My Journey with Reading and Writing

My Remixed Essay

I was returning to my old elementary school, Amidon Bowen, for 5th grade. The school on the inside looked different since it was colorfully painted from what I remembered back in PreK – 1st grade. The colors on the wall back then were only gray, white, and black, so the colorful scheme made it better and livelier. As I entered the school, I remembered most, if not, all my friends from back then and they remembered me too, considering I did not look any different but the fact that I got older and taller. I hugged them all, said "Hi" to them, and even had conversations with them as well. As I headed to class, I realized that the hallways were color-coded based on the grades. The downstairs hallways for the grades were orange and blue and the upstairs was green and purple. The orange hall was for all PreK grades, the blue hall was for Kindergarten, the green was for 1st-2nd grade, and the purple hall was for 3rd-5th grade. Luckily, I was in 5th grade, so I was in the purple hallway, and it made it better considering purple is my favorite color.

My first subject was Math and there was a man named Dr. Nixon. He was there for a little bit, but he was a cool math teacher. Math is not my best subject, but I was in elementary school, so it was not particularly bad. My classmates and I were listening to his teachings and doing his assignments that he gave us. They were easy. After Math, it was time for lunch, so I sat with my old friends and new classmates/friends I made. Making friends in elementary school was easy since we were kids, and we do not focus too much on a person's personality until we get older.

Recess was right after lunch, so we were all excited to go there. Once we all went out there, the PE teacher named Coach Brisco was out there giving us instructions. He looked like a grandpa to be honest. I noticed how different the playground looked and it looked better than I remembered, but it did not have swings, so it made me a little frustrated. "Why have a playground without swings? That is what everyone usually likes on a playground anyways.." I thought to myself, but what stopped my train of thoughts was an orange spinning thing. It looked interesting and I am quite sure I remembered spinning on something like that before. Anyways, once the PE teacher was done with his instructions, which did not take too long, he released us, and I ran towards that thing. A group of students wanted to try it too so obviously it was popular.

Recess went on for 45 minutes and once it was over, I headed to my Reading class and the teacher was a woman named Ms. Hugee and she looked like a grandma. She was giving instructions and afterwards, everyone was working while a group of students were on the computer doing this reading thing called Lexia Core 5. My Maryland elementary school, Longfield's never did that, so I did not know what it was, and she told me to go on it for someone to help me out. Once I was set up, I was just trying to cruise along with it but because I did not have a headset, I did not know what to do so I just typed in anything while being quite annoyed. "What am I supposed to be typing? What is this? I never did this from 2nd – 4th grade?" All these thoughts clouded my brain as I was trying to figure this thing out. Looking back at this makes me internally laugh because I was just a clueless child at the time. Ms. Hugee also told us about Reading Logs and the Pizza Hut coupons we get for completing them. Despite my grade being on my mind since it was important, I wanted that pizza so badly to the point where I would even quickly read books just to get that pizza. "Pizza. Pizza. Pizza. Pizza!" All I thought about was that pizza. It was one of my top motivators to even read.

However, as the days, weeks, and months progressed, I have been getting better at Lexia. It helped me with my reading, figure out context clues, and being able to understand the concept of each text. The levels got harder and harder, which fueled my frustrations, but I knew my grades and future depended on this, so I kept pushing until I got to Level Z. Those pizza coupons were still on my mind too but because I had to READ without skimming through my book so fast, I took the time to read each book I picked up and continue them until I completed the Reading Log and get it signed so I could have those coupons.

But these things boosted my liking for reading and writing. I would sometimes notice that my classmates/friends were behind with their Reading Logs and Lexia Core 5. It confused me but I knew I had to focus on myself. When I was in middle school and high school, I wanted to write but was unable to really write the things I wanted to write. Reading became boring and uninteresting for me despite me reading the things I liked and having fun talking about them with my classmates/friends. I did not know why it was happening since reading and writing were the things I liked in elementary school. And I realized it was because I was starting to grow out of reading and writing which I did not like deep down, so in school, I tried my best to like reading and writing again, but I could not for some reason. I did not understand it at all, but then I realized why.......

It was because I never truly found the things I liked to read and write about.

Luckily, social media has truly helped me find what I like in reading and writing when it came to stories. Despite the genres having 18+ content, I find myself liking those better than the non 18+ content. They add more to the story most of the time and it is quite hard creating certain movies and shows without having some type of dark theme to it unless you are creating something child friendly. I can write 18+ content better than normal content and because I realized what I liked in stories, I was able to get back into reading and writing whether it was for school or as a hobby of mine.