Joseph Mottola Professor Jane Rieman English 1103 September 19, 2012 (Title XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX)

Mottola1

At the age of three, my parents decided that it was time for their toddler to write his first word, Joseph. Although ineligible for an adult to read the writing, as if reading a foreign language, it was pure perfection in the eyes of a toddler whom wanted to engage themselves in everything and follow in the footsteps of his mother and father. After learning to write the few letters my parents taught me to write before starting kindergarten, learning to read was the next best thing that could happen. Although reading books for me did not start until kindergarten, as a toddler I would ask my family members to read everything that consisted of letters to me. This prepared me for the joys of reading independently. As a child your imagination is very strong and when I began to read books it was as if the book would come to life and I was one of the characters in the story. This made reading a hobby for me as a young child and it would make going to the library very amusing because there were so many books for me to choose from. I remember being excited to get my first library card because I felt like I was being given a pass into another world that I could escape into. As a young child I was able to engage in a book without having to write a 3 page essay or answer comprehension questions that did no justification of what I knew once so ever. I was able to pick up a pencil and a pad of paper and write a story because I wanted to not because I had to. Little did I see that learning to read and write would come with profound memories that I would me about myself and about the world in which I live in?
Comment [CY3]: That is Fantastic. Could you give some details on what kind of books you firstly read? Or your experience of picking up which book to read? Comment [CY4]: I cannot understand this sentence. Comment [CY2]: I agree. Especially when I read stories about animals or some novels, I would traveled with the main characters, have the scene imagined in my mind. I think you must be absorbed while reading and really enjoy it. Comment [i1]: It is totally true. I wrote my Chinese name on my kindergarten homework notebook without my last name (it was too difficult for children to imitate the character). Every time I saw these characters I could help laughing, however I did cherish them for it was my first attempt.

Mottola2 Kindergarten began my long journey of learning complex words, sentence structures, and grammar rules to create a series of paragraphs that would later lead into my college essays. I remember being excited to go school so that I could practice learning to read and write. One thing that would excite me about school in kindergarten was going into class and my teacher, Mrs. Andrews, would have a booklet of the letter we were going to be learning that day ready for us to explore. Even though I knew some letters by the time kindergarten hit, I felt like these practice books gave me an opportunity to broaden my reading horizons. Kindergarten was also when I was assigned my first writing project. My class had read a book called Flat Stanly by Jeff Brown and my teacher, Mrs. Andrews, decided to base our lesson for the week on the main character in the book Flat Stanley. She decided to give us our own Flat Stanley and we had to send him away on a vacation. Our duty was to write formal letter to a family member about our Flat Stanley and then to send the letter and Flat Stanley away for his week-long vacation. It was then up to our family members to write about everything Flat Stanley did and to send him back along with a letter with his new recorded experiences. This opened the door of learning the joy of writing letters for me which I still hold to this day. In the third grade my class had paired up with a kindergarten class to do the reading buddy program. I remember being assigned a reading buddy that I had to teach how to read. I was assigned to Joey and when I first meet him he could barely read. So we met our reading buddies every Wednesday to help them practice reading. I decided the best book to read was Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault which is an alphabet book about the letters in the alphabet told in a rhyme. This was my favorite book to read when I first began reading and it later became Joeys too. Every time we met up on Wednesday to practice
Comment [CY5]: Splendid writing experience! I remember that I also keep letters with my friends although we could meet each other at school. Because in letters you can have more organized sentences and paragraph to express. So maybe you could add your process of writing letters to make it more clear.

Mottola3 reading, he would want to read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and so we did. By the time the reading buddy program had expired, Joey could read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom faster than me. With this experience I became proud of myself because I had taught someone one of the most important things in life you need to know and that was reading. When I was in the fourth and fifth grade, my school required everybody from the first grade on up to take reading quizzes online after completing a book. When you did good you gained points and when you did bad you lost points. For every 25, 65, and 100 points earned you would be recognized on the morning announcements and you would receive a pin. I remember wanting to read all the time to take the quizzes so that I could be recognized and get a pin. This reading program that my school had motivated me to read more so that I could do good on the quizzes and earn that shiny pin. Also when I was in the fourth and fifth grade I was a library assistant. I learned how to put books away and I would help the library assistant with whatever she needed help with. Being around books all the time helped to motivate me to want to read more. Once I got into middle school, English became a little more difficult but that did not stop me from liking English. My seventh and eighth grade years hosted some of the most memorable moments of my English career. One very memorable moment I had was in the seventh grade when my English teacher, Ms. Swiger assigned the class a Mr. Potato head fashion show. The assignment was to dress a Mr. Potato head figurine up and write a descriptive paragraph about the way he looks. We had to recite our paragraph to the class as if we were reading a script in a fashion show. The fashion show assignment taught me a lot about detail and when I use detail in
Comment [CY7]: So did you make use of your time being a library assistant to read more books? You could give more details about read more. Comment [CY6]: Great buddy program!

