Ariana Morales-Zempoaltecatl

Danielle Carr

September 21, 2021

Story Of My Life

It all started just when I was just a baby. I don’t really recall any vivid memories nor do I remember any specific memories. I had to ask my parents for this portion of my narrative. “Pa’,  puedes ayudareme con lo sue puedes recordar de cuando yo era un bebe?”.“Si” said my dad. To put it into context, my parents were immigrants. Their names are Justina Morales and Heriberto Zempoaltecatl. They have helped me obtain some literacy at an early age and develop morals that would help me till this day with the most common what’s right and wrong. My dad would always tell me from an early age up until now “Haz las cosas bien” and “Never ever give up”. Both of my parents started from nothing they didn’t know any English from even before when I was born. In the present, both of my parents aren’t fluent in English but they do understand some of the words in the Language. My parents would speak to me as any other parent, one word statements. About age 1 I would speak one word statements most simple ones was “si” and “no” or I would just shake my head. My first ever word was “ok”.  It wasn’t the best nor is the most exciting word but it was something to start off with. I was learning day by day little by little. About age 2, I would speak two word statements like “ yo quiero” and “tengo hambre”.I didn’t have a clue of what the English language was. I then was in the telegraph stage I would speak nouns and verbs in Spanish. My parents gave me tutors to help me better my English. Their names areCrystal and Christopher. Since they were teenagers, they would slack off and wouldn’t help me as much. Unfortunately during these times in my childhood, I only knew Spanish.

 Later on my parents would enroll me into school to get an education. My first ever elementary school was in P.S.170. It was nice and the teachers were nice and that made my years there so fun. By 3rd grade I had to move away because it was so far away from where I lived. I transferred to a different school that was closer to me P.S.169. I always had trouble learning in school because my first language was Spanish even though I was a U.S citizen. I never liked any of the elementary school teachers in that school. I don’t remember why but I just never did. They didn’t seem to try to help me. One teacher I really liked that understood my situation was Mr.Hugo a teacher I had in 4th grade. Mr.Hugo was someone who helped me understand the language I felt comfortable with him. He was a teacher assistant and helped me pronouns words correctly in English. Sometimes I would speak in Spanish because that’s the language I’m used to. The classes I had back then were so difficult I almost repeated 5th grade because I couldn’t keep up with everyone else. Being in school and learning a language that I wasn’t familiar with was difficult, it was even more difficult when my parents would help me. My older brother named Heriberto Zempoaltecatl told me that I was fluent in Spanish as a child. But I lost all of that fluent language when I started a school where they wanted me to speak English.My brother named Heriberto Jr was my best friend in elementary school. The only problem was he would hold me back. I recently found out that my brother isn’t like me, he has a brain of a kid. It made me realize why I was so behind and why learning material was so hard for me. If he would do something I would to because he was older than me so I looked up to him. I love him to this day because he cares about me just as much as I do for him. It just meant that I had to do better and become better alone.

I started middle school and I was so nervous to transition from elementary school to middle school. I had difficult teachers in middle school and it was hard for me to learn since I disliked learning the language and I disliked the teachers. In my 6th grade year I don’t remember much about the classes only that it was just really a difficult year which is why I can’t remember much. What I do remember is that my 6th grade teacher would help a lot into better improving our literacy by reading books and making us analysis. During these times in my 6th grade year I felt like I was getting better and started to like learning the English language more. 7th grade came by and I had an elective teacher named Ms.Conte. Ms.Conte was such a sweet person in and outside of school. She would play music in class that would include the English Language. She would help me correct my statements if they were wrong. I was still shy during these times so I wouldn’t really participate in any class. 8th grade came and I didn’t realize it would be such a difficult time. My English teacher at the time name was Mr.Gonzalez and he was a pain when I was one of his students. He was extremely strict with us and growing up I see why he was the way he was with us he wanted us to improve. He would make us read two books the whole year. The books he assigned us to read were To Kill A Mocking Bird and Inside Out & Back Again. These books were difficult for me to comprehend. I already knew some English but the words that were in the book were words that I wasn’t familiar with. He would always ask us questions about the book but I didn’t know what to say and at that moment I felt so dumb and I had a hard time. Most of us were quiet and didn’t know what to say even though its pretty simple just to summarize what was read aloud. Since we didn’t know, he would split the class in half, one side that would participate and the other that didn’t would have to write it down. He said he only did this because in high school we would have to speak up for ourselves. During my time as his student we would write what he would call college argumentative essays. He was super strict with them. But for me personally, he would have me correct my grammar and using words that are past tense. He would want me to use a lot of pieces of evidence to back up my claim. He would want me to analysis deeply the pieces of evidence I gathered. It was harder for me to analysis because I didn’t know how to do it. He would always check my essay and tell me I’m using the wrong words which got me frustrated. He would want me to always check back my own essay and see if I notice any grammatical errors and if I had used the right tense. I struggled and I needed help so I had to come by after school just for him to help me. I was happy that it wasn’t just me who struggled but also other students. He would explain part by part on how to write an argumentative essay. From then, I started to write better and better with his help after school. I finally learned how to properly write an argumentative essay. Overtime I knew how to write an argumentative essay and we would have to write another one about the other book we read. My 8th grade English teacher is who helped me a lot in my life since he is the guy who would push me to do my best. Always ask questions if we didn’t know, always review my answers.

