I Can Write
|
|
Dan Qiao
Instructor Kyongson Park
ENGL 106i
26 Jan 2015
I Can Write
“I can write!” I told myself proudly, standing in front of the classroom, reading my composition to my classmates. The noisy classroom was silenced to listen, and I trembled a little bit when 90 eyes stared at me. To a 7-year-old-girl, this challenging task was intimidating but glorious.
In my elementary school in Beijing, getting full grades in final exams is not hard at all. However, there was only one subject, Chinese, that none of the students could get a 100. Because there was a composition in the final exam graded strictly by the teacher, no one could receive a full score. Due to our class's tradition, for the sake of encouragement, each time the high graded writings would be collected and printed out as a book for the whole class to read and learn. As a student whose work was seldom missing from writing collections, I was proud of having a Chinese teacher like Ms. Hao, a lady in her 30s who led me to the world of writing.
“Can I write well?” I asked myself. “No, no, no!” I doubted. In the 1st grade, with the fear of writing, I even ignored my first assignment of writing a passage in Chinese. If I was not able to talk about the topic “a meaningful day”, how could I write about it? To my surprise, Ms. Hao didn’t blame me on my homework. Instead, she had a talk with me and asked me about my hobby. I felt wired at first but I talked a lot about swimming. Ms. Hao smiled consistently and respectfully while listening and she wrote down all of my funny swimming experiences. Her eyes were shinning when hearing how I drank a lot of water in the swimming pool when I was learning freestyle and how the coach pulled me out of the water in the swimming course. I could feel that she was encouraging me to say more. One hour later, I have no more to say. Ms. Hao told me with a big smile that "Now you can have your first homework done!” showing me the notes she took. I was surprised to see a whole A4 paper of notes with a clear structure! Using the story of swimming, I rewrote my first assignment A meaningful day with ease. Ms. Hao gave me a high score and even praised me in the class. Thank to Ms. Hao, I experienced the fantastic feeling of writing. It was at that time that I developed a sense of self-esteem.
“I can write!” I still remember the first time I shouted it out. It was when Ms. Hao encouraged me to attend the "spring thunder", a writing competition in the 3rd grade. The topic was "my favorite season". Coincidently, I was learning and reciting the textbook article, Spring, by ZiQing Zhu. In order to write my composition, I used my full heart to learn the article, tried my best to feel every word when reciting, as if I also experienced the happiness of the writer who loves everything refreshes in spring. Planning to write about summer, I paid special attention on the beautiful sentence structure that ZiQing Zhu used to write his book. The day before the due date, I was permitted to write in a separate room with other candidates. I felt nervous and excited at the same time. But when I see the familiar white paper with green lines, which I always filled with my emotions, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. As usual, a picture appeared in front of my eyes and all I needed to do is to move my pen and let the words from my heart fly to the paper. I ended up winning the 3rd prize, and the 2000-word-article I wrote was my longest record in my elementary school.
“I can write!” I shouted it again when I wrote about my teacher. I was deeply touched to see Ms. Hao still preparing for the class materials when I once walked passing by her office at nine PM. So I decided to write about my dedicated teacher as one writing assignment. Surprisingly, she posted my writing on a website with her thesis about teaching. She got payment for posting her thesis but she divided her reward and gave out to four of her students whose writing was chosen. As an elementary school student, I was greatly encouraged to receive that approximately three dollars reward because I was recognized as a “writer” for the first time.
I was grateful to have Ms. Hao as my teacher when I start to learn how to write. She taught me how to express my truest feelings, how to tell interesting stories, and most importantly, how to observe the world with a pair of curious eyes. She played an important roll in my memories in the elementary school and she helped me to record the shinning memories vividly by teaching me writing.
Time flies, right now I am a student majoring in communications at Purdue University, studying and writing in a whole English environment. In my opinion, unlike writing in Chinese, which is more flexible and freer to me, writing in English requires a higher accuracy, which is more like making a statue or painting a realistic oil painting. Instead of writing to my old friend, the paper with green lines, I got my keyboard as my new partner. The feeling of typing is not like that of writing on the paper, and I definitely prefer writing on papers. I still write on paper if I was not required to type. When I read my words I wrote with my hand, I can feel the sound from my heart, which is my truest emotion. Now when I write, I still can remember Ms. Hao, my first Chinese teacher who taught me writing and encouraged me to say “I can write!” out loud.
