ipl-logo

The Achievement Of Desire Summary

906 Words4 Pages

The Achievement of Desire, the second chapter in Richard Rodríguezes’ literacy narrative Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, notates on the struggles Rodríguez experienced throughout the course of his education. Coming from an ethnic background to the United States, he was in many ways different from his classmates, and often congratulated on his “success” (pg. 43). He is an outsider in this new world that he enters, and ends up doing very well to many people's surprise. He performs very well, and gets mostly A’s, and is considered an over achiever. This is very unlike Dave Garrison’s story, written by Lucille P. McCarthy.
A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum, an essay in the journal …show more content…

His family are from the United States of America, and he grew up around family from what was from the likes of which, not ethnic, and he most certainly was not a minority, being Caucasian. Garrison is also different in the ways he acts in many social aspects. He talks to many of his classmates, and this deems valuable for his learning style, as he performs better in the classes he has more social interaction in. Examples of this are seen all throughout his classes. In poetry, Garrison performed very poorly. Poetry was a class that Garrison did not enjoy, but not only did that affect the grade he received, what also affected it was the fact that the class was very poorly constructed in the case where there was no idea sharing or social interaction. Two other notable classes when you look at how garrison performs in different work environments is biology and composition. In biology, he could perform better, as it was a class that he saw as being more important to his major, as he is a biology/pre-med major. Also, in biology there was more social interaction, and they worked in small groups. Garrison performed the best in his composition class. He had many friends in the class and the classroom and there was a lot of idea sharing, and students in that class would share their

Show More
Related
454 Words | 2 Pages

Lucille Parkinson McCarthy, author of the article, “A Stranger in Strange Lands: A College Student Writing Across the Curriculum”, conducted an experiment that followed one student over a twenty-one month period, through three separate college classes to record his behavioral changes in response to each of the class’s differences in their writing expectations. The purpose was to provide both student and professor a better understanding of the difficulties a student faces while adjusting to the different social and academic settings of each class. McCarthy chose to enter her study without any sort of hypothesis, therefore allowing herself an opportunity to better understand how each writing assignment related to the class specifically and “what

Read More
1130 Words | 5 Pages

my English experience and the participation in English at North Carolina State University as an author has been nothing but memorable and essential, accelerating my writing knowledge for the rest of my scholarly career during my time in College. As a new student to NC State, English 101 was one of the first classes I enrolled in at NC State, as well as being the last English class I’ll ever take in my scholarly career. English 101 has cultivated and refined me as an author, through use of my skills as an author during the disciplinary profile, rhetorical analysis, autoethnography and comparative assignments. The variety of tests within each of these assignments has prepared me for an array of future assignments through my journey through college as an author. This assessment of both my writing skills and authorship continues to increase my proficiency and expertise as an author at a collegiate and professional level, as well as strengthen my readiness for future assignments.

Read More
287 Words | 2 Pages

The main conflict Rodriguez addresses in The Achievement of Desire, is the challenge he faces within two spaces, the first space that he mentions is his family, the second, is himself as a scholar boy. Rodriguez, speaks about the importance separating from his family is, in order to achieve his main goal, of becoming an educated middle class man. Although, later on Rodriguez mentions that he begins to feel lonely at times, and misses the past. He refers to his education as a necessity, and something he has to obtain no matter what. Not only does Rodriguez value education so much that he creates a space away from his family, but he also seems to feel ashamed of his parents because of their lack in education.

Read More
674 Words | 3 Pages

Two Peas in a Pod In Richard Rodriguez’s narrative “The Achievement of Desire”, he made an instant connection while reading a book by Richard Hoggart . He made connections with this young Hispanic boy on all types of things/for instance his ethnicity, desire to learn and idolizing his teachers. The young boys and Rodríguez’s problems are some I have faced in my childhood as well. Most of these pushed me to be great the same way it did Rodriguez. The connect I had with the author while just reading the first few paragraphs was truly unrealistic.

Read More
498 Words | 2 Pages

When deciding what college to attend, there are several factors to consider. In chapter 1 of An Insider’s Guide to Academic Writing: A Rhetoric and Reader, the authors discuss different types of colleges and universities, the purpose that college serves, fields of study, writing context, and academic writing. Understanding the differences between learning institutions, students are able to make the best choice when deciding where they should enroll. Chapter 1 also discusses the style writing that is required in college and how it varies compared to writing in other settings. Through these topics, students are able to learn what the expectations are of them at a collegiate level.

