As a college student, Emily Vallowe wrote a literacy narrative with a play on words title: “Write or Wrong Identity.” In this work, she told the story of how she believed her confidence as a writer developed; however, she was becoming dubious as to her distinctiveness as an author. Although I have never been a self-proclaimed wordsmith as Ms. Vallowe obviously had been for years, I related to her journey. Not only did she grow up in Northern Virginia like I did, she never considered herself an inept writer—a possibility that I could not fathom about myself. Then, at some point, we both began to question our own ability and to question who we really were. I identified with her soul-shaking experience when she profoundly realized, “It is a strange feeling to grow up defining yourself as something when you don’t know if that something is actually true.” I struggled in an introductory composition course at Virginia State University (VSU), and after giving each assignment my all, still …show more content…
Although my grades were not always consistent, I never earned less than a B for a final grade in my English courses. Often my instructors privately told me that my papers were the best in the class and shared my work with others. My writing secured me a free trip to London and Paris with my business club as well as my acceptance into multiple colleges. I am certain my extracurricular activities, including cheerleading, volleyball, community service projects, fundraisers and employment also played a vital role in these accomplishments. Of all the schools to which I applied, only VSU waitlisted me probably because of my phobia about standardized examinations, which caused me not to perform as well as I should have on the SAT. But being waitlisted encouraged me to become more determined to compose convincing correspondence to enter VSU in the spring semester of