Essay 5

Cristina Teresa-Guillermo

Professor Curtis-Cummins

English Composition

14 December 2017

Personal and Social Change

Many people go through a personal change due to society because they make them feel different and should change in order to “fit in”. This is what happened to Gloria Anzaldua when she was trying to find herself even when her own family had strict guidelines as well as Marjane Satrapi.

In Borderlands and in Mother Tongue, something that was similar between the two was language. Anzaldua talks about the barrier between how language is seen with chicanos adapting to their own type of spanish and how they created this and were also seen different. Amy Tan on the other hand has different types of ways she speaks depending on who she is talking to. Tan is similar to Anzaldua because they both have their own different language in which many people can connect to.

Anzaldua and Satrapi in their book talk about their own change and throughout their book you see how they have changed for themselves. Even though Anzaldua had some strict rules on how she had to be in her family, she still went out to figure out who she really was and stay true to herself and not for others. Satrapi also had to find herself was knew she was different and when she left her home country to a safer place, she was also doing different things and was finding out who she really was.

Having a personal change is not a bad thing to have to find yourself to find your true self and who you really are because of how society says you have to be or how others tell you you have to be.

Works Cited

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: La Frontera. 3rd ed., Aunt Lute Books, 2007.

Satrapi, Marjane. “Skiing.” Persepolis, 2000, pp. 267–275.

Satrapi, Marjane. “The Vegetable.” Persepolis, 2000, pp. 189–197.

Tan, Amy. Mother Tongue.

Essay #5 Idea Draft

Outline

• borderland & mother tongue
• language
• borderland & percepolis
• finding themselves
• personal change
• mixed culture?
• finding herself
• social change
• adopting to a new type of language
• personal experience
• between two languages and cultures
• language
• political changes
• government

P.W. 11/30

How are you feeling about the end of the semester?

- I actually don't know how to feel about the end of the semester. All that comes to mind is that we are halfway through the year and if I survived this semester, I will be fine in the next semester. I am a bit glad the semester is going to end because of the holidays coming up!

P.W. 11/28

How was the entire process of Essay 4 (research + writing)? What connections can you make between the 'change' you researched in your essay and the 'change'you have discussed with your group in the context of your Book Club?

- The process for Essay 4 wasn't too hard since I kind of broke it into parts and working on them individually and was able to bring it together into the essay like researching the topics one by one for each article and how they can come together to support the different points I was trying to make. When we discussed a 'change' in our Book Club, we talked about how the author would actually want to change. For my research, a 'change' would also be like changing the issue of domestic violence by doing something about it to help reduce the violence in the United States.

P.W. 11/14

How did you write your introduction for your Problem-Solution draft? What did you make sure to include?

- I didn't have an introduction yet. I started to write a bit of my body paragraph. I did include my inquiry question at the beginning of my draft.

P.W. 11/9

What is more important, the "They Say" or the "I Say"?

- I think that they are both important but the "I Say" is more important when you are writing because it is your stance on something and it is what you think - your opinions/point of view.

P.W. 10/31

How did your article/book research go? What did you find?

- For my topic of domestic violence, my research went well. I found a lot of different articles that were related to leading to depression. There were also articles about shelter advocates, violence relating to pregnancy (before and after), people witnessing domestic violence and how that affected them, implications for help, mental health, and help-seeking.

P.W. 10/24

General Reflection: Should [you] use this book again? Why or why not?

- I think that you should use this book again because there are so many stories that are about many different topics and different people around the world. Many people may be able to connect to some stories that are in this book and/or are interesting in them. You should use this book again because it is also somewhat different from other books that we have read so far because it includes photographs of the people that are being talked about in the book.

P.W. 10/19

Look over essay 3 assignment sheet and your draft. What did you do well and what do you want help with?

- I don't know what I did well. Something that I would like help on is if my first paragraph makes sense. I know that I didn't finish my draft but I would also like to know if the ideas I have would go well with what I have so far.
- I am actually going to take time to finish my essay instead of doing the workshop.