I started high school. I was all the way ready for it. But it seemed as most kids understood what was going on in the classes given. I didn’t even know what the word “determine” was. I though I would struggle but seeing the work given to us by our teachers, It seemed pretty simple since I’ve done most of the work given back in middle school. I began to practice literacy in my classes. In my freshman year of High school we would read books and a particular book we read was called All American Boys. We would read the book as a whole class. My teacher at the time named Ms.Dooley she would ask questions and make us connect the book to other sources. To be honest it reminded me of my time when I was in middle school. I was scared I would say what’s on my mind and I would be wrong and my classmates would make fun of me. I wouldn’t participate in big group discussions but I would listen and observe on how they came to their answer.

I went into my sophomore year, and I did so good during my time in that class. My teachers were Mr.Rasinya, Mrs.Cruz, and Ms.Cruz. When I had my English class it helped me improved way better my diction by reading, identifying, and learning new vocabulary. We would all read a book and each of us had to read aloud and that helped out a lot since me personally I wouldn’t want to read aloud because I didn’t want to mess up in front of my classmates. But from what I learned from him, he told me that making mistakes is part of learning. We don’t always have to be doing everything perfect we are always improving and growing so making a mistake should never fear me. That stood with me a lot and still does till this day. More later in the year we would have to write draft essays and we would gain feedback from either the teachers or from each other. My teachers would specifically tell us what we had to improve on. For me I had grammatical errors, had to use less cliches, and better my diction. A positive feedback I was given was writing essays pretty good. When I was given that feedback, I though about my Middle school teacher Mr.Gonzalez. He heavily impacted me, he was the one that helped me with writing proper essays. Given the feedback it helped us better the essays and to write our final essay which by the way, I did excellent on. Next, we had a time towards he end of the year to read a book more specifically WW2. This encouraged students like myself to participate a lot more. I chose Diary of Anne Frank. Being able to pick a book that I liked and wanted to read help me a lot because one it was a book I wanted to read and it has vocabulary that I wasn’t familiar with. In our small groups we would have to summarize and analysis what we read. This helped me practice a ton with literacy because I was able to read books and understand words im not familiar with using context clues that was shown to me in my years in middle school.

I went into my junior year, my teachers name was Ms.Capetanakis. I loved her so much, she was so nice and sweet. I practiced media literacy. Meaning I was able to understand images, posters, videos of media, etc. Most of it would be either argumentative essays, informational nooks, non fiction books, and how the justice system relates to black lives matter. From what I remembered I would participate a lot since I understood what was being said and shown to me. I remember the argumentative essays I would have to write about like “Is esports is the same as sports?”. I was able to read and make good claims in my essays and was pretty great at it. My teacher at the time told me that I liked to argue a lot my ideas and thought I was really good at media literacy.

To wrap up, in my childhood I only knew Spanish. I grew up with parents that only spoke Spanish. Because of that it was harder for me to obtain English literacy. Not just only knowing Spanish but also because my brother wasn’t as advanced as others. I would always be with him and we would do work and play together. It sucked that most of my Spanish literacy went away. Throughout my years in school. It has helped me a lot to improve and better practice literacy. I don’t only practice literacy in school but I also practice outside of school. I would set goals for myself and I would develop better morals for myself and practice stoicism.