Instructor Kyongson Park
ENGL 106i
26 Jan 2015
I Can Write
“I can write!” I told myself proudly, standing in front of the classroom, reading my composition to my classmates. The noisy classroom was silenced to listen, and I trembled a little bit when 90 eyes stared at me. To a 7-year-old-girl, this challenging task was intimidating but glorious.
In my elementary school in Beijing, getting full grades in final exams is not hard at all. However, there was only one subject, Chinese, that none of the students could get a 100. Because there was a composition in the final exam graded strictly by the teacher, no one could receive a full score. Due to our class's tradition, for the sake of encouragement, each time the high graded writings would be collected and printed out as a book for the whole class to read and learn. As a student whose work was seldom missing from writing collections, I was proud of having a Chinese teacher like Ms. Hao, a lady in her 30s who led me to the world of writing.
“Can I write well?” I asked myself. “No, no, no!” I doubted. In the 1st grade, with the fear of writing, I even ignored my first assignment of writing a passage in Chinese. If I was not able to talk about the topic “a meaningful day”, how could I write about it? To my surprise, Ms. Hao didn’t blame me on my homework. Instead, she had a talk with me and asked me about my hobby. I felt wired at first but I talked a lot about swimming. Ms. Hao smiled consistently and respectfully while listening and she wrote down all of my funny swimming experiences. Her eyes were shinning when hearing how I drank a lot of water in the swimming pool when I was learning freestyle and how the coach pulled me out of the water in the swimming course. I could feel that she was encouraging me to say more. One hour later, I have no more to say. Ms. Hao told me with a big smile that "Now you can have your first homework done!” showing me the notes she took. I was surprised to see a whole A4 paper of notes with a clear structure! Using the story of swimming, I rewrote my first assignment A meaningful day with ease. Ms. Hao gave me a high score and even praised me in the class. Thank to Ms. Hao, I experienced the fantastic feeling of writing. It was at that time that I developed a sense of self-esteem.
“I can write!” I still remember the first time I shouted it out. It was when Ms. Hao encouraged me to attend the "spring thunder", a writing competition in the 3rd grade. The topic was "my favorite season". Coincidently, I was learning and reciting the textbook article, Spring, by ZiQing Zhu. In order to write my composition, I used my full heart to learn the article, tried my best to feel every word when reciting, as if I also experienced the happiness of the writer who loves everything refreshes in spring. Planning to write about summer, I paid special attention on the beautiful sentence structure that ZiQing Zhu used to write his book. The day before the due date, I was permitted to write in a separate room with other candidates. I felt nervous and excited at the same time. But when I see the familiar white paper with green lines, which I always filled with my emotions, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. As usual, a picture appeared in front of my eyes and all I needed to do is to move my pen and let the words from my heart fly to the paper. I ended up winning the 3rd prize, and the 2000-word-article I wrote was my longest record in my elementary school.
“I can write!” I shouted it again when I wrote about my teacher. I was deeply touched to see Ms. Hao still preparing for the class materials when I once walked passing by her office at nine PM. So I decided to write about my dedicated teacher as one writing assignment. Surprisingly, she posted my writing on a website with her thesis about teaching. She got payment for posting her thesis but she divided her reward and gave out to four of her students whose writing was chosen. As an elementary school student, I was greatly encouraged to receive that approximately three dollars reward because I was recognized as a “writer” for the first time.
I was grateful to have Ms. Hao as my teacher when I start to learn how to write. She taught me how to express my truest feelings, how to tell interesting stories, and most importantly, how to observe the world with a pair of curious eyes. She played an important roll in my memories in the elementary school and she helped me to record the shinning memories vividly by teaching me writing.
Time flies, right now I am a student majoring in communications at Purdue University, studying and writing in a whole English environment. In my opinion, unlike writing in Chinese, which is more flexible and freer to me, writing in English requires a higher accuracy, which is more like making a statue or painting a realistic oil painting. Instead of writing to my old friend, the paper with green lines, I got my keyboard as my new partner. The feeling of typing is not like that of writing on the paper, and I definitely prefer writing on papers. I still write on paper if I was not required to type. When I read my words I wrote with my hand, I can feel the sound from my heart, which is my truest emotion. Now when I write, I still can remember Ms. Hao, my first Chinese teacher who taught me writing and encouraged me to say “I can write!” out loud.