My journey learning English

      Over spending 3 months of a full semester in English, I was able to gain the strength of becoming a better writer. From the first day of the course, I was given a worksheet to talk about my background. There were questions like “where are you from” and “what language do you speak at home”. These questions surprised me as a freshman entering college-level English class because I expected to read a big book and summarize it. Instead, it was more welcoming to the class by asking the students to share their language and background. I was able to learn and connect with my classmates by sharing similar language and culture. Our first writing assessment was the Written Literature Language Narrative (WLLN). This assignment was to talk about a time where the use of language was important and give a deeper reflection. I chose to write for the first time my experience learning english and then using this ability to help my mom with translation. After writing this narrative i was able to “Recognize the role of language attitudes and standards in empowering, oppressing, and hierarchizing languages and their users, and be open to communicating across different languages and cultures.” I was able to “ Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes.” This gave me confidence and a better perspective of my classmates by being able to connect through their stories. 

      After spending time with our Narrative writings, we moved on to real life narratives or speech given by people who experienced issues when it came to language. A person I admire and have spoken about in my Rhetorical Analysis is Safwat Saleem. Artist, graphic designer and filmmaker, Safwat Saleem, discusses the complexity of the word “normal” on Ted Talk. Saleem uses his personal story to connect and bring his audience together. He talks about public anxiety from people when asked for his name where saleem would be silent. By hearing these things, I could tell he is using Pathos to appeal emotions to his audience. It makes a connection and grabs their attention wanting to know more. With the use of specific diction like “panic”, “quiet”, and “awkward”, we as the audience see how he truly felt during his speech. As the speech progresses, saleem transitions from Pathos to Logos. He mentions how he received hate from people watching his work on youtube. It brought him back to memories of his childhood, being bullied for his voice. From this, i was able to “Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations.” and “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.” Saleem also used allusion to a greek book to explain the term “normal”. This speech gave me a new perspective to explore and learn more so of what is considered normal.

      From exploring the term “normal” I have found that not everyone thinks the same. For example, when writing my Research essay, I argued how racism still exists in America. The harassment towards African Americans is up the charts from being stopped and checked to killed by the police. This is normal for police officers in America to arrest innocent black individuals and put them in jail.  To understand why this is still going on, I had to read articles about this issue. From many articles I was able to “understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences” and “Practice systematic application of citation conventions.” I found statistics and news articles that supported my claim like the killing of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor which sparked the “Black Lives Matter” movement. From gathering more facts I was able to “Locate research sources (including academic journal articles, magazine and newspaper articles) in the library’s databases or archives and on the Internet and evaluate them for credibility, accuracy, timeliness, and bias” and “compose texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.” I have found that back during the 1900s there were stereotypical advertisements in tv commercials that displayed racist acts towards selling the product. In the commercial, a black child is seen “dirty” due to their skin tone and the soap is supposed to magically remove the “dirt” of their skin. This advertisement would have been seen as “normal” back then but now wouldn’t be “normal” because of the way we explored the meaning and shifted it. This idea from Saleem has sparked me to research this topic and even “develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing” to understand and write better. Overall I grew my writing skills by being able to talk about both my personal and global topic and have the confidence to share it with others.