Read More
205 Words | 1 Pages

Writing in high school followed much of the same ideas that Lennie Irvin displays in his essay, What is “Academic” Writing. One of Irvin’s points is that writing in college will be different than writing in high school because it will be a form of evaluation to demonstrate your learning. However, many of my high school papers were assigned with the intention to demonstrate the knowledge of an assigned text. Also, Irvin says that one needs, “The Ability to Read Complex Text” and “to think critically as you read” (8). In high school, I was not only taught how to read complex texts critically, but also taught research skills.

Read More
559 Words | 3 Pages

Mini Essay Draft In the essay, “The Achievement of Desire”, Richard Rodriquez’s argument that transitions are a lonely and required experience is one I can relate to but disagree with. Richard, the son of Mexican immigrants, distances himself from his family and culture in the pursuit of success. Very similarly to Richard, students and young adults choose to forge their own path and find who they are alone. Ironically, getting to the stage of independence requires help.

Read More
334 Words | 2 Pages

Elizabeth Wardle's essay "You Can Learn to Write in General" challenges traditional approaches to teaching writing in school. She argues that teaching writing as a set of rules or formats does not prepare students to write effectively in real-world situations. Instead, she emphasizes the importance of teaching students to become critical thinkers who are able to navigate the social and cultural contexts in which writing occurs. She also advocates for a more student-centered approach to teaching writing, encouraging students to engage in writing that is meaningful to them and allowing them to choose their own topics and genres. Wardle's essay argues for a more flexible and adaptable approach to teaching writing in academia, shifting our focus

Read More
248 Words | 1 Pages

In this article, “University and High School Are Just Very Different” written by Lisa Karen Soiferman, she studies the challenges high school students face going from a specific writing environment to a college writing environment within three months. “First-year university students have to make a rapid adjustment to a learning environment which provides more autonomy, but requires more individual responsibility, than high school (Brinkworth, McCann, Matthews, & Nordstrom, 2009)” (Soiferman 14). Students are blown away from having everything handed to you in high school to be forcibly have to take responsibility for everything you do from then on. This gain of responsibility results into people dropping school, a great amount.

Read More
1494 Words | 6 Pages

The past is a place of reference, not of residence; it is meant to be just the foundation that pushes you forward. That being said, it is common for educators to retrace the steps of their own education to isolate where they excelled and where they suffered as an attempt to better themselves and education. While looking back on their experiences, this time with nostalgia, the individual reflects on them with a different mindset than when they first encountered them. Richard Rodriguez did just this throughout his autobiography, The Hunger or Memory: The Achievement of Desire, as did Lucille McCarthy’s in her study, A Stanger in Strange Lands.

Read More
217 Words | 1 Pages

The essay by Clair Woods is concerned with how undergraduate students in creature writing courses- are inducted into ‘the world of research’. And how their writing activity in their courses fits alongside the more conventional academic discourse. The essay acknowledges that students enrol in undergraduate writing programs without thinking of the research and academic study then will be required to undertake either in their writing program or discipline sub-majors. With a series of in-class surveys conducted in 2009, Woods discovered that the majority of undergraduate students found adapting their creative writing for university contexts as ‘distancing’ de-inscribing themselves, their knowledge and creativity. In comparison, third and fourth

Read More
633 Words | 3 Pages

In Richard Rodriguez’s essay, “The Achievement of Desire” he brings you through important memories of his life that impacted his education, and more specifically his reading and writing. As a child, he was eager to learn and ready to soak up all the knowledge he could get. He received many awards and good feedback from his teachers which gave him all the more motivation to learn more. Soon his motivation came out of annoyance of his parents.

Read More
543 Words | 3 Pages

Josh has been learning how to write from the early ages of kindergarten up until now, here at Marist College. Throughout that time Josh has enjoyed being able to be creative with his writing. Although he has written essays, poems, research papers, stories, and even multiple college essays he would rather prefer it to be short in length. Josh likes the sports and fiction styles of writing the most. While Josh likes to keep his writing short it may be because he gets distracted easily.

Read More
1554 Words | 7 Pages

Writing About Writing, A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 481-495.

Read More
651 Words | 3 Pages

In “The Achievement of Desire”, Richard Rodriguez expresses his frustration with his parent’s lack of English knowledge. He has a strained relationship with his parents due to the fact that English isn’t their first language and they don’t value education like he does. He has made it his mission to become a scholarship boy, which is someone who dedicates their life to school work to, in the end, have a successful profession. He resents his parents for not sharing his interest in learning. In “The Achievement of Desire” is states that, “Unlike many middle-class children, [Rodriguez] goes home and sees his parents a way of life not only different but starkly opposed to that of the classroom” (340).

Read More

More about The Achievement Of Desire Summary

Related Topics

Open Document