Al Labbad 1

Hassan Al Labbad
Instructor: Laura Knudson
UWRT 1104-042
30 September 2017
Never Wrote an Essay

In my first writing class at the English Language Training Institute (ELTI) here at UNC

Charlotte, I was asked by the reading and writing teacher to write a short essay about my

experience traveling to the US explaining difficulties along the journey and how I were able to

overcome them. And my first reaction was wait what is an Essay?. It was not weird for an

English student to ask such question. What was weird for me is that I have never wrote an essay

before. If you read the title in disbelief I do not blame you. Here in the US students are expected

to have taken several reading and writing classes at school and before attending college in

addition to having to write for the different classes. Well, life is different in the opposite side of

the world in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be exact. Especially for a student in an underserved

community where the school building is a small house with rooms turned to classes and the

kitchens turned to labs. At such schools reading and writing are not given the same level of

importance as in the US. Even though we had writing classes in primary school, up to 6th grade,

these classes were about our ability to write paragraphs with accurate spelling and grammar and

did not have much focus on the context and/or fluency. Thus, I never had to write papers or

essays to succeed at school. Specially as a science oriented student where our curriculum focuses

on math, chemistry, biology, and physics and did not require any writing.

My first writing class at ELTI felt like a hindrance, crippling me from succeeding in the

English program and stopping me from entering college. I was going to the ELTI five days a

week waking up as early as 6am to get ready and have enough time to walk almost an hour

(living out campus) just not be late for my 9am classes. I was doing fine in my listening
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speaking, grammar, and reading classes except writing where felt lost and hopeless and language

was not the reason I am failing. Seeing all my classmates finishing their writings in the duration

of the class while I had to go back home and try to finish my writings just to be frustrated by

how hard it is to write. As the semester went by my frustration increased. Not being able to keep

up with my classmates made me see literacy as the ability to write quickly and fluently. By the

end of the semester I received my final grades and I failed. At that point, I was angry of myself

and even considered going back home thinking that I am just never going to be a good writer and

that I just cannot succeed in an American university.

Before coming to a final decision, I had to weigh the pros and cons of going back home or

staying and trying to succeed. I consulted one of my teachers, she was understanding and patient

with me throughout the semester so I trusted her to help me with my situation. She told me that if

I really want to improve my literacy and become a fluent writer, I must read much more than

what we did at the reading class. She told me to read for my favorite movies and my favorite

games or whatever gets my attention, get involved in online discussions in my topics of interest

and also write freely about anything and not to worry about writing perfect essays. She added

that if I quit from my first failure I would not be able to achieve anything in life. Being

convinced by her words I decided to spend the summer break reading and writing not in a formal

and academic way but in a fun and interesting way.

I started reading The Hunger Games books, it was one of my favorite movies, I never

enjoyed reading before but The Hunger Games was interesting enough that when I start reading I

cant stop. The book takes you to an alternate reality and have an interesting twist of events

about injustice and how we might lose our way and become the very thing we despise. Reading

The Hunger Games I understood why people who have the option to just watch the movies
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choose to read instead, just the amount of details included in the books make you feel like you

are there struggling when your favorite character struggles and celebrating when they do. I also

spent less time playing my favorite game Defense of The Ancients, a competitive game set in a

fictional world where two teams of five players fight in order to destroy the other team artifact,

and spent more time discussing its lore and reading about the game mechanics which helped me

to improve in the game and in my writing skills. It was interesting to me how after I started

reading more about the game I started to play differently. The game that seemed like random

fighting before is now way more intriguing. The game involved economics and micro

management in an up to one-hour match players starts with small amount of gold and as the

game advance players gain more gold to spend on in game items that gives special abilities

helping one team to take over the other. Before reading about the game, I would randomly buy

items that may not be beneficial for my character or are not fit with the current phase of the game

but now I know how I am supposed to spend the gold and my teammates really seems to

appreciate it.

It is the fall and the semester started. I get my first essay assignment and to my surprise, I

am in pace with my classmates finishing the class work in class and submitting my assignments

in time. This was an enlightening experience to me, how that reading and writing are not

exclusive to school and that I can still be doing what I enjoy and still be developing my writing

skills. This experience has removed the hard line that has always separated fun from learning for

me. And it also showed me how literacy is not just one fixed thing that we can get by going to

school but is a more flexible concept. It also taught me that there is no maximum for literacy and

that there is always more to learn.

 Al Labbad 4

Reflection:

1.What do you think is the most successful part of your paper/project? Why?

Being able to come up with a narrative is the most successful part for me because I thought I
dont have any stories to tell.

2.What are you proud of in this paper/project?

The length of the paper in comparison to the time spent writing is relatively short (compared to
other essays I wrote)

3.What part of your paper/project would you like to work on more if you had the time? Why?

I would spend more time making sure the narrative is clear, I feel like I have to write the whole
essay again.

4.What do you want your reader to notice or comment on specifically?

I really dont know. I just hope that the reader is not confused or bored.