Final Draft

       “The Big Move”

“We’re moving to Florida? But why?” New York is my home, where I was born and raised. Where the rowdy, occupied streets put me at ease. Where I awaken every day to the loud train passing by and the smell of the Mc Donald’s aroma coming through my window. I woke up not knowing what to expect with my day, and that feeling of not knowing what to expect to me was so very exciting. Where I always have my friends, which are a lot more like family, coming in and out of my house daily. New York knows how to keep anyone on their feet, crowded with many things happening on every corner, ever block, every building and every home, and that to me was amazing. It was where I wasn’t given a chance to be bored or was ever out of things to do, just going out for a walk was amusing to me. Its New York, its “the city that never sleeps”, it’s my home and forever will be.

This place that is my home and comfort zone was being taken away from me. I didn’t know to feel. I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t know what to expect, and for the first time ever this feeling wasn’t so very exciting anymore. Am I going to make new friends? Am I going to like it there? How are the schools over there? Are people there welcoming? Will I be missing out on the things my friends will do here in New York without me? All these questions I had, but none that could be answered. I didn’t really have a choice, I tried everything. Literally everything, I even tried persuading my parents to let me live with my best friend but evidently that didn’t really go as planned. I had to say my good byes and longed for a place I can soon call my home.

It’s horrible. It’s too quiet. I can’t even walk anywhere. I don’t even see a store in sight. They don’t have corner delis here? Where are the trains? Busses? Can it even be this hot out? When am I going to make friends? The whole summer dreadfully passes by and still I can’t believe the answers to my questions. How can it seriously be this quiet? I’ve never felt this bored before, I didn’t even think it was possible. I had to find something to do on my spare time since I came to face the fact that I will forever have no friends.

I tried everything. I thought maybe sleeping all day would make me forget my misery but that obviously didn’t work out. I thought maybe watching a show would, however I quickly ran out of shows to watch. I started to conclude maybe there really isn’t anything to do to keep me occupied. I started to give up, I was hopeless. Then I lay there one day staring hopelessly at this old book shelf, I never thought twice about, which I honestly thought was there for decoration. “Maybe I should pick one of the books up and read one since I have nothing else better to do” I thought to myself. Little did I know, this unplanned random thought I had will take me to a whole other world, to a feeling I never experienced before. I still remember the first book I picked up, it was Charlotte’s Webby E.B White. I went from trying so hard to force myself to sleep to later on not realizing the sun was rising and I was still up snuggled in my warm fuzzy blanket with a dim lamp on while everyone in the house was sleeping, without realization I had finished the book. I couldn’t believe the feelings reading brought to me, it was nothing I had ever experienced before. I had finally found my way out, I had found my best friend, reading.

I went through pages and pages, books and books and could never seem to get enough of it. Reading took me away from my reality, it made me forget what I was going through. It was the answer to my prayers. I would go the library excitingly piling books to check out like a little kid picking out candy. It was all I ever thought of, it was all I wanted to do, it was my stress reliever.

Five years have passed. I had moved back to Brooklyn, back to my home, to my family, to my exciting unexpected plans, to how I will always want it to be. However, I never let go of my best friend, reading. Reading is the only positive outcome of moving to Florida and I am forever grateful for that opportunity I was given. I had now found my escape from my reality and when I want to keep myself occupied I know exactly what to do.

Reflection

This essay’s specific rhetorical mode is narration. It is an essay that reiterates a personal experience that focuses specifically on a reading, writing, or language experience that occurred during a particularly important time in my literary life. This narrative specifically makes use of many literary elements such as chronological sequence and descriptive writing. My writing may allow my fellow peers and professor to be able to relate to a challenge that they may have had or will have in the future, and allow them to embark on my journey of a challenge I had previously faced and how I overcame that challenge through reading.

When I was first assigned this literary narrative assignment I knew exactly what to write about. I knew what had a huge impact in my literary life and what had changed me drastically until this day. However, a challenge I had writing this essay was not being able to elaborate and put my journey into a chronological and descriptive piece of writing. I couldn’t seem to put my thoughts into words. I didn’t know how or where to start. I had so much to say but didn’t know how to put it on paper. I went through many trial and errors and a lot of revising until one time I just started and couldn’t seem to stop. It seemed like all my thoughts had finally fallen into place.

All in all, this assignment has helped me achieve a couple of the Course Learning Outcomes that appear on the syllabus. I was able to “explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations”. I came to learn that a rhetorical situation includes a purpose, audience, stance, genre, medium and design. These elements helped me in writing my literary narrative in a couple ways. It helped me determine that the purpose of my writing was to explain an experience I had been challenged with. Also recognizing who my audience is, which in this case are my fellow class mates and professor. I also “developed strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing”. When I was assigned this paper I had to produce a draft in which was then peer reviewed, then turned into my professor for further editing. We then received our drafts edited and ready to fix and to finally turn in. Lastly, I was able to “recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations”. This allowed me to be able to include rhetorical terms in my essay such as descriptive writing and chronologically write my essay. All these outcomes allowed my writing to be able to be perfected and easier for me to produce and for the reader to understand.

While writing this essay, my goal was to be able to captivate the reader with as much descriptive writing and detail that I can. I  wanted to strengthen that skill, and the way to do that was through a lot of practice. I am proud of the final outcome considering the fact that I had no idea how or where to start. I made sure my writing was able to fulfill all the assignment requirements and hopefully was able achieve my goal of being able to captivate the reader.