Abstract: In the following Literacy Narrative, I illustrated how the English Regents affected my literacy development.  I used dialogues and sensory details to recreate the day when I am taking the English Regents. I also use pathos to evoke and appeal to the audience’s emotions. I have discussed my struggles in writing and language literacy exam. This narrative showcased how I believe that the English Regents merely measures one’s reading and writing ability.

“Writing Takes Courage”

 

Despite my personality and proficiency in reading and writing, I have always struggled in English class. I am a super shy person. I am always afraid of sharing my thoughts and expressing my opinions in class; I was too concerned about how others would view on me. I always struggle, panic and get frustrated every time I have a writing assignment or language literacy test. I do not know where to start and how to put my thoughts into words clearly. Math and science are easier to understand than English because there are clear steps and formulas you can follow to solve the problems. On the other hand, writing is completely different. There are many ways of composing a writing. Moreover, they are also timed and length requirements in language literacy tests. This had been a challenge for me because I have always needed more time to write down my thoughts clearly. I was frustrated when I am taking the English Regents and I worried that I do not have enough time to finish it.

Every tenth grader had to take the English Regents. In addition, a score of seventy-five on the English Regents was needed to meet the college readiness requirement. The English and Global Regents were on the same day when I took it. It was a lot of pressure because there was a total of four essays I had to write that day. I remembered I woke up very early the day before to prepare.My friend and I walked to school side by side. After we had arrived at the school, there were a bunch of people standing outside waiting for the door to open.

As we were waiting, my friend turned to me and asked, “worried that you won’t pass or won’t have enough time?”

“Of course, I am worried. We only have three hours and you know I suck at writing essay,” I said as I tilted my head down to my watch to see what time it was.

When the doors opened, we were waiting in line trying to go inside. My test room was on the fifth floor, while my friend’s test room was on the second floor. When I climbed up to the fifth floor, I was breathing heavily. Usually, I was okay climbing up to that floor, but I think it was my nervousness that caused me to react differently. I had entered the room and was soon seated. We started with the Global Regents, then the English Regents would follow shortly after. After I finished with the multiple-choice section of the Global Regents, I start writing the thematic essay. After a while, I was stuck. I had run out of ideas and didn’t know what else to write. Suddenly, the time had ended. When I looked down at my paper I realized that I only wrote three paragraphs for the DBQ essay. My heart began to race. I was worried that my paragraphs weren’t sufficient for the English Regents. After the proctor collected all the papers, we still had a few minutes to go to the bathroom and take a break.
After everyone came back from the bathroom, the proctor wrote down the new start time and end time on the board. We had three hours to complete this exam. After I got my test booklet, I turned to the writing part and looked at the task and the four passages I needed to read to complete the essay. I was worried about the writing part the most because writing had always been my weakest skill. After studying the task and passage for about five minutes, I flipped back the booklet and started the reading section of the exam.

“You guys have two hours and fifteen minutes left to complete the exam,” the proctor said after she changed the time reminder on the board from one hundred fifty minutes to one hundred thirty-five minutes.

After hearing what the proctor said, I finished the reading section quickly and moved on to the writing parts. I started reading the passage, but I kept losing track of what I read because the text was so boring. It took me around twenty minutes to finish reading the four passages and I marked up the evidences that I needed to write my essay with a yellow highlighter. Even though, I knew what my claim and points were, I just didn’t know what I should start the essay with. When I looked around the room, everyone was writing constantly and non-stop. The clock was ticking. Ti-tit! Ti-tit! Ti-tit! Tic-Tic! My heart was beating as fast as a flying bullet. All I could do was stare at my paper; I was stuck, and I could not think of anything. My hands were sweating and shaking. I hate these kinds of situations; it makes me feel like an idiot.

I asked myself why does this happens to me all the time? Why do I always stuck when it comes to writing?

Even though, I had listened to my teachers, to write a page of free write every day for two years this it didn’t make it easier for me. This kind of situation still happens to me. Every time this happens, it makes me feel worthless.

After two weeks, my Regents scores were available. My heart was pounding as I received my report card from the school staff. I did not look at my report card. I folded it in half, so I cannot see my scores. I walked out of the room. When I walked down the staircase, I opened the paper slowly. My hands were shaking, and my legs were wobbling as I looked towards my English Regents score.  My eyes were widely opened, and I stared at the score. I have scored an eighty-five on the English Regents. After all, it was my fear that pulled me back. I was too concerned about the way I write and how others would view my works. You must be brave and proud of your writing. Do not be afraid of length requirement. Do not be afraid of time requirement. Do not be afraid of how others would view your writings. Overall, writing takes courage and this courage needs time to develop.

After taking the English Regents, I think this exam merely measure one’s reading and writing ability. More importantly, it limits student’s creativity in writing. Our tenth grader teachers created templates for the argumentative essay and analysis essay of the English Regents. All the tenth graders in my school had used these templates when taking the English Regents. This make our essay all structured and sound the same. Basically, we were just inserting words and phrases into the templates. Our teachers provided us with these templates to make sure that we have enough time to finish the exam. I feel like this exam make us focus on a type of writing. What we should do is exporting and writing in a variety of genres.

 

Reflection

Throughout phase one, our class had looked over different kinds of literacy narratives. In addition, study rhetoric skills to help us to interpret the meaning author had hidden in their writing or the message they are trying to inform. After reading all the literacy narratives in phase one and listen to opinions and interpretation expressing by classmates, I understand that everyone has a different interpretation of a text. We apply our experiences, knowledge, and background when we interpret a text. Furthermore, these elements are different among everyone. For instance, we were asked to watch a Ted Talk show and post a response to the show. After posting your response, you could view others’ reponse and reply to it. I discover that everyone’s responses are somehow different from each other. Most of us had agreed that the purpose of the Ted talk is to inform the audiences that accent is normal, and it is part of who you are. However, on the details, we interpret differently.

The concept of figuring out who is the intended audience have impacted me the most on my learning and writing practices during phase one. Knowing who is the intended audience helps us to interpret and determine the author’s purpose. For example, Amy Tan’s essay “Mother Tongue” intended audience was her mother. Tan uses basic structure and word choices in “Mother Tongue”. This makes it easier to understand and fellow. Knowing Tan’s intended audience was her mother, we can tell Tan’s purpose was to inform her general audience about her view on language and accent. It is vivid, knowing our intended audience is when writing our literacy narrative. This will help us develop our message clearly. In this case, Instructor Miller and Nagales are our intended audiences. Therefore, we must describe our situation with more sensory details. This would help them create an image in their mind and understand how this situation affected us on our language development.

As I was planning and writing my literacy narrative, I believe I have achieved two course goal.  I have practiced “gather, interpret, assess, and critically evaluate information and arguments from a variety of sources and point of view” (Language and Literacy syllabus). We have read a variety of literacy narrative: Tan’s “Mother Tongue”, Smitherman’s “African American English” and Lippi-Green’s “Sound House”. Each of this writing was composed differently. As a class, we have interpreted and evaluated these narratives. I also had “recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situation” (Ibid). I have discovered all these narrative uses pathos to support their claim. This appeal to emotion enables the reader to sympathize the author’s situation and understand their message. For example, Amy gives examples throughout her literacy narrative of people disrespect and treated her mother differently because of her broken English. For example, her mother’s stockbroker loses her mother’s check and the hospital lose her CAT scan. This appeal to our emotion and helps us makes the connection.