Boyanapalli 1

Soumya Boyanapalli
Professor Lynn M. Raymond
UWRT 1194
1 February 2017

Writing Prompt 2 Literacy Narrative

There were red ink marks everywhere, on the top, at the bottom, on the side, on the
comers, everywhere and a big C circled at the bottom, last page of the paper. Throughout my
whole life ever since I started writing essays, my papers after being reviewed would always be
covered in red ink with so many corrections, either they were grammatical corrections,
corrections on how to write the paper better, or corrections asking to elaborate more. I have
always been correcting the corrections on my papers, but every time there is a different type of
correction.
I remember that it was during the winter time of the 7th grade when my English teacher
asked me if she could talk to me after class. I remember this moment so precisely because when
my teacher came up to me I was surrounded by my friends and few of my other classmates. I
remember the conversation very clearly when my teacher had said to stay back after the class,
and how scared I was:

Teacher: Soumya, can I please talk to you after class

Soumya: Umm, sure
Friends: Oooo Soumya, youre in trouble
Soumya: Stop it guys!
Friends: Ooooo!
Soumya: Stop Im actually scared I dont know what this is about

My teacher not specifying exactly what it was that she was talking to me about made me
very paranoid. I spent the rest of the class period staring at the clock and biting my nails
anxiously, the end of class came by very quickly.

Teacher: Hey Soumya, thanks for staying after

Soumya: Aaaa youre welcome, what exactly is this for?
Teacher: Oh yes, this is regarding your essays and the last essay that you turned in
Soumya: Oh okay
Teacher: So I have been looking at your essays overall and it seems as if youre struggling a little
bit
Soumya: Yeah, I guess so
Teacher: Well, it definitely has seemed like you improved but you tend to make the same mistake
repeatedly
Soumya: Yeah, I have realized that too, I am trying to do better but I just dont know, its not
really working out for me
Teacher: Well I think I might have a suggestion that could help you, not for only this class but for
the future as well.
Soumya: Ok, what is it?
 Boyanapalli 2

Teacher: I think you should keep a journal, every day you should write down something good
that happened, or maybe just write about your thoughts about the world, or just something that
interests you, but heres the catch, once you write, whatever it is that you write, read over, reread
it for a second time, for a third time, for a fourth time and see if there are any grammatical
mistakes or any punctuation errors.
Soumya: Ok, that sounds like a good idea
Teacher: Yeah! I think this might help you
Soumya: Ok, Ill try it out

I left the room shrugging off almost everything she said. I thought to myself a journal,
how am I supposed to keep a journal if I hate writing in general and only do it because Im
forced to. I left the classroom not even thinking twice about whether I would even consider the
journal idea as an option. Ironically that afternoon when I returned home from school, my mom
had just gone shopping for my brother, he needed a new binder for his class and she had brought
some binders and some notebooks and a small notebook. She said I could use any of the
materials that she had brought, I took a look at the small notebook and the word journal pooped
in my head, and everything my teacher said to me after class came flooding back into my head. I
looked at the notebook and thought of it as a sign; I took a big sigh, picked up the notebook and
went to my room. I grabbed a pencil from my desk and sat on my bed with the notebook in front
of me and the pencil next to it and stared at them for a while. I sat there and thought of
everything that happened that day and tried to think of something exciting that happened. I
remember not being able to pin point anything important but then something struck in my head. I
opened the first page of the notebook picked up a pencil and began writing about the
conversation between my teacher and I.
And thats how it started for the rest of the year every day I would write in the journal.
And as the days grew closer and closer near the end of the school year my mistakes kept getting
less and less. Unfortunately, though I didnt end up continuing this every day for the rest of the
years after 7th grade, I would sometimes occasionally write in it from time to time about my
thoughts and ideas of the world.
So, me as an individual, it was in 7th grade, in Ann Arbor Michigan where it began for me
and where I first started getting shaped into a literate person.