Improving Writing and Reading Skills: Writing as Talent - Essay Example

Writing has never been something that everybody enjoys doing. Some view writing as insignificant and feel as if they are wasting their time whenever they have to write something. It was the same case with me in about two years ago. I disliked writing and I never thought there would come a time when I will enjoy writing. Every time I had an essay writing assignment, I would feel exhausted and bored to an extent that my parents had started noticing my bad attitude towards writing. One of the reasons I used to hate writing was because I had very poor writing skills compared to my classmates. Additionally, I would always run out of words even before I was halfway through with the essay. Due to this bad attitude, I never spent any extra time trying to improve my writing skill since I dreaded essay writing. I could not understand why some of my friends wrote very nice essays. To me, writing was a talent, which my friends had and which I lacked. However, I have come to realize that writing is nothing close to a talent. Writing is all about sacrifice and devotion. Two year ago, I was not just a poor writer, but English was foreign to me. I come from Kazakhstan, a country where only few can understand English. I moved in to America two years ago and that is when I started my essay writing. Initially, it was stressful living in America, since no one spoke Russian or Kazakh, the languages I understood best. Primarily it was my parents’ idea that I move to America. They felt that American education was the best for me. I was then in 9th grade and the idea of migrating to a place that was, very different from my home country was terrifying. However, when I learnt that my relatives were planning to migrate to Boston, I was encouraged to face what I had initially considered challenging. I had told my parent that I did not feel ready to leave my country but after thinking of the idea of getting good education, I decided to migrate to America. Though I have been in America for only two years, i am glad that I made that decision. I searched for a high school at Boston, since I felt it would be good to be near my relatives. When I joined Worcester academy, it was one of the most challenging moment of my life. The students spoke good English while I was quite poor in this language. The most challenging of all was the fact that I had to write essays, something that I had never done before. As much as I was doing fairly well in my other classes, essay writing was making me feel depressed since it was crucial and I was not doing well. However, my teachers were very caring, friendly and always encouraged me to try harder. Were it not for my teachers, who made me believe that I could write good essays, I would never have dedicated myself as I did. They literary taught me how to write essays from scratch. Whenever my parents called to check on me, I would complain of the many essays I had to write. My parents had realized that I hated essay writing. However, they kept encouraging me. My mother told me to try to do as many essay as I could, since it would help me improve my writing skills. I am glad that I took that advice. At some point, I decide I was not going to disappoint my parents and teachers effort, and that is when I decided that I was going to succeed in essay writing. I made up my mind to change my attitude, and I believe that was the best decisions I ever made. I spent my first year in an American high school while I used the second one to prepare for the SAT. Besides writing, we read a couple of books, which were meant to help us improve our reading and analyzing skills. One of the books which I loved reading was mice of men, which turned out to be very interesting. The other book was referred to as The Giver. The one year I spent in Worcester was very helpful and changed my attitude toward essay writing. Had I not attended this academy with very helpful teachers, maybe I would still be complaining while writing this essay. I felt sad when the one year at Worcester ended. However, I was happy because that one year had completely altered my life, particularly on aspect pertaining to writing. After I left Worcester Academy, I started preparing for the SAT. I thought I had coped with all challenges but when I started preparing for the SAT, I knew I had to aim higher and work harder. I had no idea what the test was about. However, the fact that I had successfully overcome my writing frailty made me believe I could succeed in the SAT too. I decide to use my preparation period to improve more on my writing skills. Additionally, I enrolled in some sort of a SAT school. I was not taking chances since I had made up my mind to be the best that I could be. During my preparation, I read a wide collection of books, which enabled me improve my creativeness. I read all these books on my own and I could not believe how well I was doing particularly in writing. I still remember the last five books that I read. They were from a collection by a Russian author called Boris Akunin. My reading skills had improved to an extent that I could finish a whole book in three days. Furthermore, I did not have to be pressure by anyone to do the reading. I would also find myself wring essay as I tried to summarize what I had read from the books. My relatives also noticed this and one who was also preparing for SAT would often come for assistance from me. This was unbelievable, I had dreamt of being a good writer, but I had never thought I would improve my skills so fast. When I think about my writing skills two years ago, I appreciate my parents’ idea of sending me to America. I did not just learn how to write good essays, writing became one of my hobbies. I find myself writing my own articles even when no one has asked me to. To sum it up, my last two years in United Stated have greatly helped me improve my writing and reading skills. Read More