Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience. Colleges I am applying to University of Northern Colorado Fort Lewis College University of Colorado Denver University of Colorado Boulder Colorado State University Fort Collins Temple University
Reflection: My writing got so much better as I stopped using past tense for my story part of my essay. “I open a book pretending to read, moving my eyes back and forth like my eyes were following the lines of words, not being able to read a single word I was looking at.” Edit: I open a book and pretend to read, my eyes move back and forth as they follow follow the lines of the words, not be able to read any of them. The feedback that really pushed my essay was to put more stories in the essay because I did struggle with making sentences past tense. I had multiple people look through my essay to help catch my mistakes.
Essay:
I open a book and pretend to read, eyes moving back and forth as they follow the lines of the words, only to be unable to read any of them. I close the book, about to get up to put it away, when my friend asked how my book was. I struggled to come up with an answer as I reply “It was okay,” lying, hoping she wouldn’t investigate any further. Everyday I would avoid having any conversation about a book. I felt inferior to everyone else because I could not figure out what seem to be the simplest thing, reading. This struggle with dyslexia has affected so much of who I am now and how I respond to challenges. Finally in fifth grade I decided to take action. Every year my school hosted read-a-thon where you had to read twenty books. The year before I had read ten books but they weren't the most difficult books. This year I promised myself to read all twenty books. My sister, Reagan, had endlessly belittled me about how I couldn’t read. I was not going to take grief and feel inferior any longer. During this time I read my first chapter book, and finally reached fifteen books; I thought about stopping there, why did I need to continue? I improved, that's good enough right? Then I was reminded of my classmates and how most had read all twenty books and I became determined to complete my goal. By the end of the read-a-thon, I had read all twenty books. I learned how to take control of my struggles and improve. Despite my dyslexia and struggles with reading I am now taking advanced English and honors humanities. Ever since that time in fifth grade where I stepped out of my comfort zone, I have challenged myself to always look for more opportunities to learn. The summer of my junior year, my mom got a job in Colorado, at the time I had currently lived in Dallas, Texas. My parents decided that if I wanted to, I could stay in Dallas and finish my high school career there. I decided to look at the high schools in Durango and see if I liked them. That's when I found Animas High School. Animas is a school that incorporates public speaking in their course work. I was shy and hated public speaking. Because of this, I decided to move with my parents and attend the school that focused on what I hated. I needed to go out of my comfort zone again to grow even more. Every semester Animas has a presentation of learning (POL) where students present what they had learned that semester. I was next in line to do my first POL and I was so nervous I wanted to throw up. I had just taken medicine to calm my stomach,and the teachers called my name, I walked in and saw two teachers, Hannah Starbuck and Steve Smith. I stumbled through every word I said, by the end I was crying from fright and couldn’t calm myself down. I went home and tried to calm down as I continued to cry. I failed the first time and had to come back to school to retake my POL. I passed the second time thankfully. My transitional POL six months later was much better, I got up and didn’t stumble over what I was saying. Instead I was talking too fast with my excitement of what I was talking about. I held myself high with confidence and passed the first time round. I have grown so much from Animas, all because I was willing to step out of my comfort zone to face challenges head on.