Personal Narrative: My ESL Class

I had never been a good writer, nor had I ever enjoyed writing, and the reality of being an ESL (English as a second language) student in high school only deepened the obstacle between me and writing. Besides adopting a language that I have never used in the majority of my life, I always had trouble in transferring my thoughts onto paper. When the former had been enhanced throughout taking ESL courses in eleventh grade, the latter had remained the same. I was simply unable to imagine how people could mentally process materials and rationally, smoothly reflect them in their essays. Sitting in front of my laptop and opening a brand new Word document, I read the assignment that I had no knowledge in over and over again. Then I stood up, got some …show more content…
The last year of high school had finally come, along with an overwhelming amount of writing. Whether they were personal statements for college applications, SAT prompts, or articles for my school’s yearbook: The more I had to write, the more crisis I ingrained in my mind. I am an opinionated person who is full of opinions, but I just can’t utilize them on my paper! After a long internal debate, I decided to switch my English class to Expository Reading and Writing (ERWC), a college preparatory course aimed to intensify the reading and writing abilities of high school seniors. With a huge splash of hope, in addition to a drop of uncertainty and fear, I walked into my new …show more content…
Different than previous assignments I completed, this time, my teacher required us to write down our outlines before we start drafting. This is silly. No one even takes outlining seriously! Despite having a reluctant attitude toward outlines, I had to outline my essay, since it would be counted as a part of my essay’s final grade. Taking out a pen and a piece of binder paper, I wrote down whatever that came up in my mind. At the moment I finished outlining, I felt more comprehensible about what I was going to write. Unlike racism or other social justice issues, “life” was a subject I had never encountered, thus consuming more of my time to think and explore. Nevertheless, writing down an outline assisted me to possess a clearer understanding about the main theme. This is why I have trouble in transmitting my thinking to writing, because I never write down what I think! Henceforth, outlining became a habit of mine, helping me save more time on drafting and revising essays, instead of wasting all of it on unnecessary back-and-forth