Naomi Michel
Intro to English
9/25/21
Cover Letter
In this specific literacy narrative essay I wrote about my reading experience and growth. My main audience was definitely people who don’t spend an efficient amount of time thinking about how there is only one learning style that is pushed in most schools and how it does not cater to the very people that make school… school. My intended audience goes as far being the state, government, and school officials that cultivate these types of spaces for learners. I tailored my writing by involving pathos because this issue relates to me as a student. It is also educating because it set by sharing my experiences and furthering my point by specifically telling the ways that this issue is unconsciously continued. I was not as specific as I wanted to be because I wanted to keep the assignment from being a research paper but hopefully you can see how I wanted to push how this issue isn’t how we think it is. Meaning it is not a problem where someone is simply given someone a fidget spinner and end of story. One of my insights in this journey so far is that I’ve learned more through my classmates’ presentations about how language has different aspects with explanations told to me about dialects and expanding language through gaming. The stories of how language has such a connection to how people are treated was spoken a lot in this phase and although I was familiar with this issue, hearing about it more has brought me to better “Recognize the role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchizing languages and their users, and be open to communicating across different languages and cultures”. We have been given assignments that help us practice how to analyze personal writings and break it down. I have done this before but I guess my motivation is different when it comes to college because I feel like I am sinking in more than ever now. I haven’t thought about using academic strategies outside of classes before but now I’ve realized that I can further my knowledge by finding out things like the exigence as it leads to a bit more of a sociological lens. This is what college is about. Using what is being taught for our own important purpose/use.
Naomi Michel
English
Literary Narrative Essay
9/18
A normal Diagnosis usually looks like psychiatrists, pediatricians, and/or psychologists notifying individuals what “disorders’ ‘ or learning differences they have. But for too many kids and teenagers, diagnosis looks quite different. It looks like young people diagnosing themselves as dumb and slow because of the belief that they aren’t able to keep up. This unfortunately became my reality. The close years following elementary school became the beginning of the whole “take school serious” thing as it’s not really pushed in Pre-k and kindergarten. Most parents are just dropping off their kids as it’s basically another daycare system to them. Even detention starts in elementary which emphasizes how everything is a bit more serious. My dad specifically stressed this through lectures and making my brother and I stay inside to study during the summer. There was a period of time where I had to memorize the times tables in order to go play outside. That of course was a nightmare to a 9 year old child. My catholic school stressed this too, so much that they forgot the fact that students have multiple learning styles. So much so that they forgot that there are specific and direct needs of students that should be taken care of rather than being pushed to the side as a failed case and invalidated. This video is one of my favorite youtubers sharing her story of being invalidated, https://youtu.be/e03R19GDTFQ.
I was the “troublemaker” in school. Writing on the desks till I got what I wanted, being placed in the back of the classroom, and always laughing. Those were my great strengths. I am pretty sure my 2nd grade teacher hated me for this. I did not notice up until last year (2020) but I have ADHD. I can truly say that this diagnosis shapes my literacy compared to neuro-typicals. Fourth grade is when standardized tests are yearly given. That time was considered the beginning of my academic foundation. I don’t really remember doing much of my homework but I also don’t remember my teacher looking at this issue through a different lens on how to get me to do more of my homework. It was just detention and scolding which strengthened the belief that I wasn’t a great student. This isn’t really healthy for a 4th grader as you can imagine. I was so into my own world and due to that, I got left back that year.
Even after that, I was not shown a different approach. I am not even sure my teachers knew I had ADHD. It was only known that I had an IEP and had to be pulled out of class at snack time to attend extra help sessions.In my opinion I believe that it would have been actually useful if I was encouraged to read the way reading is best for me. Given these opportunities are not really a game changer if concrete implementations are taking place in classrooms towards students. 2 years later I found out that I have a love for reading so if my surroundings created a comfortable ground for me then perhaps it would have brought me a step closer to realizing this. In 6th grade “Wattpad” (an app that gave thousands of people a platform to read and share their own twisted and romantic stories) became super popular. Us kids were eating it up. Squealing and laughing over plot twists during lunch time almost became an everyday thing. Since dopamine highs are a big factor in what stimulates a ADHD person (since we tend to get bored easily), it was easy for me to get lost in the drama between the high school bad boy and the quiet girl that keeps her hoodie on and heads down while walking to class. My dad always used to take me to the library, as it was connected to the standards he had for my brother and I to succeed in our academic careers. I kind of hated it because I knew it was also just a place he can leave his kids while he could run errands which means he left me there for ours but it soon became another place where I hyper focused on reading.
This wasn’t the same for me in classes for several reasons. One of them was because of the Auditory Processing Issue (APD) that I have. This is a common thing amongst kids with learning differences such as adhd, autism, dyslexia, and more. The Drake Institute Article describes this and states “auditory processing disorders prohibit language, both spoken and written, from being processed efficiently causing incoming information to be more confusing and difficult to follow.” In other words my brain lags a lot. It’s a roller coaster. This pulls me away from reading and improving on expanding my vocabulary. It stumbles my literacy growth. Even if I am reading something I look forward to learning, my ADP frustrates me because it feels like I am not learning anything because of my struggle to grasp what I just read even if that lasts for 10 minutes. This tiktok illustrates this pretty well (https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMRgjKNxs/ .This gives me no practice for comprehending texts. All of these can also be explained as having “executive function defects” which is a battle for information to be withheld in the working memory.
Adhd has been known since the 1700’s, yet we still have many misconceptions and too few implementations in schools worldwide. We all see it being depicted in the media (mostly for comedic purposes) but have trouble grasping the entire characteristics and how it plays out in everyday life. Girls are under diagnosed and boys are over diagnosed because of stereotypes and brown and black students aren’t even taken seriously enough for people to realize they have a learning difference and they get under stimulated. It is too ordinary for us to be labeled as “bad”. It’s become a routine to assume that kids do not want to genuinely learn when it’s how they are taught. So many students don’t even know this about themselves and begin to feel insecure. Believing that they can’t academically achieve a task and thinking they’re weird for oversharing. There are too many students that feel this way and due to this, they fail. Not because they can’t do it but because they do not have the self confidence and drive.
I want to become a teacher so the fact that I am neuro-divergent and have this relationship with reading is scary to me. Last year during quarantine I’ve realized many things about me and I am grateful to now realize why I am the way I am and how I can go about it. It eased me because around that time I think I became to think that I was dumb in a way. I have become at ease. Learning things about yourself opens doors for solutions and helpful strategies. I have gotten very used to annotating because of how it helps collect my thoughts that begin to space out after I read, how to create a stimulating work space, and doing pre-reading strategies. This chart glosses great ways to do this, https://www.instagram.com/p/B1HWqfvizyJ/?utm_medium=copy_link. It sometimes feels like a mundane task for me but starting is the only issue for me now. Seeing how other neuro-divergent people emphasize that it’s okay for me to read over lines more than a few times makes me feel like I am not the only one like this and that is okay.
