Final Literary Narrative

The Forms of Expression

The English language is more complex than most people think. Although it is the third most spoken language in the entire world, there are many that do not know what it is, or how to use. That was the situation that I had faced during my childhood. Being brought up in an immigrant family, it was difficult to adapt to both worlds at once, both the American world, and my parent's world. It was harder getting to know both languages as well. As a child, I was struggling to know how to express myself due to this situation, and was put into many tribulations to achieve the skill of writing, which helped me to better understand who I am.

Throughout my time in elementary school, I was never the brightest kid in the class. I had problems understanding what the teacher taught, and through that my mother had to change schools. She found a school that was a great fit for me, it had everything that I needed to succeed. It had the essentials, classes, after school programs, special education, and even speech therapy, etc. My mother thought this was perfect for me, but I thought it was a living nightmare. I had to take more time inside the school, so that I could be thought more about the subjects that I had trouble with, and was put in a class that was hell. Who in their right mind wants to stay after school just to study? Most of the time was spent on learning the subject English. English class was the worst for me, mainly because I did not understand how to write properly like the teacher told me to, and it was hard getting to know how to explain myself through writing. My mother would always come to my parent teacher conference, and in those conferences, my English teacher would say the same thing over and over and over again. "Your son is very nice, but his writing needs to be polished a little more, he does not know how to explain himself and needs help with this". Then came the speech therapy, my most hated classes of them all.

Although it was a pain, I met two other kids who faced the same problems, which helped me cope with the fact that I am not the only one with this problem. We met in the speech therapy class, the worst of them all, and it was just the three of us with one teacher. There in the class were two other boys, a tall skinny kid who was having problems with his stuttering, and another kid who just didn't want to talk at all, mainly because of his attitude. The teacher tried her best to get us all to have a fun time, and sometimes we did, but it did not work out for all of us. Even though it felt like torture trying, it did help me out to step out of my bubble I call personal space, and try to conversate with people.

 I started to make new friends throughout my middle school days, which helped me become more social than before, but I still could not fix my writing. As of the other classes that I had trouble with, they became like child's play for me. Math became my favorite class out of the bunch, and is a reason why now I am studying mainly with math. The rest of the classes such as science and history became easier for me to understand as I grew up, but there was only one class that I still yearned to get better at. That class was ELA, or better known as English class. Although I could write sentences and essays that are grammatically correct, my teachers would always give me the same response. My father suggested that I would have to take tutoring if necessary in order to fix the problems I was having, and that plan succeeded. This tutoring was based on the structure of a class, all of us were learning through a teacher teaching us how to write an essay on either a book or another form of art. I was never good at it, my sister would always tell me, "It's easy, you just have to write and that's it". My mother would scold at me for not getting better at creating an essay, and my grades showed it. This stressed me out completely, leaving me in a dark room in my mind, left to do nothing, being disappointed at myself for being a failure. Nothing can cheer me up, not even video games could help me from escaping the anxieties I had. The only thing I did that could help me mentally was drawing.

Drawing helped me to get my emotions out and to feel as if I did have something to be proud of. Although I was not a great artist during my first times of drawing, I loved it. It was something that I could call mine, my own little experiment that I could change or add on to, just so it can make me happy. During classes, in the times that I would be bored, I would draw anything that could pop out in my head. It could be a character, a scenery, a real person. Each day I got better at creating new drawings, and began creating my own work in third year. I began to draw more pieces of art that helped convey the emotions I felt for a long time, something I could have never done before. It helped me cope with myself, and find a reason to be content. I did, however, find another source of which I could express myself in.

Freshman year of high school seemed very intimidating at first, but during that year I finally learned how I could use writing for my own use. Ms. Kaufman had given us a book to read for the term, and a writing assignment that would connect with the story. The book was titled Drown and was written by Junot Diaz. It was from that book that I began to get interested in class readings because of the way he wrote his stories. Very detailed readings, but very relatable writing to the point that you would think that Diaz is talking to you. The writing assignment we were given for the reading was not an essay explaining the themes of the book. The writing assignment was more of a creative story, something that would generate thoughts and creativity in one's mind. I did not think much of it at first, but it was when Ms. Kaufman told us to free write about our lives. She stated that we did not need to worry about grammar or structure, all we needed was the pen, the paper, and the mind. We all sat at our small rectangular desks and wrote until our hands were sore. I wrote about my life until that moment, and wrote until she told us to stop. She was very appreciated about all of our stories, explaining that it was thoughtful of us to share our experiences with her. She wrote on everyone's assignment comments and thoughts on our stories, but for mine she gave me a compliment. She wrote that it was a great story and she had a deeper understanding of who I was. I was overjoyed on what I accomplished that I began to like writing more than ever. I continued making stories outside of school, even taking classes for it to improve my writing, like Poetry Seminar.

Poetry Seminar helped me to analyze and criticize my own work, helping me master my skill. While reading poems for the class I began analyzing the lines and verses that the poet wrote, and try to understand the point of it. It could be a sonnet, a romanticism poem, any type. It helped me recognize that these poets deliberately use specific words to portray their message in either a very vivid way, or enigmatic. I used those examples for my work, to make me find out ways to make my message known through each word. The teacher, Mr. Leon, gave us different tasks to help us criticize each other work, and even our own. One of these tasks were to write our very own poem, a confessional poem that tells our deepest thoughts on either the world or ourselves. It was hard trying to find something to write on at first, but I gave thought about my past. Most of my life I always thought I was a failure, trying and never achieving the goals I set for myself. This thought has been in my head for many years, and I finally have the chance to let it out on paper. In the day that the poem was due, Mr. Leon asked the class to share their poems so that he can get to know his students. He helped the students move all the tables to form a huge circle that would cover the class, and we all sat on the table to stay close. Many of the students shared their stories, but I could not. I felt as if it was too much for myself to read it to others. The next day, Leon told us that he was grateful for listening to our confessions and reading them, and actually gave me a compliment out of all the other students. He told me, "Joshua, you've made a very beautiful poem that I am very thankful to you". I was surprised, as if my mind just ran out my head and left me there, startled. He showed me that I could be proud of my work.

Throughout my childhood, I always had a problem with expressing my emotions to others, but as I gained the skill of writing, it helped me to show them, and it gave me a reason to be content with myself. Writing as a whole is a great way to help convey a message or a thought you have for a long time, and there will always be somebody that will listen and agree with what you think. As for me, I do not think I will continue on writing stories any more. Although it is something I thoroughly enjoy, I do not have that type of motivation to write or create new stories as I did in the past. Most of my forms of expression are now compose of art and music, things that I love working with daily. Either way, these forms of expression help shape who you are as a person, it could also help many others who are facing the same struggles as you are. These are very important to help give people a chance to help find themselves mentally. I mean, it did help me.