Abstract

In my narrative essay, I explored a new way of writing by constructing an essay that affected my language and literary learning. By doing so I have come to realize the ways that language and literacy have impacted me. I have supported my writing through the use of rhetorical devices including pathos and ethos. By using this I’ve tried to make the reader understand by appealing to their feelings and using logic to support my narrative.

Influence in Literacy and Linguistic Learning

The relationship that I have with my mother is one that I truly value. She is the only person who has believed in me the most and who hasn’t let me down or abandoned me. When I was young I was always by her side. Every one of her appointments I was there— every trip to the bank, the market, school—it seemed like everywhere and anywhere she was, I was a shadow alongside her. Or perhaps, it was her who had shadowed me. Me and my mother had to undergo a long journey just to set foot here in America and even more just to walk the streets of the concrete jungle. When we arrived, we did not know an ounce of English, maybe the basics like hello and goodbye, but this vocabulary level did not suffice now that called New York our home. I had come too late to be enrolled in Pre-K, so I had to settle for the best next thing that would teach me about English linguistics. The living room became my classroom and my teacher became the television. I spent my days repeating and learning new words with Dora The Explorer and counting numbers with her trusty sidekick Boots. I also spent my time reading and spelling with Super WHY! and the “super readers”. In addition to this I would work on what I call educational hand me downs: any used or old book that my mother would get her hands on would give me hopes that I would observe any educational knowledge that it held within it. She even sat me down and made me copy pages from the dictionary word by word. It started from A to C. Words like activate, baleful, contradicting soon came so easily to me. I really appreciated the support that she gave me. My mother always reminded me that I should be better than her. She wasn’t able to complete middle school and had always longed for an education. Whenever I would complain she would talk about how she wished she could have the opportunity I had been given. She would then follow up by explaining how her life is now. She didn’t want me to end up like her and that was always her goal and soon became one of mine. I know some little girls would be out there saying that they would like to be just like their “mommy” but I wasn’t one of them. Her weird, yet good hearted endeavors were not for anything though. I was a sponge, soaking every verb, noun, adjective and anything that was thrown my way. This is how I learned my foundation of the basic of the English language. Once I learned my foundations my English had kept increasing and advancing.

In contrast to this, my mother’s language skill stayed the same. I didn’t blame her though, I had all the free time waiting for Kindergarten to start, where all her time was allocated to what we had come to America for, work. Since my mother noticed how good I was doing at picking up the language, I spent the rest of my childhood being her translator and interpreter. When she needed to communicate to someone but didn’t know how, I would voice her opinions and thoughts. Even though at times people didn’t take us seriously, I stood firm with my newly learned English and tried to present myself and my mother in the best way a growing child can. Sometimes I would get frustrated when my mother would just shove the phone in my face and make me begin talking when I had no clue or context of what this phone call was about or who was on the other side of the phone. This would lead me pause and gather my words in hopes of sounding better and proficient. At times this would work and at other times it wouldn’t. I would choke on all the words that linger throughout my head. Once I got scolded and called out for advocating for my mother from a school official “Don’t speak for your mother, she can speak for herself,” she said. Little did she know she couldn’t, or else why would a child be trying to explain that she wanted to register herself for school. Despite our good and bad encounters with others in the public, me and my mother had to go on and continue with our lives. I continued being her voice. Whether it was over the phone, in person or by writing a letter I would be the figure advocating and she would be my shadow right behind. I acted as her representative and was there to be able to respond and figure things out for her. I started to wonder who would represent me.

I started going through the elders in my life, a whole family of immigrants with little to no English-speaking skills. Although my family does the best that they can to help me throughout whatever I needed I realized that I must also help myself. I started improving and making sure my vocabulary was where it needed to be and kept increasing from then on. I read books that would help me. I spent my days reading articles and series such as A Series of Unfortunate Events where I would be obligated to read all the books series that followed just to find out the ending. This way I wouldn’t lose interest and I would always have something to read. At times I would grab newspaper articles just to see if I even understood what the text said.  to increase my reading level and make my writing stronger by finding “bigger words’ I can use to replace my overused “common small words”. There was never a day that I would skip going to my after-school classes. I wanted to improve to be able to speak fluently, to never again be stuck and choke on a word and most importantly, so that I could be of service to my mother even more. It was the least thing I could do considering that she had done so much for me.

Overall the need to help my family and continue a close relationship with my mother had pushed to better my literacy skills. I had to step up and use language as my tool in order to help my family and myself. Language had to become my weapon in order to protect the ones that I love. Soon enough she faded and was no longer my shadow. My mother had graduated from ESL classes and now is making her way towards obtaining her GED. She has become my partner and an even bigger support system. Therefore, I am ever so grateful to have her in my life. I am blessed to have had someone push me to my potential and who has shown me what I’m capable of.

Cover Letter 

I have gained many meaningful insights that I am glad that I discovered. There were so many things that have happened in my life to make me develop the person that I am now today. Now being a college student and focusing on literacy and linguistics I’ve had come to the realizations that I had many influences that impacted me to get me to the place that I am in today. Some insights that I have realized is how the relationship that I have with my mother has greatly affected me. A way that I show cased this throughout this writing assignment was by using rhetorical devices. I learned that there are many ways that you can make your writing come to life. I’ve managed to do this by incorporating the use of rhetorical devices. These devices consist of pathos, ethos and logos. They all serve different services in order to make a narrative achieve its purpose. 

There are some terms and concepts that definitely have impacted my learning and writing practices. During the process of writing I first realized that I had to convey a message and have a purpose for my writing. I thought about what I wanted to do with my writing, and how I wanted the audience to perceive it. I was able to do this by using different devices that would appeal to different senses of the reader and furthermore used it to develop my writing works. An example of this was when using rhetorical devices. For example, my paper contains more usage of Pathos. I wanted to incorporate Pathos into my writing style to appeal to the audience. I wanted them to get a sense of my experience and be able to get the story in whole. I also believe that I used some sense of ethos in writing. I wanted to let the audience know who I am as a person, therefore I inserted my credentials and tried to show who I am. 

This writing assignment has helped me improve and achieve many goals that were expected. One of the goals that I was able to obtain is the ability to develop strategies for reading, drafting, revising and editing. During class I appreciated the moments where we would be able to turn into groups in order to help each other improve. At first, I was nervous about this since I am a shy person and my brainstorming ideas for the writing assignment where vague and not very developed since I didn’t know where I can begin. While sharing out our ideas I began to realize that we had some similarities within our literacy experiences, it helped me set a firm path and made it clear where I wanted to take my writing to. Also, by doing this I was allowed to get a preview of the kind of people my audience will be and thus tailor my writing even more. In addition to these newly gained set skills I was also able to improve in editing by being able to receive feedback in my current work and give feedback as well.  

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