When I was in middle school, I used to have a hard time writing and spelling words that made me feel like I was clueless of what I’m writing about. It was my first year at middle school and on the 2nd day of school, it was sunny outside and my English teacher gave me a piece of paper and told us to write 3 things about ourselves. It was a big classroom full of students and I was sitting at the back table near the right window. I was struggling on what to write about myself so I felt like I was zoning out and my writing wasn’t great at that time. As the English teacher was walking around, he noticed my writing and wanted to help correct my spelling. After 10 minutes, my English teacher was going around to each student presenting their 3 things about them. As he was going to each student, I started panicking and my heartbeat was feeling as fast as a speeding train. I was the next person and I wanted to share but the bell rang so I was saved. I handed my teacher a piece of paper with my 3 things about me. My English teacher called me and said “Kevin, do you mind staying for a moment?” as he was looking at my writing confused. I said “yes, Mr. John” and he says “I noticed that you need assistance on writing sentences and spelling so I’m going to sign you up for speech therapy sessions”. I said “Really? I thought it was alright” and he said “There are some errors in your writing so you could use some extra help from speech sessions, okay?”. I said “Okay” as I was feeling disappointed in myself and he said “Have a good day, Kevin”. That’s when I started having speech sessions with my new speech teacher. 

The next day, I went to the speech room on the 2nd floor of the building and sat there patiently as I was looking at the window. After 15 minutes went by, the speech teacher, Ms. Flores finally came to the room and sat down to get started on the session. She asked for my name and introduced herself. I introduced myself as well and she gave me a blank piece of paper to start practicing writing and spelling words. She was a nice speech teacher that helps students like me get better at writing in English. I told her “I wanted to give up on learning how to write in English” and she said “why?”. I said “because I’m bad at writing and spelling words and I struggle too much” and she said “Don’t worry, I will help you with what you need to become a better writer. I felt a little better and started to find some kind of motivation so I started to hold my pencil and started writing right away as she was telling me on what words to write. She tells me “I want you to try and spell community” and I spelled “communit-ee” on my piece of paper. She looks at my paper and says “Not quite but close though” and I was like “damn it”. She says “it’s okay, it’s normal to make mistakes” and continues to give me a few challenging spelling words and says “Now try and spell Wednesday”. I wrote it as “Whens-day” and she continues to correct my spelling. Over time, I started going to speech sessions after my English class ended and it was helpful that I considered it as my help guide. I was getting better and better and never gave up on learning how to improve better at writing and spelling words. One day in my English class around May, my teacher decided to assign us students to write an argument essay on “whether phones should be allowed at schools?” for our final essay. I was feeling nervous as I was getting up handing the essay to Mr. John. The day after that, Mr. John graded the essays and gave them back to us students. I was twisting my fingers and praying that I would receive a good note and grade. When he gave the essay back to me, I looked away for a second and thought positive. One second later, I looked and I was happy that I received a good grade which was a 85. It wasn’t bad but at least it was good to see a good grade and Mr. John felt shocked to see my writing was getting better. After class ended, I walked out of the classroom feeling happy and excited but Mr. John called me again. 

I thought there was an error again but he said “Kevin, wow, I’m shocked to see your writing improve” and I said “Yeah, that speech therapy session idea you told me was helpful so I took the opportunity to go”. He said “Amazing job, hopefully you get better and better from now on” and I said “I will make sure I make improvements”. He says “Alright now, I’ll see you in class tomorrow” as he chuckles and I respond with “See ya”. I went home and showed my parents my final grade for my essay and they were proud of me. It was an amazing day that I wanted to lay down on my bed thinking about how I became better at writing. Overall, I never gave up on writing and spelling words but sometimes mistakes happen when you are trying to write in English and become better at it so it’s okay to be ashamed like I did.