Zayne Schondelmayer
Language 120-009
Dr. Graves
February 13, 2015
The writer I am today.
Over the years, I have slowly progressed. Since I am dyslexic, I have a trouble since the beginning. I have been told “I’m stupid,” “Learn to read,” “You really need to get better at writing.” I cannot help the fact that it’s hard for me to write papers. Ever since Kindergarten, the teacher noticed I wrote my letters different then all the other kids. I still write then the same as I did when I was little. After just basic sentences, came First grade. I had a very bad writing experiences during this time period. All of the kids had to write a letter about what we do, out hobbies, favorite animal and so on. She called my mom telling me that I need to get better at writing; so, my mom got me a tutor. My teacher did not like me at all. For some reason she just didn’t like me. After a couple more times of practicing our writing skills, she called my mom in. She was the first person to tell my mom that I was a stupid kid and there is no hope for excelling in the future. You can imagine she lost her job after that year. Anyway, Second grade was alright, we had to write about a vacation. So, I wrote about the vacation I went on over the some to the Bahamas on a Disney Cruise Ship. It only had to be 1 ½ long but I wrote about 6 pages. To explain, I wrote about 2 pages of content and repeated the same content for another 4 pages. This is also when I started to learn I can draw because I drew a cover page, an idea from my older cousin, of a cruise ship from a birds eye view. She said she was very impressed on how I made a cover page because she has seen none of her other kids form pervious years ever do that. So I was proud of that. To move on, my Third grade year was pretty bad to. Since the teacher knew I was dyslexic, he thought some things I spelled were wrong even though they were right. For example, the game “Jak and Dexter,” “Jak 2,” and “Jak 3,” where spelled wrong when I was to explain about a book, movie or a game. So he kept correcting me on the characters names and places names or the types of enemies. That made me really mad; so, I just didn’t want to write anymore because I know what I was talking about. My Fourth Grade was by far the year that it clicked for me. The teacher I had, Mr. Sawyer, he sat down with me and my mom, suggested a tutor he has for his kids that was great. She helped me through every kind subject. This was the time where math, science and social studies cam easy for me. This was probably by far the most I have ever progressed on writing in my life. To continue, Fifth grade was alright for me I didn’t really learn anything different, I was still going to my tutor.
Next came Middle School. During these three years, there was a lot of research papers. They were never hard for me since it was basic sentence structure and flow, to connect everything together. But, the only thing I had trouble was the readings we had and “What was the main idea of this paragraph?” I don’t know what the main idea of that area is if it’s not important then I don’t care. Anyway, Sixth Grade was wasn’t the bad the basic dumb stuff in English classes for readings. I can answer “How this character changed throughout the story,” you know, the basic stuff. Moving on; my Seventh grade year was again the same stupid questions, but different good books that got ruined because English classes. And the same thing in Eighth grade; but, this is when we started research papers. Everyone was having trouble with the citations, expect me. I didn’t really care for writing at this point because it was pointless to me because I have been put down so many times by other students saying how my writing was really bad and stuff. Also, I didn’t learn how to let stuff “roll off my back,” not care what others say.
For later in the story, the start of high school is when I started to replay all the Fallout Games and learning everything in the game. This comes important later.
For my High school year, their expectations were way too great. I was not able to write my papers the ways that they wanted me to. Since I had An IEP, Individualized Education Program, which means that the education program had to meet to my needs for me to academically succeed.
To start, my Ninth Grade year was alright. It had that basic English questions for readings that were not needed to learn the story, we read a lot of poetry in my class. It was more over learning the different kinds of writing that was out there and how you can learn from these writings so you can integrate them later into your papers. I didn’t write actually any papers during this grade in any of my classes; which, after thinking about it I was surprised. My Tenth Grade year was another point in my life were I started to progress again. It was more of the teacher liking me and wanted to help me get experience. Also, I was in something called the Digital Media Academy, where Digital media one and English 2 worked together. So if you have a English project, you can work on the project in the Digital media class; but, including the aspects of digital media into the project. I really liked this. I excelled in digital media; so, when I did some English essays, I made them look nice, but, I was still struggling in the writing aspects. Even though I was getting help from the, the help she gave me worked; but, very slowly. Anyway, during my Eleventh Grade year, I was in the Digital Media Academy 2, which is Digital media 2 and English 3; it was the same English teacher. This is where writing was getting better because I liked the teacher, there wasn’t that personal essays and more of focusing on research paper set up to improve on to get ready for college and future classes. The research paper we did in that class was about on how to save the planet by recycling electronics and use digital media with it. So my group did a paper about and did an animation about it. The paper was alright since we didn’t really care but it was better then everyone else’s in the class. To continue, my Twelfth Grade year was probably the year I wrote my best research paper ever. Also, during this year, I was doing 2 things, one was making an animated serious about a game called Destiny and making a fan fiction from Fallout. To start, my research paper was about Heart Disease, I knew this topic very well because I have high cholesterol and I was very curios what are the other disease or heart defects there are. The teacher wanted a certain structure that college will like, which was a lie. It was: quote, quote, quote, explain the 1st quote, explain 2nd and explain 3rd. Which was one of the dumbest way to write; so, I did the way that is normal: quote, explain 1st quote, 2nd quote, explain the 2nd quote and so on. Since I did it that way I got a better on it then some of the other people in the class. Like I said before, I was doing a animation for a game called Destiny. So I had to write the story, draw the character and so on. I had a friend that is going to animate the characters. I took a break form it due to college and need to focus on school. Also, the fanfiction sound really weird, but, I really don’t care. I love Fallout and the way the made the games have a perfect story was just amazing. So, I want to create a story, of a solider form the opposite side and show their point of view.
To conclude, I’m still progressing on my writing skills. In my opinion I am okay at writing. But there are some here that are just amazing and I really want to get good at writing.
PARAGRAPH ABOUT MY PAPER
So, this is my revised, final draft of my paper. I know its not the best of ways to do this; but, I like behance since all my stuff is here. Anyway, my paper is about how I became the writer I am today. The story line is about me progressing form K through 12. From what has affected my writing is a positive way or a negative way.
