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Heidi Rosas
Professor Adler
English 100 #3637
October 6, 2014
A Whole New Language
I remember waking up on a bright sunny day, my mom was excited that it was my first
day of kindergarten. On the other side I woke up scared because I didnt know what to expect on
my first day of school. I was getting ready, but my stomach was feeling weird and didnt know
what it was. I tried not paying too much attention to it, but as I was walking to school it was
getting worse. My older cousin saw that I had a weird face and asked, Whats wrong? I told
her that I had this weird feeling in my stomach, then she just laughed and said, You have the
butterflies. I didnt know what she meant by that so I just kept walking. When I got to school I
saw all these older kids and little kids like me, I was pretty scared. I didnt even know where I
was supposed to go, so I asked my cousin to take me to my class. I knew that this day was going
to be important because it was going to be the day I was going to learn a whole new language.
As I enter this big, decorated classroom with pictures and number I was amazed by how
it looked. At the same time I was scared because I didnt know anything and I was thinking what
if all these kids know more than me. I didnt know how to read the letters or how to write the
letters. At that moment my eyes began to become watery because I didnt know how to speak
English like most of the kids that were in the classroom. I only knew Spanish because thats what
I was taught at home as a toddler. That day my teacher gave us a big rectangle piece of paper to
write our names. I was looking at most of these kids who began to write, but I was just looking
down at the paper trying to figure out how I was going to write my name. The teacher came over
and saw that my paper was blank and asked, Why havent you wrote anything down. I looked

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at her and moved my shoulders up giving her sign that I didnt know. She took the pencil and
wrote my name down and told me to try and copy what she wrote. I grabbed the pencil and
started to try and write my name. It didnt look very nice because that was the first day I ever
wrote my name down.
As the days past by I was given picture cards that had letters, I was supposed to
memorize the letters and picture. I would look at the cards and say whatever would come out my
mouth that I thought was right. I knew what I was saying didnt make any sense, so my cousin
would help me say the letter. I would hear her say the letters and I would repeat after her to
memorize the letters and sounds. My whole kindergarten year I would spend my afternoons with
my cousin and memorize words, numbers, and sentences. That how I became literate on my very
first year of school. Every year that I been in school and have taken an English class, my literacy
has improved in many ways. At first I thought that my literacy wasnt good as child but as a
teenager I believe my literacy has made major improvements that I didnt have before.
This year in my English college class we have been reading different narratives from
different authors and they all have different concepts and ideas. In the narrative The Joy of
Reading and Writing: Superman and Me the author Sherman Alexie tells us his story about how
he became literate. He picked up a comic on superman and thats how he learned to read. He
would look at the pictures and he would assume that the picture would tell him what superman
was doing. I can relate to this narrative because as I child I learned how to read by someone
telling me what the picture was and in my head I would imagine what the picture meant. I would
think of a word or letter that would describe the picture I was given. In a similar way we both
learned literacy by just looking at picture and trying to figure out what the picture meant. As I

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can relate to this narrative, I can also relate to critical ideas that my English class has been
discussing.
It is always good to start learning how to read at home to have a head start on your
literacy. I found the article Literacy Development Begins at Home, With a Literate Home
Environment important because it talks about how literacy can be developed at home.
According Laura J. Colker, One of the most effective approaches to helping young children
develop literacy skills is having a home environment that supports literacy (1). I believe that I if
wouldve have an environment that supports literacy it wouldve helped me a lot the beginning
of my kindergarten year. It wouldve also been a head start for me because when my
kindergarten teacher gave the picture cards I wouldve known what the picture meant. Laura J.
Colker points out, Having a literate home doesn't mean that parents have to be literate in
English (1). My mom is not literate in English but she is literate in Spanish, they were time
where my mom would sit down with me and teach me numbers in Spanish. This was a good help
for me because I knew the numbers in Spanish and helped me in a way to learn them in English.
I believe having a literate home environment can be a useful because are you grow up at home
you can begin your literacy life.
At this point in my life I am able to relate myself to the article The Perils and Promise of
Praise by Carol S. Dweck. Every student has a different mindset throughout their school years.
According to Carol S. Dweck, Some students believe that their intellectual ability is a fixed
trait. They have certain amount of intelligence and thats that (1). As a high school student I can
believe that I had a fixed mind set because I would take in some much information. I remember
sitting in my English class as my teacher is lecturing, by the end of the class I would forget half
of the lecture. I would ask myself, Why is it that other can remember everything and I cant? I

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didnt pay much attention to it because I thought that if I can only remember some parts of the
lecture than I would fine with just that little of information. This affected my literacy because I
never found a way that would help me remember the full lecture. Also as Carol S. Dweck points
out, Other students believe that their intellectual ability is something they can develop through
effort and education (1). This is the kind of mind-set I want to have throughout my college life.
If I put effort and take my education serious then I believe my literacy can improve.
As I was reading The Freedom Writers Diary by The Freedom Writers with Erin Gruwell
I came upon a diary entry that relate to me in a way. The anonymous writer in the entry dairy
105 writes about how he brakes this cycle in his family and is the first one to go to college. The
writers parents were taken away the opportunity to get an education but his parents push him
hard as a kid to get an education and he decided to go to college. I can relate to this dairy because
my mom was also taken away the opportunity to go to school. I remember she told me her story
why she taken out of school as a child. Throughout my school years my mom has always push
me hard to finish high school and get an education. One day my mom told me, If you want to be
something in life then always put effort because it is only going to benefit you at the end. After
she told me that, I spent a whole day thinking what I wanted to do with my life. I honestly didnt
know if I even wanted to go to college. I always had a feeling that I wasnt smart enough to
make to college. I would always put myself down, and when you put yourself down that doesnt
help improve your literacy life. My first 2 years of high school I didnt know what I was going to
do after high school.
My senior year in high is when I decided that I was going to go to a college, I didnt
know which one exactly but I did know that I was going to make myself proud. Even as a senior
my literacy wasnt great but continuing my education will help me develop my literacy. I

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remember it was time to apply to colleges, and I didnt know any college. I wanted to attend a
college that will help me improve my literacy and that I knew was the right college for me. Now
I am enrolled at PCC and taking STACC English 100 I have this strong feeling that this class is
going to help me develop my English literacy.