Course Placement Essay!

My Experience in Reading and Writting!

Writing and Reading has been a part of my life for many years now. I started out in the second grade when I lived in Panama and I have been doing it ever since then whether it is for school assignments or pure pleasure.

            The first type of writing I was taught was expository and narrative writing, which required me to use a lot of imagination. That is part of why I enjoyed it so much because as a young kid, it was something that would allow me to escape my reality and make my own stories, my own dreams, an alternative world. Although I wasn’t very good at it, I felt it was something that came as an easy task and that I could do it anytime I wanted to. Writing was sometimes a hassle at the moment but once I finished what I was working on, I would always feel good about it and feel like I could do better on the next one and keep on going that way.

            As the years passed I started writing in my spare time but it wasn’t essay writing or stories, I wrote lyrics and ideas I had on my mind. I found it interesting and a good way to enjoy my spare time. Instead of watching TV or lying in bed, I would be expanding my vocabulary and broadening my mind. I did get to learn a lot of vocabulary but I didn’t feel like I was writing to my fullest potential. I searched for English writing classes in my school but they were only offered in Spanish so, I would just read as much as I could and learn from there.

            High school started, and writing in English class started to became an essential part of the academic requirement. “Students you have 2 weeks to turn in a 3-5 pages essay”; these words were the ones that scared me the most. At first I was frustrated but I started focusing my time on learning how to distribute the ideas I wanted to include in my writing in the introduction, the body and the conclusion. All my life I have had a Latin education and have studied in Spanish so grammar has always been difficult for me. Many words are similar in meaning yet they vary in the way they are used in context and this only made things harder for me and it is something I have struggled with since but have improved with the years.

            Then as we start to become seniors in High School, and future college students, High School teachers start to challenge us a little bit more to be better prepare on writing. With this I started to realize that writing in English was essential for life, and that as hard as grammar could be for me, I knew that with more practicing I would be better.

            As I grew up more and more my teachers, professors and parents explained me the real importance of writing. The told me that writing its not only about knowing how to write, but its also a comfortable way to express myself, let other people know what my thoughts are, and sharing the ideas that are floating through your mind. Even I understand that its not only about that, but that its also about knowing how to organize my ideas in paper, and at the same time gaining knowledge of a more big vocabulary.

My experience in Writing its just begging, and I hope that someday I could be a good writer in English, a language that its not my native language. My writing skills have improved with the pass of the years, and I know that hopefully they will continue improving.

            On the other hand, reading has been a big and important part of my academic years. I started to learn the Alphabet in Spanish since I was 2 years old. As I started to grow up I learn how to read faster and understand more and more. Then my English classes on school begin; at the beginning was kind of hard to understand words and meanings on this language that wasn't my native language. I was still a little boy and my parents, whom had a good background with the English language, decided to start talking on English to my brothers and me, on which in the long run helps us a lot. My experience on reading its kind of good, all my high school years my English professors help me to develop better skills, basically on pronunciation of words, etc. Sometimes what makes difficult for me is when it comes to reading comprehension, meaning that when It comes to reading books, novels, or even newspaper the vocabulary could sometimes get harder.

There are some aspects that I look forward to improve on my writing and reading, and one of them is vocabulary; the essence of writing. Vocabulary is everything, it can make a full sentence or story sound so much more interesting than it really is. Exploring different types of writing and gathering ideas from every one of them is something I would like to do because I always stick to one type of writing and always stick to topics that are not so challenging. Writing involves reading comprehension as well and I feel like I do not dominate that part fully. By understanding what you read, you can collect ideas, learn new things and of coarse broaden your mind.

            If I can accomplish all of this in this class it would be great. Everything a good writer needs, one already has, the only thing to do is bring it all out, express him or herself, not be afraid of one has to say and jump at every opportunity one gets to learn more create out of himself the best writer he can be.