Alex Garcia Moreno

Instructor Rebecca Agosta

UWRT 1101-029
1 October 2015

Literacy Learnings
I was born in Avila, a small city close to Madrid in Spain. Of course, my native
language is Spanish and therefore I have been speaking, writing and studying in Spanish
my whole life. It is my native language. Both my parents and the teachers of the school
I used to go to when I was young, taught me a lot of essential things in life. Thanks to
them, I learned how to say my first words, and after that, I learned how to talk and put
different sentences together.
After that I went to middle school in my hometown. There I started to learn all
the basic things about the Spanish literacy, such as verbs, different kinds of words, and
how to put together sentences. In addition, in these first years I started to take my first
English classes. In these classes I learned about how to pronounce certain words, and
different colors, animals and easy verbs. I remember I had only one or two hours per
week, but these classes were only an introduction for the next English classes I was
going to be a part of in the next upcoming years.
A couple of years later, in 4th Grade, I had one of the best teachers I have ever
had, Paula. I really liked her a lot. She loved literacy. She loved writing and reading.
She loved doing what she did, and that made her really special and unique. I remember
in particular one assignment we did where we had to write about our hobbies and
interests on our free time. I wrote about my biggest hobby that has always been to be
playing tennis, which I spent almost all of my life doing. A lot of money and time and

blood, sweat and tears were invested into my tennis and therefore it became a really
memorable first assignment for this teacher. Also, during this year we used to write a lot
of different papers using all of the different narrative genres. We wrote poetry, short
stories and even plays. This teacher also encouraged us to read books, so this year I
started to read my first books. Reading became one of my biggest hobbies and my
favorite book was Harry Potter.
The following years were not very special. We just kept on learning new things
and increased our knowledge. A couple of years later, I graduated Middle School and I
started studying on a High School level. It was in high school where my literacy
learning really started to get formed. These past years I only learned the basic things
about writing and reading, but during the upcoming years I really focused on the
important literacy concepts, which helped me to better understand what I learned
previously in middle school. These concepts were how important different vocabulary
can expand your reading and writing and the way you express yourself. That made me
prepared for the next upcoming years.
In 8th grade, my Spanish teacher, Manuel, used to write poetry. In Spain we do
not have the same school system as here in the states, so therefore I translate my grade
of school into the 8th grade. He used to write books about poetry and his imagination
and wording was incredible. Not only did he teach poetry, he taught us how to think
outside the box. To think outside the box is something that people in todays society
have to do more often to see things from a different perspective. This is really important
to me personally because I am from a different country and I see a lot of differences and
similarities between Spain and the U.S. This teacher even took us on a trip where a lot
of poetry writers came as well, and we could ask them any kind of question we had
about literacy and poetry related to language. Myself I found one man in particular that I

found extra interesting. His name was Alfonso and he was an amateur poetry writer who
I could tell had a lot of experience within the subject area, as well as an interesting
personal history behind his master pieces.
However, my literacy kept going after 8th grade and as always we got a new
professor. In 9th grade we kept on developing Spanish but we also went deeper into
English as a subject. I started taking extra English classes on top of my normal school.
Every afternoon I went to a different school where we learned basic level English. In
Spain English is not very important, and for anyone who has previously visited the
country knows that the Spanish people in general are really bad in languages. Spanish
people often see tourists coming to our cities and if they try to ask someone a question it
is really rare that people know how to respond.
People in Spain have changed the way they see the importance of languages. In
old days Spain was a country who had a dictator, and his name was Franco. After his
death in 1975, the Spanish people changed their lifestyle. It was like a big stone fell
from a lot of peoples hearts. The reason was because he prohibited people to take part
of other cultures than the Spanish one. The life of Spanish people used to be extremely
different compared to how it is today. Spain is starting to understand the importance of
languages and learning to interact with the rest of the world. Therefore a lot of parents
make their kids go to English classes after their other school day is over. In my personal
case to learn English was really important for my future, and that shows now when I
had to move away from home and speak another language every single day.
In 11th grade I had a teacher who gave every student a book to read. He gave us
some of the most famous Spanish books. An example of a book I read was Don
Quijote. It was my first big novel. I found it interesting, but very long. It is about a
man who thinks that he is a warrior. He also has his own guardian whose name is

Sancho Panza. A few years ago I was really hard to entertain and a lot of things were
boring. Reading was boring until I read this book. It was especially interesting because
I could read about a lot of adventures that the main character did and I could see myself
in the story.
I also read another book that was a play called La Celestina by Fernando
Rojas. This is probably the book I have enjoyed the most reading. It has given me a lot
of things to think about and it felt like I was being a part of the story. I was feeling like I
was taking up place where the characters were.
My 12th year of school was my senior year, and for sure it was the hardest year
of all the years I have spent in school throughout my life. We had to study a lot every
day. We had to do a lot of projects and we had a lot of exams, all of them in the same
week. In my opinion this is the year I learned the most. In addition, to be honest I think
that the teachers were so demanding with all the students, and that made us study and do
our homework every day.
After accomplishing this goal, it was time for a new challenge. Not only did
High School prepare me for college academics, but it taught me how to keep a balanced
schedule and a good work ethic.
Moving to America was a challenge for me socially, athletically and
academically. The skills that I developed in High School are now developing even more
here at UNC Charlotte. As I said before, in order to learn the English language well
enough to speak it fluently, I had to put in extra time. This same way of thinking and
processing information can be applied to the classes that I am taking, especially this
writing course.
In closing, I am excited to take on this new challenge and I am very aware of the
difficulties that this new process presents. I know each day will have its own tests and

trials, but with the help and support of my family and friends I know I will be able to
overcome these obstacles