Personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience

Can someone help me to see if it is on topic? How can I make it more interesting?

Write about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

I was extremely surprised and excited when I received the letter that notified me as one of the PEN in the Classroom contest winners. This poetry award is probably insignificant comparing to the achievements of other applicants, but for me, it is a great encouragement that proved my ability to win over myself.

I arrived on American soil three and half years ago with a Chinese-English dictionary as my daily lifesaving equipment. I spent my freshmen year in miserable chaos that I often confused English with Spanish since they were both alien to me. Squeezing into a regular English class with native speakers added more pressure on me, and shook the little confidence I just gained from leaving ESL. Although I was able to understand most of the lectures by my sophomore year, jokes, movie names, and American celebrities in my peers' conversations still remained a myth for me. I helplessly realized that cultural differences separated me from others almost as mercilessly as language did.

Things started to change when Ms. Rachel, a professional writer from PEN USA, walked into our classroom. During the twelve writing workshops, she taught us many poetic formats and techniques including personification, haiku, persona, and one other most important thing—discover the power of our individual voices. For the first time, I was encouraged to be wrong, and so to be myself.

The writing process was painfully enjoyable. I sat in darkness to concentrate, bit pencils to think, and jumped around to celebrate a new idea that just sparked out. As a conditional reflex, I spontaneously connected everything I saw to seek inspirations from them. The world seemed more interesting when I examined it in a bold way. The fact that I had studied ancient Chinese poetry when I was in China also helped me to think and relate. Although its format is very different from modern poetry, many ways of expression were employable in my assignments. I incorporated Chinese elements and my true emotions into the pieces, conveying each theme the best I can with my limited vocabularies and poor grammars. When I read my poems out loud in front of the class as everyone did, I was not sure if they can understand it. But they did. I started to realize that language is a tool for expression and life, but not a test with exact answers.

The PEN in Classroom poetry award proved that my voice was heard from the crowd. It encouraged me to think that I can do what native speakers can do, and should not confine myself in self-pity. Learning English as a second language is actually an advantage for me because I can memorize vocabularies faster by also understand their meaning in Chinese. I know I can overcome the language barrier just like I will conquer other future obstacles in life.

Greetings!

I think your English is very good, and so is your essay! Here are a few editing suggestions for you:

This poetry award is probably insignificant compared to the achievements of other applicants, but for me, it is a great encouragement that proved my ability to win over myself.- that last phrase in bold is not really clear; better might be to say "that proved to me my ability to achieve and excel."

I spent my freshmen year in miserable chaos as I often confused English with Spanish since they were both alien to me.

jokes, movie names, and American celebrities in my peers' conversations still remained a mystery to me.

she taught us many poetic formats and techniques including personification, haiku, persona, and one other most important thing—discovering the power of our individual voices.

I incorporated Chinese elements and my true emotions into the pieces, conveying each theme the best I could with my limited vocabulary and poor grammar.

When I read my poems out loud in front of the class as everyone did, I was not sure if they would understand it--but they did.

I can memorize vocabularies faster by also understanding their meaning in Chinese.

I believe it is right on topic, and very interesting as it is. Very good job!

Thanks,

Sarah, EssayForum.com

Thank you for your help! I will make changes.

You're welcome!

Sarah, EssayForum.com