Assignment Prompt.                                                          Elena Pjetergjokaj

  • For this assignment, you will compose three separate yet interconnected learning narratives. You’re asked in this assignment to zoom into a particular moment from your life.
  • What moments stand out to you when it comes to how you use language and literacy?
  • Can you recall any family, cultural, or social events that you found enlightening, encouraging, awkward, challenging, or unjust?
  • Can you identify a key moment when positive or negative emotions soared, where you struggled or triumphed?
  • What object or artifact that serves as a memory of a place, activity, or person connected to your language, literacy, or learning development?

Learning narrative 1

The first time I learned that I shouldn’t be ashamed of who I am and where I come from was back in 3rdgrade. My parents had just transferred me to one of the best schools in the capital city of Albania and I was thrilled about this new change but there was one problem. The language used there was the standard version of the Albanian language. Now there are three different versions of the Albanian language the northern dialect, the southern dialect and the standard language and they all sound very different from each other. I grew up speaking the northern dialect, so I was a little scared of the big change ahead of me. When I first transferred the first few months were hard. I was very shy and didn’t speak much because I feared that other kids would make fun of the way I speak. One day during lunch some girls from my classroom were talking about their favorite Winx Club characters and that topic piqued 9-year-old Elena’s interest. Erlisa, one of the girls who is still one of my closest friends to this day noticed that I looked interested in the conversation and asked me about my favourite character. At first, I was hesitant, but I gathered all my courage and said Flora. After that one thing led to another and not too long after that I was part of the conversation. While talking I was mixing both the dialect and the standard language and as far as I remember none of the other girls made fun of me, in fact they asked me to teach them how to speak in the Gheg dialect. After that I realized that all that insecurity, I felt about the way I talked was nothing but an obstacle for me to make friends and I shouldn’t be ashamed of the way I speak because we all come from different places and that language is a piece of who we are.

Learning narrative 2

I moved to the United States when I just had turned 16 years old. The beginning was a little hard because I could barely speak or understand any English. Before 

I enrolled in a high school I was trying to learn English through an online class, which helped a lot with my grammar and understanding but I realized that if I wanted to start speaking English well, I had to start practicing with native speakers. And that’s exactly what I did. 

I decided to get a job as a waitress, because that way I was “forced” to talk to people. Not long after that I enrolled into high school and made a few friends. They helped a lot. Granted I made many mistakes while I was learning, and I still make mistakes. What is important is that I have learned that there is no improvement without failure and that mistakes are simply just steppingstones to success.

Learning narrative 3

Like for everyone else, high school had its ups and downs for me too. As I have already mentioned when I first enrolled in an American high school my English wasn’t very good and my accent was very noticeable. During junior year, in my art class, there was this girl that would be generally categorized as a “mean girl” and she was in fact very mean. For the first semester our final exam was to create a piece of art with our favorite medium and explain the process in front of the classroom like a presentation. When it was my turn to present this girl was throwing mean comments and saying things like “omg your accent is so strong” or “speak up we can barely understand you”. My teacher had talked to her before, but she wouldn’t stop saying whatever was on her mind, almost like she enjoyed embarrassing other people. It became a bit annoying so I said, “Well I speak 3 different languages, try giving a presentation in Albanian if you can.” She still said that we are in America, and we speak English here, but I decided not to pay much attention to her. The only thing that matters is that I’m proud and happy that my younger self stood up for herself.