Idea Draft #3

PROMPT: Choose a local or global Social Issue from A Path Appears and develop an argument for why the issue is important and what ‘we’ as readers can do about it. You will present arguments from various perspectives and/or stakeholders, in order to ultimately support your own stance and purpose: proposing action steps.

Social Issue:
     Early Childhood Interventions

Thesis Statement:
     Early childhood interventions is important because the early experiences in a child are crucial to a child's brain development. Something that we can do to intervene at an early stage is _____ which will show later school success for the child.

Ideas:
- need help with different ideas

P.W. 10/17

Response to feedback:

- I read about a question you had about the types of important phone calls I would make for my mom. Some phone calls were important. In some phone calls, to my cousins, I would get away with pretending to be my mom because our voices are very familiar through the phone when I would speak in Spanish. In other phone calls, people on the other side would know that I am not my mom because my mom would say that she doesn't speak English and that I would be on the phone to translate for her.

10/12 P.W. Essay #2 Reflection

Reflect on the prompt of writing Essay 2. How was it to 'read a picture' in a very active, ethical, and in-depth way? Thinking about the issue or topic that your picture represented, is this something you would like to research and write more about?

- When it came to only reading a picture, at first it was kind of hard to understand what was going on, but once you know the story behind it, you know what and how it came to happen. One of the issues that represented the photo I chose was homelessness. I think this would be a good topic I can research because it is something that seems to keep expanding.

P.W. 10/5

Cover Letter:

I think I did okay in my draft. I wrote about Khadijah Williams and her story which is what stood out to me. Something that I would like specific feedback on would be if I should write more about something, like analysis and including quotes, or something like that.

P.W. 10/3

"The local is global and the global is local." After watching the movie clip - thinking about the reading - how do you interpret this theme from A Path Appears? What examples/stories come to mind that shows this theme?

- I think that the theme from A Path Appears is people can't rewrite their past but they can change their future. Stories that help show this theme is when young girls who were rape victims and they try to get justice even though it doesn't help but they want to go to school to be somebody and be able to help others.

Idea Draft #2

I have decided to analyze the picture of Williams holding her diploma on page 92. Something that stood out to me was that she graduated from Harvard which is a really good school and had received help from other people. Before that she had been moving around a lot and who grew up homeless in California with her younger sister and her mom. She had known that she was smart and knew that education would help her set her free from poverty.

P.W. 9/26

What photo do you plan to analyze from the book A Path Appears? What, if any, are your personal connections to the photo?

- I still don't know what photo I plan to analyze. I am looking at the photo where there are children in programs so that they are being read to from an early age. I am also looking at the photo where Khadijah Williams is holding her Harvard diploma and she received support from mentors and others. I too had mentors throughout high school because they were the ones that have helped me the most for not only in school but also any issues I had at home.

9/19 Essay #1 Reflection

How was your first essay for a College Writing class? What did you enjoy about this essay or the activities leading up to it? What was challenging? How was the process of sharing your personal experiences in an academic genre?

- My first essay for this class I think was good overall. I liked that we can make this essay into our own and that we can be able to include our own experiences and connections with the readings and/or the authors. Something that was challenging for me was trying to write about earlier experiences because it was so long ago. Writing about my personal experiences in an academic class was alright because I had to remember some of those experiences and how they relate to what I was trying to say in my essay.

9/12 PW

How do you feel about your draft? What would you ideally like out of this workshop?

- I feel so so about my draft. Something I would ideally like out of this workshop is to help improve my draft in whatever way to just make it flow in a better way.

9/7 P.W.

Dear Group,

My intentions for this draft were to make connections with the author. I would like for you guys to let me know if what I wrote made sense in a way and how I can actually break it down because I kind of wrote it in general kind of but not really. I think I would also need to write a little more about connections with the author. And the author that I was trying to make connections with were Amy Tan.

Idea Draft

- independence
- motivation
- perserverance
- discrimination

From the 3 readings, I felt more connected to Amy Tan. I felt like I could relate to her more because my mom is like her mom. Others may not understand her sometimes while I do. And because she will also make me translate for her. I also could relate to how the way I speak in school may not be the same as I use at home