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Kaylan Huff
Sean M. George
English 1010-D03
Essay #1 Literacy Narrative
Roller Coaster of Education
Ever since I was a child, I used to think school was fairly easy for me. It was, all the way
up until sixth grade. By the time sixth grade rolled around I lived in Cedar City, Utah. In Cedar,
sixth graders attended the middle school. I had finally jumped up from elementary school; I felt
like an adult, although I was still nervous and scared as ever. It turned out that sixth grade wasnt
much different than elementary, it even made me like school! I still had a homeroom teacher,
although, I did switch from teacher to teacher for different courses, the class moved together. I
was able to quickly make friends with the same students in each class, I understood the material
quite well and was ahead in all of my classes. Even my brother in eighth grade attended the same
school as me; I was quite comfortable.
After the holiday, Thanksgiving, my parents broke the news to my brother and I about
moving to St. George. I wasnt upset until they mentioned to us that we wouldnt be finishing up
the school year. Immediately, I felt stress pile on top of me. My whole life felt as if it were turned
upside-down and spinning at the same time. Moving didnt stress my brother out as much as I,
given he didnt care for the stress coming behind school. I was stressed out, however, I still
didnt expect the drastic changes that did happen. I went from being one of the top students in
my class to the very bottom in a matter of driving forty-five minutes down the road. Handling
new challenges in and outside of school, made my love for reading and writing as well as other
subjects, take a toll.

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One of the main problems from me moving, was getting used to how St. Georges
schools were set up. The drastic change I expected from moving into the middle school, turned
out to happen when I moved towns. Except this time, I was alone and it was the middle of the
school year; all of the other St. George students knew what to do and where to go. I wasnt in the
same level of school anymore either. In St. George, they made a whole knew level between
Elementary and Middle School called Intermediate School. Intermediate school was for sixth and
seventh graders only; it didnt take long for me to realize that I wouldnt have my brother in the
same school as me anymore. Not only did the schools differ, but there were no longer just four
classes I attended, I now had eight. I couldnt cling to one person to help me find my way around
because each person had a different schedule, and there were all new students in each class. I felt
as if everyday I saw a new face, it was very different, and the schooling made me feel
uncomfortable and alone. As if the set-up of the class wasnt difficult enough for me to become
familiar to, the classes were different also.
All of my classes in St. George were fairly different from Cedar Citys. Each of my new
classes seem to be multiple chapters ahead of where I was originally at. My Language Arts and
Reading class was definitely the newest chunk of information I didnt have any knowledge of. In
my old English class, we were just finishing up how to master cursive writing. My new English
class was writing full Persuasive essays. I have never written a persuasive essay let alone even
know the knowledge of how to set the format of it up. When I explained this to my new teacher
she blew off my questions as if it werent a big deal and I would catch on quickly. My new
teacher, Mrs. Duraes was a young blonde woman in her early thirties, she had recently came
from working in the military which put off her personality as a very intimidating woman; it was
personally hard for me to approach her.

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The teachers at Lava Ridge Intermediate School werent rude or mean to me, however,
they didnt make me feel welcome either. Most of the reason I didnt feel welcomed to the school
was the amount of attention I didnt receive in my new classes. I was used to more class time as
well as one on one time with each of my teachers. It was difficult for me to change my ways
from getting help, to having multiple responsibilities to handle on my own. The result of having
to learn new information on my own wasnt as I had hoped. The teachers gave me bad grades,
especially in English. When I asked Mrs. Duraes questions about setting up my essays, she took
it as if I was not listening to her teaching. I rewrote multiple essays for her to re-grade, only to
get more frustrated with no improvement. As time went on, I began to hate school along with
reading and writing. I believe it is true about which subject you begin to love or hate has a lot to
do with who is teaching and how enjoyable they are making the class. The embarrassment of my
bad grades and knowledge was almost as bad as asking classmates for help.
For some reason, my thought process of asking for help from classmates or family was
not an option. At the time, my personality and confidence felt knocked down, and it was as if I
had turned into a new person, I felt very shy and vulnerable. Each forty-five-minute class gave
me no time to make new friends let alone any. Asking a stranger for help with school work
seemed doubtful after seeing the result from asking my teachers earlier. On the other hand, my
parents level of education was no where near the level I was currently learning. When they tried
to help it was as if they were learning new material with me. This caused frustration and fights to
unravel, and I resulted to blame my parents for moving us to a new town. As a sixth grader with
no help in school, I was completely lost with my school work.
With how stressed out of a person I am, the state I fell into with my school work was
nerve racking for me. From the time up until this point, I was the person that needed to be perfect

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at school. I was anything but okay with my grades that had slipped down from straight As, to Bs
and Cs. The last quarter of school was right around the corner and I was terrified to take end of
level testing. Honestly, I tried my hardest through the last couple of months with school,
however, it was still so obvious I remained at the bottom of my class. I began to not care about
what others thought of me, I was desperate for help before the testing.
I decided to pester my teachers and classmates until I had finally received useful help. I
made a consistent schedule with Mrs. Duraes to stay after school everyday to help me get caught
up. I learned to take her snarky comments of not knowing the material to turning it around and
asking even more questions. After multiple weeks of help after school, I felt a little better about
knowing the outline of Persuasive Essays. When end of level testing came around, my parents
and I decided that I had worked my booty off all year, and whatever happened I needed to be
proud of myself. I ended up scoring an average out of the school, disappointment came a little,
however, I didnt beat myself up over my scoring. Looking back at this time in my life, I regret
acting the way I did and refusing to ask questions about my schoolwork until the last minute.
Even though it was a stressful time, my actions on handling the situations couldve made
the problems disappear the first day I had moved to St. George. I will only blame myself for the
stress that I caused myself and others. I definitely learned my lesson how crucial it is to speak up
and ask questions if I dont understand the current or past material. As long as I know I am trying
my hardest, I will refuse to let myself think different of others reactions. Going through the roller
coaster of moving from one school to another as well as one town to another, has helped shaped
my reading, writing, and learning capability throughout the years. Thinking back on the
memories of sixth grade, I am grateful of the experience I had with my schooling. It not only
inspired me to work harder, also, to always keep moving forward.

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