Brian Torsiello

Professor Enos
ENGW 111

English has always been my most difficult subject. I have found that no
matter how hard I tried, I could never understand the core concepts. This in turn
affected my ability to really excel in the subject. I was always in honors classes, but
in comparison to where I wanted to be and where my peers in those classes were, I
was on the lower end of the spectrum. This is ironic seeing as when I was younger I
had always done well as far as reading and writing went, but as I got older, I slowly
became worse and worse.
The first book I ever read was Scooby-Doo, and by reading I mean I just kind
of memorized all of the words and went from there, but nonetheless, I could do this
without any help from my Mom. From here I started progressing through the
standard elementary school process starting with the basics of writing and reading.
Through this, I discovered that I had a very strong grasp of reading. Not only was I
good at it, but I also came to enjoy and love it. By the time I was in 3 rd or 4th grade I
had read all of the Harry Potter series multiple times, along with similar books.
These types of books, especially Harry Potter (which I still revere as my favorite
books of all time), developed my reading skill in the sense that I am now able read
at a rather fast rate. However, due to my own lack of motivation and the fact that
Harry Potter doesnt have all that much under the surface, my ability to critically
analyze books was slightly damaged. Nevertheless, for the rest of elementary
school not only did I progress through the rest of the lessons for reading and writing
but I did rather well in the sense that I could write coherently, read quickly, and take
in the information at a fast rate, all skills that I have kept since then.

My demise of writing began once I got to middle school. We were starting to

read more complicated books, which ultimately lead to more difficult to understand
concepts that, up until that point, I had never really regarded as that important.
These included expanded vocabulary as well as starting to have to understand more
than just what the author was writing, such as character development or subplots
throughout the book. I started to struggle with these more complicated ideas, and
my skill of being able to read quickly no longer helped me. To me, a book was for
enjoyment, and it should be telling an adventurous story, not something that I
should analyze for a deeper meaning. This started to cause me to lose my love for
reading, and I stopped reading as much as I used too. Before struggling I used to
read any chance I had, whether it be staying up late or reading while eating
breakfast or even waking up at 2 am and reading for the rest of night. After I started
to struggle I began to read less and less, and other than Harry Potter, I barely read
at all, except for English class. My struggle with understanding the concepts within
the book took a huge toll on my writing for obvious reasons. If you cant understand
what youre reading about, then how are you supposed to write an entire essay
about it. From here, I made the mistake of not taking the steps to improve myself as
a writer such as going to my teacher for help, or not having someone like my sister
or one of my parents to proof read my essays. By the end of middle school, I had
lost a lot of the confidence that I had gained during elementary school.
When I got to high school things started to look up as far as English class
went. My teacher in 9th grade was my kind of English instructor, meaning we didnt
have to write a lot of essays and we got to read a lot of fun books like The Odyssey
or various plays by Shakespeare. This was the type of reading and writing I enjoyed,
and thankfully I started to get my love for reading back, which is a major reason I

enjoy it today. Unfortunately for me, this was the last English class that I really
appreciated. In 10th grade, we got back to the more complicated things, except now
we didnt just focus on subplots or characters, but also symbols within the book and
themes and how they related to the real world. These new reading skills confused
me even more than the skills that we had to learn. It just never made sense to me
as to why people would look deeper into a book than was, in my mind, strictly
necessary. As an engineer especially, I am a very logical person, and I like things to
be clear as possible, so for an author to hide the true meaning of the book, or to
make the reader figure out the purpose of the book always frustrated me. Similar to
the way it did in middle school, this confusion and frustration affected my writing in
a strong way. I never failed any essays, but I would usually get high Cs or low Bs
and the occasion B plus. These grades were a reflection of my lack of understanding
of the text that the essays were on. Unlike middle school however, I did go to my
teachers after class for help, which definitely helped my essays, but never really did
too much for my actual writing skills, other than teaching me how to elaborate, or
properly plan an essay. Despite these challenges I still took AP Language and
Composition, which while it was difficult, it definitely improved my writing ability,
although still not to the standard that I would like it at. After taking that class my
junior year, I was pretty fed up with writing, as we wrote more essays than I ever
had before, and on top of a serious case of senioritus, I didnt do all that much to
improve my writing.
While I definitely am not the strongest writer, I also want to try and improve
my skills, especially as this could potentially be my last real English class. Im also
hoping to end on a high note, because the older I got, the less confident I was, and I
am hoping to regain some of that confidence in this upcoming semester. While I

doubt I will ever have to analyze a book during an engineering job, these skills will
still help my overall critical thinking.