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Torey Stutts
Miss. Grant
UWRT 1101-032
Due Sept. 3
rd


Speaking proper English
I wasnt always able to speak normally and be proficient at speaking English. For
the first part of my life it usually sounded like gibberish and no one could understand
what I was saying. This is why I was involved in a tutor group at my elementary
school. Its just a faint memory now but when I was in the third grade I had to have a
reading and speaking tutor. Thinking back to that time in my life I dont really remember
the way that I spoke, however I remember the activities that we used to do. There was a
specific time during each week that a few other students and I would be pulled out of
our classrooms. We would all go to the library. Once we were in the library we would
say the normal introductions and then we would pass out materials. There were these
light plastic phones that were called whisper phones that we used to read to ourselves.
After we finished reading we came back to the group and we would take turns reading
together. I believe it was called popcorn reading where we each read a section, then
move on. The teacher would correct us often and help us understand the words better.
Now that I think back to that time, I think that my family and culture had a large
impact on how I learned to speak and write. My mother was born and raised in Jamaica
before she married my dad and moved to the USA. Her sister, my aunt, also moved to
the USA. Around the house my mom and her sister always spoke in Jamaican Patois,


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which is pronounced Patwa, locally. Growing up, this really impacted my life and how I
learned to speak and write English. As young children we first learn to speak and write
by picking up on what people around you say. Since Patwa mostly sounds like fast
broken up English, I picked up on this and was confused as a kid. Most of the things
that I tried to say just sounded like more baby talk.
When my parents were notified about me being in the schools tutor program,
they soon realized why this was happening. I was having all these difficulties because of
my moms culture and I had been learning broken up English. I didnt use the right
words in the right context and sometimes I said silly things such as Im scratching
when what I had really meant was Im itchy. These small problems seemed to work
them out throughout the rest of that school year. As I continued into the fourth and fifth
grade I actually ended up in the AIG program, which stood for Academically and
Intellectually Gifted.
School First Sports Second
Sports have been huge all my life, I have always enjoyed being part of a sports
team. My vocabulary has always been the weakest side of my literacy and writing skills.
Softball, on the other hand, was and has always been my passion during school. I loved
being out on the field. In middle school we were not allowed to play in our first year, our
sixth grade year. During the seventh and eighth grades of middle school we were
allowed to play sports during school. The school policies regarding academics before
sports were pretty simple and easy for me. It basically said that you had to be passing
all but one of your classes, which was not very hard to do. To pass a class your number


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grade had to be between seventy and one-hundred percent. English class was always a
struggle for me in school, especially during middle school.
For my parents, this was not good enough. I was always pushed to work harder
and do my best. I remember that I was required to make 93 or better on all tests. If I
didnt, I would have to write the same sentence over and over and this sentence would
usually say I will study more for my next test and if I dont I will not play in my next
game. This may seem harsh, but it wasnt a very big deal. I never had to do very many,
only ten to twenty sentences.
My mom went to college as soon as she got to the US. She has always been
very educated, so she always pushed me to do my best. I used to have a reward
system for the amount of books and size of books that I read. My mother would always
push me to expand my reading skills by implementing this system. She used to buy me
a lot of books that were on sale. She also had labels that she stuck to the books saying
how much each book would pay. Each time that I read a new book I would have to
practice read it first. Then I would read the book to my mom or to my dad. Once I read
the book and I understood it, I was paid money. When I was younger I used to think that
this was the best thing ever. The bigger the book was meant the more money I got,
which was only about fifty cents to a dollar.
After I grew out of the reward system stage, it was very noticeable how much
better my literacy was. I started to recognize more and more words. I also made a very
noticeable improvement in my academic work. This improvement caused me to become
excited about my literacy and happy that I could play sports knowing my academics
were taken care of. Back in middle school we used to separate the books in the library


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by grade level and I remember one specific time that I chose to read a book two grades
ahead of me. This isnt a big deal now but back then I thought it was amazing and it
made my day great when I finally finished that book.
Hanging with the Wrong Crowd
I used to be one of the cool bad kids when I was in school, towards the end of
middle school to be specific. I never really had a specific group of friends that I was
always with. Most people knew who I was and I knew who they were, but we were
never really good friends. I kept to myself mostly and was never a social butterfly.
It all started during the eighth grade when I met two girls during a football game.
Seeing them at the football game turned into hanging out with them once in a while or
seeing movies. Two girls turned into their group of friends too and I actually felt like I
had good friends. This is the type of group that was always loud and almost rude when
they were together. This is also where my literacy took a turn downhill.
This certain group was very diverse. Like I said before we were the cool bad
kids. I dont know how well the academics of my friends were, but mine were suffering.
Im not sure that I read one book the entire school year. I even faked the summer
reading assignment and chose not to do it. These friends make me think we were too
cool to waste time reading a dumb school book and then answer questions about it.
My eyes were definitely opened for me one day at our local mall (which is pretty
small compared to other cities). Once again I was hanging out with this group. Now
before when I said my literacy took a turn, this is the reason why. This group of kids had
the worst grammar and spelling. So almost every other word that one of them spoke,
you would hear an improper slang word. Some examples would be cuz used either


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when we would say hey whats up or saying the word because. We were talking and
being loud at the mall (with no parents) one day during that school year when a friend of
my family noticed me. She spoke to me for a few minutes aside from the group and she
basically told me that I needed to get things together because these people werent
going anywhere. After this I really had to think about why I had these friends. It was
because going into a new big school I just wanted to fit in and they were the first one to
really be friendly and nice.
After a period of time in that group my literacy began to suffer in particular when I
tried to do writing assignments. The problem wasnt the content of what I was writing,
but my ability to actually write the paper. I began to have so many problems because I
started to write in the way that I spoke. I didnt speak with proper English all the time
and my paper suffered from that. Not only was this noticeable to my teacher but also my
parents who were not very happy with me. My mom made me read over and edit all
these mistakes. I caught a few places here and there and corrected my mistake, but it
was a real eye opener when my mom sat in front of me and did the same thing. I was so
used to this way of talking and writing (in text messages) that I was blind to the mistakes
I made in writing assignments for class. Sometimes I would say that for the word
thought or say u for the word you. There were so many places where I read right
over because in my head it sounded correct to me because thats how I always spoke
with my friends.
Eventually I grew out of this stage of my life. I went back to being the quiet and
hardworking person that I am. I just stopped hanging out with those people and started


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picking new books to read. I got into a new genre and began to enjoy books about
vampires. Starting to read again really helped me to get back onto the right track.