can be successful in. However, this has not been the case for me over the years starting

early on up to current day. English for me has been a class that has never come very easy for me

and has been a constant struggle throughout my grade school years. There have been both

positive and negative effects that have helped and hurt my mindset towards English and my

ability to grow and succeed in it.

This journey started early on for me. I started learning to read, write and understand the

English language at the young age of 4. I remember that every night for many months, my dad

and I would sit on our living room floor resting against our couch and read a book called "Biscuit

goes to school". Although simple, My dad couldn't get me to understand the correct way to

pronounce certain letters and words. I struggled for a while learning to read this book and others

like it because I couldn't seem to grasp why certain letters and pairs of letters would make certain

sounds. I quickly got frustrated and discouraged and wanted to give up. My dislike for English

started early on because of this.

Later on in my life, when I had started Pre-School, I had a wonderful teacher that went by

the name of Mrs. Sandy. This was a teacher that slightly changed my view on english. All I had

known about English up until this point was that letters made sounds and when paired with other
letters sometimes made other sounds. However, She was able to teach me about the individual

letters, their sounds, and why they sometimes sounded a little different. Although I still didn't

really like English, I now had a better understanding of it and found it much less frustrating. I

started to understand the patterns of the English language and why some letters made the sounds

they did and why they sometimes made different sounds.

Something else that had effects on literacy and English journey was certain events. One

event in particular that had an effect on me was in 5th grade English class. At the time, I had a

teacher that gave us a lot of what I considered busy work. We spent most of our weeks doing 5

different "centers¨. In these centers, we would do different review tasks that were meant to help

build on our English knowledge and help us remember different English rules. However, I felt I

had already learned and knew and found these tasks tedious and boring. This led to me disliking

English more and dreading it everyday.

Much later on , I had another slight change of view on English, this time positive. Mrs.

Amos, who was my 6th English teacher, is the reason for that. She was a dedicated and

enthusiastic teacher that from the beginning was set on making sure we all understood what we

were reading and why. Because I understood why I was reading and why the English we were

learning was important, I grew more fond of english. I still struggled in it but I learned to enjoy

it, especially when it came to writing. She helped me grow in writing by helping me to find my

favorite styles to write in. Writing always seemed like a chore to me until she introduced

different genres and reasons for writing. We had fun prompts in her class and we wrote out the

fun fictional stories that interested me and kept me more focused. This was a scenario that helped

give me a more positive outlook on English and literature.

 Another event that I had was in my 8th grade English class. In this class, despite the

efforts of my teachers and peers, I was just not interested in the topics or things being taught. I

found this to be a common trait throughout my middle school years and really struggled to find

anything I liked in that class. I found that I started to dread English more and more despite the

efforts of the teacher to make the class interesting. I had fallen into a scenario where I had a very

fixed mindset and didn't allow myself to grow in this area of my academic life. This influenced

my mindset and my effort put towards that class. This resulted in a lower grade and overall

discouraged attitude. Since then, I have learned to find the motivation necessary to complete my

work even if I don't particularly enjoy it. However, that class still played a large role in my

feelings towards and about english.

These experiences and others like it have taught me some valuable things about English

and literature and things about life. I find that, to this day, I still don't particularly enjoy English

and literature but I know how to succeed or correctly complete the assignments of english. I've

learned that whether I like it or not, English and literature will always be an important part of my

life and I must learn it and learn how to succeed in it. I've also learned that despite my level of

interest in something, I must always put my best foot forward and do what I can to correctly

complete the task given to the best of my ability. I've found that I have strengths and weaknesses

and that I can always grow, despite my feelings towards a particular teacher or class. The

experiences that I have written about, good and bad, have led to this opinion and outlook on

English and literature and for that I am grateful.