Personal Narrative: Going To High School

I started to lose touch with the Mexican side of me. My Spanish started to lag, stopped celebrating our holidays, and only focused on American culture. I came to the realization that I was losing a part of me when I was asked to translate for the new kid in class, he had just moved to the U.S. from Mexico and didn’t know any English. I managed to do the majority of the translation, but as time went on it got more difficult explaining history. But at that point, we had already become friends and I was helping him with English and he was helping me improve my Spanish.

All throughout middle school when we were assigned to read a novel I would dread it. My perspective of reading for enjoyment soon changed when I was in eighth grade. Mrs. Benavides, my eighth grade language arts teacher, assigned our class to read The Outsiders, and I coursed I was complained in my head, I don’t want to read (actually pretend to read and then use Sparknotes) another lame book. The first day we got the book we were all told to read chapters 1 through 3, and this time all of the kids in my class complained and I wasn’t the only one. So, there I was at home in front of my computer typing in “the outsiders by S.E Hinton”, into Google, and the top search that popped up was a link to the movie on Youtube.

A few years ago I came to realize that with perseverance and working hard every barrier can be overcame, even though some things seem impossible, they are not. Everything started three years ago when I moved to this country to continue my academic preparation. In Mexico, my sister was the one who performed poetry, I was more interested in reading something else rather than reading poems, not to mention performing them. I started high school since my tenth grade, but I had to take English 1 because in Mexico I was instructed only in Spanish, therefore I did not take any English courses. To be honest it was hard to move from Mexico, where a lot of loved persons including my mom stayed, to this country where the language spoken is different.

As a result, Clint feels as if he has to put in extra work not only for himself, but for the other two children in the class. Looking, speaking, or acting in a “different” way from what others are used to make it harder for people to be accepted for the way they are. When I was a high school freshman one of the classes I had to take was Spanish. I for one wasn’t looking forward to this class because I am a Mexican-American who grew up in America in an English speaking home. Although I was born here, my father and his parents are from Mexico.

Literacy History Essay Literacy was something that I used to struggle with as I was growing up but simply got easier for me as I got older, since I come from a spanish background my parents only spoke to me in spanish for the first couple years of my life so I only knew to how to speak spanish and I didn’t start learning to speak english until I was four to five years old, because of this the first two years of school was a real struggle for me. I didn’t understand what my teachers were saying so because of that I obviously couldn’t read or write either and since I couldn’t read or write I was failing my english class and was on the verge of flunking. So because of this I had to start getting extra help from my teachers and I had to go home after school and spend one to two hours just practicing my reading and writing which was not fun for a five year old to do, because of this I slowly started to hate literature since I was constantly reading and writing, eventually though my literature skills got better and I ended up passing the class. After that I didn’t hate literature as much anymore because it got easier for me and I actually started to enjoy reading after school. I would go to the school library check out a book I liked and actually go home and read it, back then I didn’t have any video games to keep me

Richard Rodriguez, author of “Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood” grew up speaking Spanish at home for the beginning of his life, and having the great connection with family that most hope for during their lifetime. This all suddenly changed when he entered school. Starting at a young age, Richard was surrounded by all English-speaking people that he could not communicate well with. The only instances where English would be would have been during public outings, and interaction with others. At home, his parents also struggled to speak English making the situation even harder on Richard.

Since the first day at work I realized that the only way to succeed in this country was learning English. I attended many schools to learn English, but I did not understand the teachers because they did not speak Spanish and I did not understand any word of English. During the process of learning English, I was promoted as casher in

The trepidation I felt was of not having the familiarity of home. In addition, due to my young age, there was also significant trial and error when it came to moving beyond my struggles. Communication was also an obstacle that I had to overcome. I had trouble in school because I only spoke Albanian and I could not speak to friends due to cultural barriers. I wanted to move out of my box, but I was scared to take the next step.

If I spoke to you it would all be in Spanish. I guess if you were to ask my old elementary teachers they would tell you that I didn’t know how to speak till I was in 3rd. and even then didn’t speak it all too well. I remember coming home bawling to my parents and telling them that I didn’t want to go to school because I didn’t understand the other kids. Teachers would take time with me and teach me the simple things that you learned when you

I’ve got to go to the bathroom. . . .I’m going to suffocate if you keep us one more second’ ”. Levine says that when he used to teach in California, he never used to look at the clock to see when the class is ending, because he always heard the noise of shuffling books and noticed the strange expressions on the faces of the students in class who were ready to leave.