Jingyu Zhang
FIQWS 10105
September 23, 2019
Essay Assignment #2 – The Literacy Narrative Essay
It was a sunny morning, there was a woman who was yelling at her daughter to go home and read books, another young woman was scolding her children because her daughter could not write the name by herself yet. It describes the situation of my family and my neighborhood during my childhood. Growing up in that environment influenced me that reading and writing became my habits. It is important for everyone to read, speak and write and everyone has own experience about these. In my opinion, reading and writing are the most related. My experience about learning to read, speak and write is studious.
When I was a child, I was unable to read by myself. My mom always read the stories for me before I went to sleep. Those stories are interesting, I fell asleep with mom’s soft voice. I loved fairy tales and fables. Fairy tales are interesting stories with magic, and fables taught me many lessons of life. When I heard those stories, I was always calm down and listen to my mom carefully. When my mom read the fables for me, she always told me about the principles of our lives that the stories taught us. For example, there was a bottle filled half with water, and a crow wanted to drink the water, but he could not reach the water because of the long bottle neck. He got an idea that taking stone to put into the bottle, the water level increased so he could drink the water. My mom told me that this story taught us that wisdom is better than bullheadedness. Liking to listen stories led me to fall in love with reading books when I knew some words.
When I was 6 years old, I went to elementary school. I learned many words in the school. At that time, I got the first book in my life which called Andersen’s Fairy Tales. It was a gift from my mom for my birthday. I was so excited. I could not wait to start reading it. There were many interesting stories, such as “Thumbelina,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Little Match Girl,” and so on. Those fairy tales are fascinating and I did not want to stop reading them. Even though the stories were long and the book was thick, I still wanted to read. My favorite story was “Thumbelina,” it talked about an adventure story of a thumb size girl. Her heart was always longing for the hope and never yielded to the darkness in fear. It showed me Thumbelina’s strength and revealed the darkness of society, like jealousy and selfishness of people. It also inspired me to be brave, to be strong and never to lose expectations of life. That was why I liked this story. I had fun when I read this book and I could hardly tear myself away from it. I read the whole book in 3 days, then I read it over and over again.
When I was in Grade 6, I read more books. The most impressive one was The Diary of A Smiling Cat. It talked about a cat who can smile experienced many interesting matters. Those stories from the harsh winter to the golden autumn were like chicken soup for my soul, to warm my childhood and they accompanied me in growing up. When I read the funny, wonderful and warm words in the book, I felt like there was a path that connected the reality and the fantasy. It made me laugh and I was also touched by those interesting stories. I have similar experiences with Anne Lamott. According to Bird by Bird Introduction, she mentions: “The other kids always wanted me to tell them stories of what had happened, even–or especially–when they had been there.” She told stories to other kids in high school. After I read the books, I also told my classmates the stories in the books. They liked to listen to me after class.
When I was in middle school, I started to read books that were more profound. I read the Four Great Classical Novels of China, which included Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Journey to the West, Water Margin, and Dream of the Red Chamber. Those are the most famous novels in China. The four works have high artistic standard. The depictions and thoughts in the novels are great. It made me have a better understanding of the history of China. The novels are really long, I read them during the summer and winter vacations because I had a lot of homework at that time. I just used my spare time to read. Reading is my habit, I like to read some pages before I go to sleep.
Reading and writing are related. Reading helped me to learn more vocabulary words and improve my writing ability. When I went to the elementary school, the requirement of my first essay was 200 words. That was not a long essay, but I did not know how to write. Then, my mom taught me that I should write a story with the beginning, middle, and the end. I finished my first essay by my mom’s teaching, but there are many mistakes in my words. My mom helped me to correct them and taught me how to write them. It was a summer when I was 9 years old, and the homework of the summer was to write an entry in a diary everyday. At the beginning, I did not know what I can write. I asked my sister how to write a diary. She told me that I should record what I did everyday and make it interesting. I remember that I wrote the diary about the Mid-Autumn Festival when our family sat together, ate moon cake and enjoyed the glorious full moon. My mom told me the origin and the celebrations of the Mid-Autumn Festival which is a traditional festival of China. I also wrote the experiences about the first time that I washed my clothes by myself. I recorded everything of the whole summer. When I was back to school and handed in the diary to the teacher, she looked through my work and said that it was good. I felt fulfilled. After I read more books in middle school, my writing became better. In middle school, the requirement of writing essay is 600 words. I could write some interesting stories about the topics. According to One Hundred False Starts, Fitzgerald mentions: “Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves–that’s the truth. We have two or three great and moving experiences in our lives…” I agree with him because I also have some experiences that I always write in my essay. I just change a little bit and make it close to the topic. Although I read many books, sometimes I have no idea how to start an essay. Like Fitzgerald says: “I sit down facing my sharpened pencils and block of legal-sized paper, I have a feeling of utter helplessness.” I have similar feeling with him. Sometimes I sit at the table, facing my laptop and have no idea. Even though I can write some interesting stories in narrative essay, I am not good at the other kinds of essay, such as argumentative essay. I have to put more efforts to write those kinds of essays. Also, I have to improve my grammar and sentence structure. I will learn more from the mistakes I make.
Furthermore, I am from China, although Mandarin is like my mother tongue, I have to speak English outside of my family after I have moved to the United States. Even though I learned English when I was in China, the environment is different. In China, we learned English just for exams, and those are almost useless after I came here, so it is still difficult for me to speak in English. I was afraid to speak with others because of my accent. I did not know how to express in English and I always used single word to express myself. Once I asked a man for the direction, he could not understand what I said, and it made me feel inferior. Sometimes I spoke to my classmates, but they did not understand what I was trying to say. After a few times with such experiences, I always felt nervous when I spoke English. I was afraid that I would speak with the wrong words. Then, I learned the pronunciation online. I learned several words everyday and practiced over and over again to balance accuracy and fluency in spoken English. Therefore, I am speaking better than before, but it is not yet impeccable enough. I think I need to put more efforts to improve my speaking.
All in all, speaking, reading, and writing are significant for me. I will try my best to make them better. I will read more books in my spare time and improve my writing ability, and I will practice my speaking to make it be more accurate and fluent.
