Andrew Progin
Professor Cripps
English 122B
9/27/17
The Issue with Adapting to a New School while Struggling in Class
The summer going into my senior year of high school I moved for Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, Virginia to East Lyme High School in East Lyme, Connecticut. Along with the move there were many moments that challenged me along the way. Some of the challenges were as simple as finding my way around the area, making new friends and earning a spot on the football team. My biggest challenges were in the classroom especially the writing workload in my english class.
My english class was challenging in two ways. The first way it was challenging was the writing workload because the high school I came from was less focused on writing intensive english classes. I knew I was going to struggle in the class when the teacher told all the students to get their writing portfolios and they came back with folder full of paper. While the other students were getting their writing portfolios I talked to the teacher about being a new student and about my old english classes. At first my teacher asked why I did not go get my portfolio then I explained to her that I was a new student and did not have one. She then explained what the portfolios were; they were folders where the students kept their old papers for freshman to senior year so they can look back and see how the improved. After that she asked me about my writing in my past class and I told her it was very minimal compared to the writing they did.
At my old high school we mainly read in class and had projects and in my classes. In addition, I had a teacher and a teacher’s assistant so I had extra help in class. The teacher’s assistants I had were all very helpful because they were always in class with a good mood and tried to help everyone they could to keep the class flowing along and make sure every student was on track. On top of that I went to writing lab during my study hall period. For me the writing lab was somewhere very peaceful and relaxing to go to. The room was in a bigger sized classroom on the first floor. In the room there were comfy chairs and carpets on the floor. There were lamps to make the room light rather than using the bright lights that were built into the ceiling. What helped me the most was how I got one-on-one hands on help and how the teacher broke it assignments into small easy steps for me. When I went there I did not always have to work I could just go in the room to relax and hangout, which made me feel more welcomed and gave me a reason to go. In the high school new I was going to they gave the students a reading to do independently and then the class we had a group discussion about the reading about the section. Then after the reading and discussion we usually had to then write a paper on the reading. So already I knew that this year would be hard for me with all the individual reading and writing we had to do. During the year I keep up with the workload, but I was struggling with it because I never had to write so much. I was overwhelmed with the amount of work. It was also my first time writing a lot about a book so I did not know many techniques. My teacher taught me to focus on one specific thing by finding an example or two in the boo. She then told me to look very closely at the language used and to pluck certain words that stuck out. When I knew I need more help I asked my teacher to have a meeting after class with me. She gave me some helpful hints to writing and also told me when she was free so that if I need more help I could find her.
There are a few aspect that made this literary moment hard. The fact that my new high school did not have a writing lab that I could good to for extra help and that the teachers did not know my strengths and weakness. When I started to struggle to much I started to look for a writing lab similar to the one in Virginia, but the new school did not have a set writing lab like that. However, they did have a place I could go for help, but the teacher they had there was a math teacher so she could not help me that much with my english. When I would ask her to look over my paper she would mainly check for grammar mistakes and sentence structure though it was not the best help it was the best I could find.
One of the other aspects that made it hard was that it was my first year so the teachers were not sure what my weakness were or the best way to help me learn unlike my teachers from my old school. This is moment was very challenging for me because I was not use to the work load, I did not have a place to go to liking my writing lab at my old school, and the teachers did not know where I struggled in the writing process. Though it was hard, my teachers ended up helping me alot when they found out where I was struggling based on my needs for each paper. The areas where my teacher helped me out the most was how to start off a paper and how to brainstorm. She helped me learn when and how to add detail, how to add quotes and evidence from the books we read, and how to conclude my papers. After she helped me we those things my papers started to get better and so did my grade.
Though this challenge was very hard for me because did not have the writing lab to turn to for help and my new teachers did not know my strengths and weakness for learning though it was a hard challenge it was good challenge because I learned and improved my old skills. My teacher helped me become a better writer because of that. It also gave me much more confidence in myself in and my writing ability to succeed. I hope by reading this literary moment other students can learn from what I did and become better writers as I did by paying more attention to the teacher and asking the teacher for help.
