For this assignment, we were supposed to talk about a moment in our lives where we had faced a struggle with language and literacy. So for my narrative, I talked about the struggles I and my parents faced when coming to this “new world”, which we knew nothing about. From learning its culture and background to learning its language. The difficulties my parents had to face-shaped me to become the person I am today, and that was a key point in my narrative. So as a result, I am sure this piece resonates with many others as well because it is an immigration story, a story which many others had experienced. Thereby, these people are my audience. I tried to make this piece as relatable and sincere as possible, so people who may have gone through the same situation as me may find this much more appealing than those who do not. The choice I made in my language and rhetorical choices were making it sound heartfelt and sincere. I made this writing with the hopes of it sounding like a touching and personal story, so I tried to talk about specific moments of my life where others may deem too personal. To show that my story is out there for them to relate with.

Throughout writing this assignment I gained meaningful insight into this phase regarding language and literacy. I learned that try to be as detailed as possible to give readers a better image in their mind and to give your opinion on a topic when you can because it shows that you are not just telling a story, but instead expressing yourself. So in a narrative that is key to writing a successful one. I also learned that when writing a narrative, try to be as personal as possible, so readers stay engaged throughout, and try to leave the reader wanting more. If you leave the reader with this satisfaction, they will very much enjoy your piece and give it a good score. But at the end of the day they are just grading your piece, not who you are as a person, so just express yourself by whatever means you see fit. I think the concept that impacted my learning and my writing practices the most was the purpose and audience. This is because when writing my narrative all I had in mind was what was my purpose for writing this piece, which was to elaborate on the struggle in language and literacy of my early childhood, and what will the audience get out of this reading, a story to relate to. Remembering these two things helped me to understand and know what I must write to complete this assignment while expressing myself.

This phase’s assignment helped me to achieve some of the Course Learning Outcomes. One of the CLO that I achieved was number 1, “Recognize the role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchical languages and their users, and be open to communicating across different languages and cultures.” In my narrative, I talked about the struggles I faced when learning a new language, and how that made me different from others. Because of my lack of English, others thought they were better and more capable than me, and as I talked about in my piece, people took advantage of my parents for that reason. So after writing out my story, I realized how much power lies in the hands of how you use language. From the way you say it to the attitude you put it out with, it determines much of whether it empowers or oppresses its users. I also realize the importance of it when communicating across different languages and cultures. Another CLO that I achieved was number 3, “Develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing.” Throughout the process of writing this narrative, there were multiple steps I had to do that led to this final piece. I had to read my fellow peer’s papers, write multiple drafts, collaborate with my peers on theirs and my paper, and revise/edit those drafts I did. By doing these steps, it helped to ensure that whatever I wrote was the best it could be. When working with my peers, they gave me an insight into how I could improve my piece and what was already good with it. So when doing this for every draft and me realizing my mistakes, I knew what to do to improve my narrative and gained the skill to do so for next time.

After completing this assignment I realized how much I changed from the person I was back then. Not only from a writing perspective but as a person. I went from a person who once needed help with their language and literacy to become the person that gave help. I became a person who overcame their struggle to improve themselves, and I think that is the purpose of this assignment. My purpose for this narrative may have been to write some for someone to relate to, but I think the overall purpose of this assignment is to realize how far we have gotten from that person we once were.

This entry is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.