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Dominic Vasquez
Ms. Coco
English 1001
16 February 2016
My audience for this essay is all kids who have struggled with, or do not like English.
Preface: Once completing the peer review and cut and tape exercise, I have added more
supporting detail in each of the paragraphs, and corrected grammatical errors. By adding more
supporting details and examples it has affected the development and focus of this essay. It has
done so by providing the audience with a better picture to visualize and more relatable examples.
By adding greater detail, I have increased the development because it gives a more in depth
understanding of the essay. My three biggest concerns about this essay are the focus, enough
supporting detail, and overall transitions between sentences and paragraphs.
I really took your feedback to mind, Ms. Coco, and I liked it. It was very good criticism and I
think you came about it the right way. Unlike most teachers, your criticism was constructive,
helpful, and nice. In my past experiences, most teachers are a bit rude and expect your paper to
be spotless. As you advised, I broke up the paragraphs into separate paragraphs that all shared
the same idea. Once there, I expanded the sentences with more detail and answered the
unanswered question my sentences raised. It provesd to be more interesting once I reread it, and
adding more detail made it easier to visualize what I was trying to say.

Surprise Love For English

1.

Throughout my years in school, I have always struggled with my English classes which

have led to my dislike and fear of English. Another thing that has added on to the struggle is that
I am not a good writer, nor do I have a strong vocabulary. I think that these reasons are linked to
my English teachers in the past. Although I have not had a great past with English, I have had
three teachers that have helped me grow in the subject. These teachers helped me to come to
appreciate English and made it enjoyable. Besides learning to appreciate and enjoy English,

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these teachers helped to increase my literacy and writing skills by taking different approaches
than the normal English teacher.
2.

My first teacher, Mr. Velez, was my fifth grade English teacher. I can remember how

everyone was always so scared and intimated by him, and to this day I still cannot figure out
why. He was in the army, had a tattoo, and was strict but never mean, maybe that is why kids
were intimated by him. I chose this teacher because although I was only in fifth grade and did
not really write papers, he set a solid foundation of English for me. He was not your ordinary
English teacher. In class we did a lot of group activities and discussed our class and homework.
What really helped was the way he structured our reading activities. We would either break into
small groups and take turns reading paragraphs to each other, or read in the front of the class
room in front of everyone. This really helped me develop my reading skills because when you
read out loud you are able to hear yourself which gives you feed back. Also, reading in front of
people, whether a small group or large class, helps to overcome fear of speaking in front of
people. Once I learned this strategy, I have always used it. Whenever I was assigned reading
homework I would read out loud because it helps to be able to hear yourself. It also helped me
to read more clearly out loud, and pronounce harder words.
3.

Another strategy or activity that helped was having reading comprehension quizzes every

Thursday. We would have to read a 3-4 page story and answer questions on it at the end. Instead
of just jumping into the story and reading, he taught us to number the paragraphs and focus on
the main points of each paragraph. This strategy proved to be extremely important in my reading
now because it was a precursor to analyzing harder pieces. Once in high school, I was assigned
short stories that were a bit more complex in writing. I uses the same approach as I was taught

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before reading the stories in high school. A specific example where I used this strategy, was
when I read stories in Nortan Anthology of English Literature.
4.

Besides his teaching style, activities, and strategies he used, he was an extremely nice

man. He was always very patient and never gave up on any student. If one of the students did
not understand what a story was saying, had a hard time pronouncing words, or was just a weak
reader he would try different approaches and encourage us to keep trying.
5.

Mrs. Ware, was my eighth grade English teacher. Now that I am in eighth grade, I have

started to write different types of papers and read more complex stories. The papers were more
complex in the sense that I had to analyze books. She would assign us a book to read, and we
would have to write about the message the author was conveying.
6.

The material we learned shifted from reading comprehension to grammar and writing

techniques. One exercise that she did that was very helpful, was that every day before class we
would diagram sentences and correct sentences with mistakes. This really helped because it
taught me about more complex sentences and their structures. Correcting the sentences before
class also proved to be helpful, because it was beginning to start touching on writing, and how to
use correct grammar and punctuation. It also touched on the tedious process of correcting your
writing, such as multiple revisions to perfect you work.
7.

She was also an extremely nice teacher that used different approaches to explain

concepts, and never gave up trying on one of the students. Whenever a student could not
comprehend the material, she would not get mad but instead use a different approach. For
example, I could never figure out the difference between gerunds and infinitives. She was able
to explain the difference after class in ten minutes.

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8.

At the end of the year we had a research paper to write, which at the time I did not like

but am glad we did. I think it was a great idea because she introduced us to the levels of
research, work, and time that came with writing research papers. Adding on to the research
paper, one day we went to the downtown library and learned how to research using electronic
resources and books. Once there, the librarian was very helpful and useful. The librarian was
actually the person who taught us how to use the online data bases. We did not go very in depth
in the databases, but the main one I remember was JSTOR. This was probably the most
important thing I learned from Mrs. Ware, because once I started high school I was already ahead
about knowing how to use data bases and finding books that pertained to your topic.
9.

Finally, my last teacher, Mr. Tacas, was my sophomore English teacher in high school.

This teacher was very similar to my fifth grade teacher in the sense of group work and
discussions, but slightly different in the material we read. For example, we read The Adventures
of Huckleberry Fin, multiple works by Shakespeare, and A Tale of Two Cities. Because I was
already high school, I read long difficult novels and wrote many papers. I was always assigned
to read chapters at home, but the next day we would take as much time to go over what we read.
We would do this by either breaking into groups and talking, or asking questions and whoever in
the class knew would answer. Another activity we would do was read out loud. Reading to
yourself can be boring, especially if you do not like the book. One book that I did not like, and
found very confusing was A Tale of Two Cities. The out loud reading and discussions really
helped to clarify what was going on and which city the characters were currently in. Reading out
loud really helped because it was easier to understand what was going on and follow along.
10.

Although I have struggled with English and writing throughout my years of taking it, the

teachers I have had really helped. These teachers used strategies and activities that actually

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made English fun and easy. These proved to be very useful in my future English classes, and
help me expand my literacy and appreciate English more. Each teacher taught me something
different about English. I was able to learn reading comprehension, how to research and the time
behind it, correcting mistakes in your paper, and analyzing more complex novels. All of these
skills combined have taught me how to become a better writing and increase my literacy.