Saul Huerta JR

English 1A

Personal Literacy Blog

Prof. Jen

            I grew up in Salinas California, or other wise known as the Salad Bowl, USA. It's a city where is surrounded by fields that grow pretty much anything and everything that a vegetarian eats. Consequently many people emigrate from Latin America to come and labor the land for a wage that is just enough to live off and send money to people they left behind. There is mainly, Latinos working out there and not other type of race working those fields and has led to every Latino from Salinas being classified as poor and living with 5 other families in house made for one. Furthermore, if you have the brown skin that defines a Latino, you are also immediately classified as non-speaker of the English language and are treated like an “alien” leading to unfair placement of classes, and therefore leading to all sorts of problems that will have a greater consequence as the years go by.

            I learned English when I was 3 years old, the reason for this is because I was put in a nursery where there were a lot of kids that spoke the language and picked up on it. It wasn’t perfect, but could clearly communicate it. When it was time to begin school, I was placed in a class that is for kids that just emigrated from Mexico and had the title as “ELS,” even though I had proven my linguistic skills, they kept me there and lacked a reason to contain in a class where I didn’t belong. In ELS, the curriculum was generally about 2 years behind in the English departments to ensure that the students that just arrived from Mexico learned the language properly, it didn’t help nor a couple of other students that also spoke English already, and the program ended up putting us behind in our language skills. I was kept in ELS till I got to 4^th grade because that's the grade where they integrate most ELS students with the regular students. I could have had a developed a higher level of English if I was placed with the other kids, and struggled to read and write because of the bad placement. While all my friends and peers were able to read and write without a major struggle, I had to put 3x more effort to catch up to there level of the language. After about 3 years of putting the extra work, I finally had English above my classmate’s level of English. Even thought this experience taught me at a young age that life will be hard and that, I learned to be hard worker and became an okay writer.

           

Being able to read and write well doesn’t mean you have to like it. The point when I got to high school I had despised reading and writing. It was freshmen year and they had placed me in a GATE English class, which I switched out of as soon as I could because my cousins told me that it would a tedious course to take, and that the teachers were not fair towards Latinos. I took regular English for the rest of High School till I got till my Senior Year. Even though I was supposed to take regular English Composition, and instead I was placed in AP English. That class was probably the hardest class I had ever taken; I even thought calculus was easier than AP English. But I do not regret one bit not having switching out of it. AP English with Mr. Hedgepeth, taught me how to appreciate literature way more than I did at the time and severely improved on my writing style. Before that class I would follow a robot set of “rules” to write an essay, which got completely got destroyed because Mr. Hedgepeth taught me that those rules are only for beginner and enhanced my writing by showing the usage of different techniques of the art of writing while doing it fast, enough to complete 3 essays in 2 hours. Like the use of tone, sound, syntax, everything and anything that came with writing. Additionally, he took the initiative to show us the best reading of each era in literature and opened my eyes to a hidden treasure I had neglected my entire life. Conclusively, my AP English class made the greatest impact in who I am as a writer and a reader.   

            Even though I didn’t have many events that changed my writing voice, the events that happened completely defined who I am as an English scholar. While I am in school , knowing how to write and cite proper papers will be a crucial part of getting my degree. The use would probably be for writing lab reports, responses for my professor on how a specific system work and even the explanation of how a set system works. The applications of what I have and will continue to learn are limitless, but I will most likely put to practice it when I am in need of formally writing and speaking. Furthermore, since we are constantly communicating in one way or another, these practices are more likely going to be used when I am replying to conversation through text message, (to make my self sound more eloquent to the suitable people, and regular) and of course through social media. Furthermore, what I have learned I will use in my future job probably when I am sending instructions on what specific job the people need to do. Since I am going to become an Electrical Engineer, I will need to be able to communicate professionally and efficiently to everyone in project.