Laura Barrett

Well Thats Just Me

Reading sucks. It is a complete waste of my time. Why read a book when you can just go
watch the movie? Writing isn't very fun either. Every time I write my hand or my forearm start to
cramp up. This was how I felt about reading and writing for a long time. I dont know anyone
who gets excited when they are assigned to read 50 pages by the next day or to write a 5-8 page
paper due by next week. It is just not a way I would like to spend my time. It is also very
challenging if you are a slow reader and if you do not know the proper format for writing papers.
I have known since the beginning of my school days that I am a very slow reader. I am not awful
when it comes to writing but you will not see me publishing a best seller anytime soon. But my
reading and writing skills have come a long way.
I can still remember the way my kindergarten classroom looked. Stapled to the top of the
wall were the letters of the alphabet laminated and printed in pink. Beside each letter was a
picture that started with that letter. There was an apple next to the A that had a green cartoonlike warm eating its way through the core. I looked up at those words every day for the first week
and wondered what they meant. Thankfully, kindergarten was all about learning the alphabet.
Mrs. Jones would hand out worksheets with letters in huge font with a column underneath for us
to rewrite those letters. Writing letters was pretty easy and so was writing small words. But
pretty soon it would be time to understand what we were writing. Yes, it was time to learn how
to read.
Fast forward to about second grade in Mrs. Nagles class was where I learned how to
read actual sentences. Each night I was assigned a small chapter from a book to read in front of
one of my parents. My dad was usually busy during the week with work so my mom would sit
down with me every day. Thankfully my mom was a very patient person because it would take

Laura Barrett
me a good 15 minutes to read maybe 2 or 3 pages. I was a very slow reader which was normal
for my age. But as time went on my reading skills did not develop very fast. My parents became
concerned and so they placed me in a learning foundation called Sylvan Learning Center. This
was a place to go for extra help in any subject that you are struggling in. At the age of 7, my
main struggle was reading. At Sylvan, the employees were actual teachers. I was assigned to a
very sweet southern lady names Mrs. Mayes. I met with her twice a week after school for an
hour. She worked with me one on one to improve my reading skills. I felt comfortable going to
Sylvan because there was no pressure and I knew that everyone there was struggling just like me.
All I needed was extra practice to improve my reading. I started out with reading a couple
sentences in 10 minutes to reading a couple pages in 10 minutes. I learned that I preform much
better in a low-stress level environment. Also, Mrs. Mayes would award me with tokens for each
book I completed and at the end of the week I was allowed to use my tokens at the prize corner.
The prize corner was always good motivation for me to complete a book. It kept me focused and
eager to attend these sessions.
Once my skills had caught up to the appropriate level of my age group, I was taken out of
Sylvan. I was much more confident about reading but that was only in small groups. I feared
reading in front of the class. I was always afraid that my classmates were going to make fun of
me if I stuttered or mispronounced a word. My fears were tested when my mom put me in a
youth group class at my church in 5th grade. I didn't mind attending the weekly meetings but I
always dreaded when it was time for popcorn reading. Popcorn reading was when we were
giving a section either in the bible or on a sheet of paper to read. One person would volunteer to
read a paragraph then they would pick someone else to read the next paragraph. I remember
being called on to read, everyone stopped and stared at me. My face turned bright red and my

Laura Barrett
palms began to sweat. I started to read the paragraph, everything was going fine until I came
across a rather large word I did not recognize. I tried to remember what Mrs. Mayes taught me
and sound out the letters but the word came out horribly wrong. Everyone in the room must have
known the word besides me because once I said it everyone started to laugh. I just remember all
the blood rushing to my face and I felt a little angry. Why do students always laugh when
another student makes a mistake? Its one thing to laugh with a student at a joke they told but it is
another thing to laugh directly at a student. Then of course one of the youth pastors son spoke
up to correct me in front of the whole class which made people laugh even more. I was mortified.
I read the rest of the paragraph as quickly as I could to get it over with. It all came out in a
mumble but I didn't even care. Once I finished I just stared at the clock until the end of class.
Once the clock hit 8:30 I ran out of that class as fast as I could all the way to my moms car.
Im not sure why I get so embarrassed when asked to read out loud. Its not like everyone
is a perfect reader and pronounces every single word correctly. I have always been afraid of
being laughed at. Even in middle school when my reading skills were better developed, my face
still turned read and my palms would sweat. Well thats just me I guess. There were many times
in middle school that the same incident at church happened in the class room. I would get called
on to read, I would come across a word that I did not know, mispronounce it and my classmates
would laugh. The same reaction would happen as well, my face turned red, my palms would
sweat and I would pray to God to just go ahead and put me out of my misery. Luckily for me, in
high school it was less common to be called upon to read in class. If I did get called on I
managed to luck out with the small paragraphs with all words that I knew. I just learned to
except the fact that I am not a good reader in front of a crowd.

