Have you ever tried writing an essay in a different language that you didn’t understand? I am one of many that can tell you how impossible it can be. I was born in Dominican Republic where Spanish was my first language. It wasn’t until I came to the United States where I began to experience the difficulties of writing and reading in English. Writing is something that has never been easy for me. Since middle school I struggled with getting my ideas on paper. I found reading much easier because I was able to catch on to the language and my accent was not necessarily as strong as a lot of minorities who came from D.R. I was comfortable reading aloud when it came to class participation and helping others, but when I had to express myself in ways such, as correcting my papers, and properly formatting them; I found it a lot harder. When I reached high school, I started reading different books, which helped give me a sense of experience to see how others presented their writing and what I was able to do to make my writing better. The books were all different in ideas and topics, where then I allowed myself to think outside the box and to get comfortable with writing down my thoughts and structuring them. I will never forget the very first time my English teacher told the class that we had to start working on our college essays.
My college essay was probably the best experience I’ve had in writing. It not only told my readers who I was as a person but it helped fill that missing void of expressing and utilizing my ideas on paper. Even though I had written essays before my college one, I never had to involve my feelings into them. With this essay, I had to finally sit and think about who I was, where I wanted to go with my life, how would I get there and why was it something I wanted to do. Since the essay was about myself, I genuinely thought that it would be a little easier than expected, but I was in for a rude awakening. I couldn’t believe how hard it was to put my thoughts and words together to form a perfect essay about myself. My goal was for the readers to want to keep reading so with my essay I had to be able to capture their attention. I had to go see my teacher several of times and have discussions about the essay and how I can improve it. I remember the teacher telling me how important it was for me to capture my idea so that a complete stranger would be able to understand and imagine my story. I decided to write my paper about my life coming from the Dominican Republic to United States and the advantage I had. I was able to learn a new language and would benefit a lot more here since the opportunities that D.R offered were minimum compared to the U.S. It was a close topic to my heart because of my background and what I wanted to prove to not only myself but also others close to me.
I call this my best writing experience because it was the first time I felt the challenge. I had to really analyze and criticize my work and that was something I had not experienced before. Even though I sometimes believed it was a bad experience because of all the work I had to do, and all the headaches I got I think positive. I see it now as a learning experience and something that changed my life as a writer. I believe writing is something essential and that the more you learn about your writing style the more you are able to develop as a writer. You don’t only have to be a writer to want to learn how to perfect your writing skills, it is something that is necessary for various carriers and just life on an everyday bases. I am still an individual that is working on improving my writing because I know how good that can be for my career and for me. It will open new doors for me allowing me to even write a book if I want to. Even though I am not where I want to be as a writer I have definitely improved. Writing that paper in high school helped me in an immense way and now that I am a college senior, going out into the real world I will continue to remember that paper because it tells me I always have room for improvement.
Twitter Post; Improving our writing skills is something essential because by improving that aspect of our lives we Immediately open up new doors.
marisrael 