Linda Laidlaw and Suzanna So-har Wong wrote an article which addressed the difficulties found on the personal writing assignments. By using interviews and focus-groups date, Linda and Suzanna got to the conclusion that such assignments are challenging for students that come from diverse cultural background, families or life history. Many elementary teachers ask their students to share information about themselves or their lives. By using personal narrative, teachers assign her/his students to do projects such as “write about yourself”, “All about me”, “When I was born”, etc, which have created a problem for those parents and students that do not share the same cultural background or family’s composition. In the article, Suzanna shares a difficult writing experiences that she had to face in one of her graduate courses. Briefly, her small story mentions that she was terrified about school holidays because she will have to write about a personal holiday experience. Since, she is a Chinese-Canadian immigrant family, Christmas wasn’t a tradition or holiday for them. Therefore, she wouldn’t have the same experiences that her classmates had. She had to rely on creating fictional stories that helped her survived the terrific “what did you do during Christmas holiday.” Suzanna constantly will …show more content…
A lot of students find themselves lying on this “write about yourself” assignments. Many students feel pressure because they need to narrate stories or events that aren’t part of their lives. Moreover, these students come from different family’s compositions or circumstances that won’t allow the student to share or provide certain information. This is not only a problem for the students, but also to their parents. Suzanna states in the article that these students that are culturally or religiously diverse can feel marginalized by these personal narrative
Life Goals In the essay “The Storyteller”, Sandra Cisneros describes how her identity was shaped by goals that she had for herself. Starting from a young Cisneros dreamt about living in her own silent home that fitted her taste. Years later after coming home from college she still had the dream of living on her own and also with a career goal of becoming a writer. Cisneros determination to follow her dreams was strong, however, her father’s did not agree with the dreams and even had a different idea of what he wanted for her.
It is seen as a better time, from descriptions of her hobbies to the daily activities during summer. She recalls past holidays with her family and how their presence affected her life. For example, her cousin gifting
William Zinsser the author of “How to Write a Memior” gives three key phrases for writing a memoir. “Be yourself,” “Speak freely,” and “Think small.” This is a way to organize your memoir however you want it to flow. Walter Dean Myers author of “Bad Boy” follows these three phrases that Zinsser suggests by writing from a child’s point of view, freely but honest memoir, and vivid memories. William suggests that the best way to write a memoir is from a child’s point of view. ”
Where was the author going for college? What made her first day to college eventful? (Write a paragraph) The author was leaving Ball State University and was starting to attend Harvard University. The first day was an interesting and sad day for her.
In the Freedom Writers Diary, the authors focus on the topic of the reality of what they have to deal with in their everyday world. Their teacher Mrs. Gruwell inspired them throughout their high school years by teaching them that it is possible for each and every one of them to change. They write with an uplifting and hopeful outlook on the world even if it not realistic in their present circumstances. In their writing, they establish an effective use of pathos by writing about their own lives and how they connect to others and us by using the selection of detail, metaphors, and allusions. Through these devices, we come to the idea that even though teenager’s in today’s world are faced with many hardships, they do not have to succumb to them.
Literacy Narrative Essay Well, there are many things that made me the reader and writer I am, only a few important events had huge impacts on me. Events such as; teachers constantly correcting my grammar, not being able to pronounce certain words, and a soccer injury that made me a pick up a book. These things helped me become the reader and writer I am. It gave me motivation, strength , and courage.
William Zinsser gives specific instructions in “How to Write a Memoir”. He tells you to, ”Be Yourself,” “Speak Freely,” and, “Tell Your Own Story”. This tells writers to tell the whole story through the good and the bad. ”Popular” by Maya Van Wagenen, uses his advice by using her point of view, using small memories from the past, and true storytelling. In William Zinsser’s, “How to Write a Memoir” he states that the writer should “Be Yourself”. In “Popular”, Maya states “For now, Betty Cornell has become my new soul mate, and I am married to every word.
Mary Pipher is a psychologist who focuses her studies on how mental health can be caused by influences in culture and writing. In her chapter, “Writing to Connect,” Pipher shows that writing, in particular, can “share our stories, connect with each other, and influence some aspect of our world” (436). The reader can see her field of study throughout “Writing to Connect” and understand the concepts she introduces. Pipher’s directs her writing to “community groups, schools, and health care professionals” (436). This audience is the majority of recipients of her work she travels to speak about.
Amelia Dyer never had an easy life. Her mother was a raving lunatic and, lived with
Through trial and error, college students are having to figure out what constitutes as acceptable writing for every one of their separate classes all on their own without their ethnic backgrounds taken into consideration. While although Dave was considered privileged because of his years of experience in classrooms that consisted of teachers and students who shared similar social backgrounds, “students from diverse communities may need… teachers in the disciplines… [to] provide them with assignments and instructional support appropriate for first steps in using the language of their community” (262) McCarthy’s findings contribute to the notion, “learning to write… is not only a developmental process that occurs within an individual student, but also as a social process, that occurs in response to particular situations” (236). Although McCarthy only documents Dave as he takes this “journey across the curriculum”, her study is addressing the college student body as a whole. She declares that the success of a student is determined not only by their intelligence, but also their ability to adapt to a wide range of social and academic settings without any negative interference towards their
But, as I look back into my steps of learning literacy it came to mind how difficult writing essays were. The biggest piece of the puzzle is to not be afraid to express my opinions and feelings through writing. Sometimes my teachers would encourage me and suggest how we can express ourselves by free writing. This simple technique helped us to express ourselves and we become open to our feelings through
Over the course of the semester, my main goal was to become a more precise writer and develop my identity as a writer. According too, the Portfolio Letter assignment sheet, becoming a better writer consists of precise planning, draft and revising. It also includes understanding a variety of academic genres by examining the basic characteristics that defines each type. In order too efficiently meet my goal of becoming a better writer, it was very important to have my work evaluated by others and myself as well. The use of rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, reading and writing all are the important aspects in this course.
David Nussbaum, Geoffrey Cohen, and Eliot R in the article "Deflecting the Trajectory and Changing the Narrative: How Self-Affirmation Affects Academic Performance and Motivation Under Identity Threat." (2013), talks about how students performance based on their background in the United States and the gap of performances there is through race. The researches start off with the main factors of using some of their research from social psychological testing of students from different races to see the long periods of time and understand how they can shape their academic identities. Sherman, David, Kimberly Hartson, Kevin Binning, Valerie Purdie-Vaughns, Julio Garcia, Suzanne Taborsky-Barba, Sarah Tomassetti purpose is about the types of bases of the academic performance about the different types of races and ethnics. This article goes for people who want to understand the social psychological view of academic performances of different
When her tragedy happened she said “ The last thing I remember is thinking about my exam the next day. After that , everything went black.” She tells you how she felt after her tragedy and how she had start a new life. It was hard for her but she decided to spread her story all around the world to encourage girls to stand
INTRODUCTION For the purpose of this assignment I have selected the film Freedom Writers (2007). As a teacher in a post-primary DEIS school, this film was of particular interest to me for its high-school setting and the disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds of the students. Freedom Writers is a movie adaptation of Erin Gruwell’s non-fiction book Freedom Writers Diary: How a teacher and 150 teens used writing to change themselves and the world around them (1999). The film follows Erin Gruwell, a newly qualified and enthusiastic English teacher, as she navigates her way through school politics, prejudice, racism and personal circumstance to help a group of at-risk teens to fulfill their potential.