Laura Barrett
Writing on the other hand, came a little more easily to me. My handwriting itself is
terrible, somewhere between cave man writing and chicken scratch. I think something must have
gone wrong when we switched from using those big, fat yellow pencils to the small mechanical
ones in 3rd grade. But either way, I did enjoy writing stories much more than I did reading them.
In high school I took a creative writing class that I enjoyed very much. Everyday we had a free
write as our warm up in the beginning of class. We had 15 minutes to write about whatever we
wanted to. It got our brains moving and ready for the class. Free write is my favorite style of
writing because there is no way it could go wrong. In this class I learned about many different
styles of writing, some that I liked and some that I disliked. Poems were definitely something
that I didn't particularly enjoy. There were many requirements for writing poems and I did not
like having to follow those requirements. But I still enjoyed this class, I actually looked forward
to it every day. Creative writing made me view writing in a different way and allowed me to use
my imagination. No one in that class would judge either, every once in a while we were able to
share a piece of our writing. I wasn't the one to volunteer but I would let others read my pieces
out loud and everyone seemed to enjoy them. This helped build my confidence in writing and
sharing my works. There was no pressure in the class room which was probably the biggest
factor to my success.
Writing essays and research papers is a different story. Those types of writing I do not
enjoy unless it is a topic of my interest. But my older sister Lindsey was skilled in that area and
so I used her to my advantage. When ever I was given a take-home assignment I would always
go to my sister to proof read my work. She would be brutally honest when it came to editing but
that was what I needed. One time she practically rewrote my paper for me and showed me the
proper way it should be. I also used my dad as a source. He was the person I went to when I

Laura Barrett
needed more ideas for my writing or just a new perspective on my topic. He always had a
different way of looking at a topic. He would either give me more detail or give me a completely
new idea to add to my work. My dad knows quite a lot about history so he was most useful when
writing history or research papers.
My writing skills are much better than my reading skills. As long as I can physically read
then that is all that matters. Knowing how to write a quality paper has been and will always be a
very important skill to have. I believe 8th grade was when I first learned MLA format. That stuck
with me through high school and even until college. I knew some people back in high school that
didn't learn what MLA format was until about sophomore or junior year. But lucky for me I had
a little more time to practice. The librarians at my middle school and high school were always
there to help when writing papers. They taught me about paper and electronic resources. They
also taught me how to site these resources. These skills stuck with me to this day.
Reading and writing are some of the most important skills to uphold. These skills are
something you will use even beyond your school years. They arent like some formula you will
forget a week after the test. You will apply these skills just about every single day. Many people
influenced the development of my literacy skills. It traces all the way back to elementary school
where each of my teachers helped mold me into the literate person that I am. I did struggle in a
few areas but that only gave me more of a reason to practice and work harder. These skills come
naturally to some people but I am not one of those people, but hey, thats just me.

Laura,
Great job! I really enjoyed reading your narrative! You included a lot of really great
scenes in here that I think really helped relate the struggles you faced with reading. Some things
to think about for your next round of revisions: Try to bring out the elements of the narrative
more. Narratives are like stories, so make your text look and read more like a story, not an essay.
I think you have a good focal point happening with your scenes in your regular classes and your

Laura Barrett
creative writing class. I think they create a great juxtaposition in you text and your narrative
would benefit from drawing on those differences.
Ghost grade: A-