Mottola4 my paper I always refer to what I learned in the seventh grade when I write a paper. Then it was off to the eighth grade and English became one of my favorite subjects. My teacher, Ms. Hentz, thought it would be fun to do a year- long project and write an autobiography on ourselves. I had a lot of fun writing my autobiography and I learned a lot about myself and what I had been through my thirteen years of life. My autobiography is something that I can go through and recap on the way I wrote in the eighth grade. Something that has stuck with me to this day was when I was in my math class and one of my classmates, Lindsay Walker, pointed out to our math teacher that he was saying the word potato wrong. Our math teacher replied with You may say potato but I say potato (spoken with a long a), everyone comes from different places and speaks differently. This made me realize that everyone was taught to talk a different way. Although I was an outsider on the incident this experience relates to the concepts explored in Linda Christensens essay on Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard? In her essay, Christensen stated that everyone comes from a different background and everyone learns English in a different way. No one should be judged on the way the talk or write because that is who they are. After my three years of middle school, it was time for me to begin a new chapter in my life. High school began and the writing and reading materials required to graduate high school became more in depth and complex. Writing papers had to be written in a certain format and some with citations and the books that were assigned for summer reading were nothing that would appear to my eye. I remember in the eleventh grade I had to read a book called The Sound of the Fury by William Faulkner , seemed as if it was written in the stone ages. I could not even get past the first 10 pages because I was not interested in the book and I could not depict the story line or what was going on in the book. So on test day, our teacher assigned us to write an
Comment [CY9]: I agree with you. I like your combination with the piece. However, sometimes we did need the standard in some formal occasions like conferences, right? Comment [CY8]: Exciting! The common way I reflect on myself is the one or two pages of brief self-introduction. Perhaps you could cite one paragraph of your autobiography, as well as recall your writing at that time?

Mottola5 essay about the book and I pretty much had to take random notes out of the book and r for the best. Luckily I got around a C on the paper, so I took that and forgot about it. Another incident that has pushed me to dislike writing papers is in the eleventh grade my AP English III teacher was a Hitler at grading papers. Its as if she saw the paper as a chance to chop it up into shreds and make her students look like complete morons. One paper in particular, I had spelled a name wrong in my paper. My teacher, Mrs. Zvanut, decided it would be appropriate to underline the word and put this is how you spell it, duh! Receiving this kind of comment on a paper especially from a teacher really upset me and made me drop out of her AP English III class. During high school I decided to take Spanish and I took three semesters of it. Learning to read, write, and speak a new language was very fun to me but it takes a lot of practice. Learning Spanish made me want to read and write more because I was challenging myself to read and write and a whole other language that was not my own. Spanish has a lot of different grammar rules and sentence structures that you have to pay close attention to. In my Spanish I class my teacher would give us stories to read in Spanish that we would have to translate into English. For me this was fun because it gave me the chance to practice reading and comprehending a story in another language. Learning to read and write and Spanish has motivated me to having a goal which is to read a whole chapter book in Spanish in the next year. Throughout my life I had many memorable moments in my literacy career. Everything that I have experienced with reading and writing has shaped me one way or another and has helped me get to the point I am in life now. Without those horrible comments from my English teachers or those fun and interesting reading and writing projects I would not be the
Comment [CY12]: Exactly!!! Sometimes reading English could be annoying for I cannot figure out its background, or something like slangs that I cannot find out in a dictionary. This kind of experience let me know that if I want to master a language, the best way could be live in its lingual environment. Comment [CY10]: It is horrible if you go on her class. I think teachers should always warmly encourage students as well as point their shortage out of goodwill. So do you be affected negatively by the teacher or just let it go? Comment [CY11]: For any reasons, or just your interest?

Mottola6 reader or writer I am to this day. I am glad that I have gotten a chance to write a literacy memoir because some people in the world do not get a chance to learn how to read or write and I am more than happy to have the chance to be literate and to have gone through my good and bad moments in my journey of reading and writing.
Comment [CY13]: Great conclusion! I enjoy reading your journey of reading and writing. As you mentioned above, you present your experience with some details and specific stories, which makes the whole piece attractive. A mixture of good and bad things contributes to your literacy. By the way, it is better if you could add some comma in some proper places to make a long sentence more clear, like the last one.