Personal Essay Example: The Year I Found Out I Could Write An Essay

“Writing comes from reading, and reading is the finest teacher of how to write.” As Annie Proulx tried to convey, reading is very important for someone who begins to write, reading leads us to acquire knowledge and inspiration that benefit us a lot when we decide to write. In the life of a reader what comes next is writing. The transition from reader to writer can be effortless for some but for some others can be a laborious way. My very first year taking an English class helped me know how to write an essay. English class made me discover to really know how to write, formally and academically, consequently made me interpret and perceive a meaning to words beyond what the dictionary implies they are. This development was not easy for me because I had just moved from Mexico to the United States. A 180-degree change in my life because I came from a different country, had a different culture, language, and education than what is here in the United States, besides I had never taken an English class before, that was not about the language. At first, I was frightened of being unsuccessful to do well, but thanks to my English teacher Mr. Farah in that first year, I was able to improve my writing and my language not only because I wanted to keep good grades as well as being able to communicate better at writing or orally in that time and in the future. To know why writing an essay was something so important to me, I must start by explaining the circumstances that made me hesitate at first.

My knowledge of formal or academic writing was almost non-existent before I moved to the United States. I'm not going to say that I didn't know any English when I got here because it’s false. Back in Mexico I used to take the subject of English as a language from fourth grade until my second year of high school there. My English language was good, I could read and understand it, but my skills to converse or apply it outside the context that I learned it, was poor. Regarding reading, I began to develop that when I was 15 years old, and there was the boom of books on the big screen. I read the youth or young adult book sagas of the moment and I loved them, but most of them were fantasy, dystopias, or teenager things. My writing was not developed because in the Español class, which is the equivalent to English here, writing was not included like how is here, it was more about grammar and following activities in a book. When I entered high school, there was no longer that class or any of that type on my curriculum because unlike most of the high schools here, in Mexico there are different types of high school, but most of them focus on different fields or are technical. The one that I was in seemed to be more focused on STEM. Given my limited use of language and knowledge of literature, it made me doubt myself, it made me think that I was not going to be able to do well in that English class because I had never taken a subject like that in my past years at school. However, my type of past education did not affect much my relationship with writing, my love of reading helped a lot along with the help and techniques that Mr. Farah taught us in class.

My English teacher was very supportive in my development in writing, with his help I was able to achieve my first written assignments. What I remember most especially from that class aside from the writing, is Mr. Farah. He was a teacher like no other I had ever met before, in fact he was a lawyer before dedicating himself to English, and during the year I was in his class he was writing a book. He told us that after a few years of practicing law, he went back to school to get his Ph.D. in English. He was very patient and if I didn’t understand what he was traying to say he even tried to explain it to me in Spanish even though he was not fluent. At the beginning of the year, we started with the so-called short answers. They were answers to questions about some reading and these had to be answered in 10 lines or less and in structured sentences. In that type of writing was one of the first answer in which I had to support and justify my answer. I had never done anything like that, and I liked it because although it seemed like I had to write a lot, I just had to use sentences with powerful verbs and use the text from the reading itself, it was a good training before writing my first essay. When the time came when I had to write my first essay assignment I panicked because I had never done anything like this before writing about a topic with more than 500 words. Before reaching that point, I always wondered how someone could have so many words on the same subject in their head, I couldn't understand. Mr. Farah explained to us that everything is inside our heads, but we don't know it yet. He showed and explained to us how to write an essay, the structure and what was expected in each paragraph. I remember that I felt relieved when he showed us the HELPS, a method to look for examples and evidence for our essays, after that I felt that the limitations that I had in my mind were no longer an impediment to being able to feel confident in my writing and trust in the result. Nevertheless, something still kept worrying me, it was testing my writing ability in an exam.

Although I felt more comfortable with my writing, there was still something that worried me, the STAAR English test, specifically the essay part. What I had heard was that it was an exam specifically about reading and writing, an exam that I had never taken in my life, so the closer the date got, the more I began to doubt how my performance would be in the exam. What I knew is that I could not have access to the internet or books to help me with the essay part. My writing had improved, and it was easier for me to do essays, but it was because I had access to different sources of information and I could take my time doing it, but during the exam I couldn't have those tools and there was limited time. The day came and I remember starting with the reading section. I let out a breath, I liked to read this is going to be fine I said to myself.  Although some of the passages were long, I did not feel that section was difficult for me. When I got to the writing section, my nervousness began. I ran into questions where I had to choose which one was written correctly, but the answers were almost all the same, only they differed in a few words, that made it take me longer to finish answering the questions of that section. My frustration began to build, in the back of my head was the thought that my time was running out and I wasn't going to be able to complete the essay part. When I finally got to the essay part and read the instructions my mind suddenly went blank. I had no idea what to write about and that made me start to feel worried, time was running out and I didn't know what to write about. Anxiety was building in my stomach because I didn't want to leave the exam incomplete. Suddenly, I remembered that I had a blank sheet and that there I could make a diagram or brainstorm together with examples of what was indicated to me in the prompt, finally something of hope. Visualizing the ideas helped me a lot with the essay, after taking a class at college I realized that this method is more effective for me. Going back to the essay, I started writing and although I didn't have my list of strong verbs and transitions with me, I can remember some and include them in the essay. I finished the essay on time doing the length that was indicated to me. I read it and corrected the errors that I saw. When I delivered it, I felt so relieved to have finished it and in a timely manner. After several weeks, they told me the result, I don't remember exactly but I did it well, not perfect, or excellent, but considering my time of experience in the writing class, which was less than a year.

At the beginning of the school year, I was afraid of the result of my writing because I had never taken such a class before, and I felt that my English was limited to be able to write something formal, something like I saw in the books that I read. With the help of my teacher, Mr. Farah and his writing techniques and methods that suite me really good, I was able to really understand what writing was and its importance. All this helped me to start and develop my writing. Testing my way of writing filled me with fear but I was able to overcome it because I knew that everything I had learned was in my mind, I only had to adapt it to a limited time. That whole year was a journey of development and discovery not only of my way of writing but also of what I could do, something that I never imagined I could do before, and it didn't matter where I came from or what my previous education was, with patience and confidence I was able to achieve something and learn how to write an essay.