As a college student, Emily Vallowe wrote a literacy narrative with a play on words title: “Write or Wrong Identity.” In this work, she told the story of how she believed her confidence as a writer developed; however, she was becoming dubious as to her distinctiveness as an author. Although I have never been a self-proclaimed wordsmith as Ms. Vallowe obviously had been for years, I related to her journey. Not only did she grow up in Northern Virginia like I did, she never considered herself an inept writer—a possibility that I could not fathom about myself. Then, at some point, we both began to question our own ability and to question who we really were. I identified with her soul-shaking experience when she profoundly realized, “It is a strange feeling to grow up defining yourself as something when you don’t know if that something is actually true.” I struggled in an introductory composition course at Virginia State University (VSU), and after giving each assignment my all, still …show more content…
Although my grades were not always consistent, I never earned less than a B for a final grade in my English courses. Often my instructors privately told me that my papers were the best in the class and shared my work with others. My writing secured me a free trip to London and Paris with my business club as well as my acceptance into multiple colleges. I am certain my extracurricular activities, including cheerleading, volleyball, community service projects, fundraisers and employment also played a vital role in these accomplishments. Of all the schools to which I applied, only VSU waitlisted me probably because of my phobia about standardized examinations, which caused me not to perform as well as I should have on the SAT. But being waitlisted encouraged me to become more determined to compose convincing correspondence to enter VSU in the spring semester of
In Willa Cather’s essay she unfolds Sarah Jewett’s ability to express her feeling for writing through her diction to form art. In Sarah Jewett’s novel, her feeling for writing is shown through her main character who came to New England to write her own novel. Jewett shows the struggles she feels when writing her own novels through her character. In one of the passages she writes, “Literary employments are so vexed and uncertainties at best and and it was not until the voice of conscience sounded louder in my ears than the sea on the nearest pebble beach that I said unkind words of withdrawal to Mrs. Todd”(18). Miss.
One of the things that Scott says in his excerpt is that, “… writing is an ideological, socially involved practice and thus inescapably implicated in identity…” (Scott, 3) His message is to express how literacy has become a part of our social life. He also states that there will never be a time that literacy doesn’t involve worldview and ideologies. Not only does Scott’s piece relate to Malcolm X’s story, ‘Learning how to Read’, but it relates to Strasser’s piece based on how writing should be like.
Throughout Northrop Frye’s essay “The Singing School” Frye expresses his thoughts on how literature is not uniquely inspired, despite the different genres. Instead, Frye believes that, “a writer’s desire to write can only have come from previous experiences of literature”, and “he’ll start by imitating whatever he’s read, which usually means what people around him are writing” (14), this quotation explains that there is a pedigree to writing in which leads to conventions,which is a “typical and socially accepted way of writing” (14). Likewise, Frye constantly states that “literature can derive its form only from itself” (14), and are the the “typical ways in which stories get told” ( ). One of the three major conventions that Frye describes
In Stephen King’s memoir, On Writing, he expresses dozens of opinions on his craft and provides a compilation of writing preferences for an audience of readers and aspiring writers alike. Jeannette Walls, the author of the memoir The Glass Castle, seemingly displays similar writing preferences to those of Stephen King. Specifically, Walls and King both leave out unnecessary words, they both use dialogue as a characterization tool, and they both believe in writing honestly. One of the first writing tactics King proposes is to, “...
I express my creative side through writing such as poems, stories, and even letters. Through writing, I can use diction and syntax to express the emotions that I have or even the emotions of someone else. Once, I was assigned to create a speech as if I was a person from the town in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, The Scarlet Letter. In this made up situation, I am in charge of the town meeting and must discuss how we are to address Hester Prynne’s sinful deed. By using diction from the puritan ages and, syntax similar to Hawthorne’s writing, I was able to become another person from another century in my writing and express the fearsome and angry feelings I had as my role.
In the selection, “Strange Tools,” Richard Rodriguez explains how he started reading books to excel academically, as if books were merely a peculiar means of improving himself. He begins his writing by showing the reader his initial experiences with reading. He conveys that neither of his parents read for pleasure, but simply for business or as a way to communicate with distant family; he never saw his parents read an entire book. Rodriguez begins to consider the idea of a “scholarship boy” described by Richard Hoggart. Rodriguez relays how his upbringing shaped the way he approached reading by quoting his mother: “Don’t write in your books so we can sell your books at the end of the year.”
To enhance how reading has inspired her, Welty uses language such as fairytale diction, descriptive imagery, and hyperboles to connect moments of her childhood experiences that eventually built up her writing career. To convey the immense effect of these experiences, Welty begins the passage with her encountering
In a country that promotes the ideas of grit, innovation, resourcefulness, and growth, I find it curious that American universities are still using standardized tests as an indicator of future success in college. Although standardized tests are only one factor in admissions to many colleges, they should not be used at all because they do not accurately predict the success of students in higher educational environments. Instead of using the SAT and ACT, admissions officers should put more weight on written essays, cumulative high school grade point average, extracurriculars, and letters of recommendation when deciding admissions. Although some may argue that the SAT and ACT offer a way of ranking students without factoring in grade point average, their ability to predict the future success of college students has not been demonstrated.
Being a writer requires you to have an open mind, patience, and dedication. In the letter written by Marian Evans Lewes, an English novelist, she writes to Melusina Fay Pierce, a young woman who aspires to be a writer. In this letter, Lewes will encourage the young woman to chase after her dream of being a writer and the different challenges she’s going to have to face on being an up and coming writer. Through this letter Lewes will convey an array of rhetorical strategies to convey her feeling on becoming an upcoming writer.
Adding to the ever growing library of women, Virginia Woolf used her unique stream of consciousness style of writing to convey new ideas about gender roles and gender identity, paving the way for more women to find rooms of their own. One can only hope to influence generations of people with one’s writing, bringing about new conversations and ways of communicating. Eventually, Virginia Woolf committed suicide, ending her highly original career and perhaps echoing a point she makes in her own essay, “To have lived a free life in London in the sixteenth century would have meant for a woman who was a poet and playwright a nervous stress and dilemma which might well have killed her”
In my literacy Narrative I will be tackling two problems. The first being my illiteracy in fanti, and the second being my struggle with speaking and pronunciation when I was little. I will be covering a small moment from preschool when I first started to struggle with pronunciation, and discuss how I fixed my english, but at the same time lost any linguistic connection I had to fanti. The second problem will more primarily be focused on in the introduction and conclusion, while the first will be the subject of my small moment. The defining moment any particular will be when my teacher talks to my parents, about me having a literacy problem with speaking english properly.
In her “Commencement Speech at Mount Holyoke College”, Anna Quindlen employs personal anecdotes and her academic background to effectively build her credibility. Quindlen explains how her strive for perfection in her younger years only served to add needless parasitic pressure. She claims that “being perfect day after day, year after year, became like always carrying a backpack filled with bricks on my back” (Quindlen 1). Drawing from her personal experiences, Quindlen challenges her audience to “give up the backpack”. By building a strong connection through shared hardship, Quindlen appears as an authority on defying conformity to discover one’s own individuality.
I had joined Kctcs criminal justice program my junior year where i changed my attitude and respect for other completely and while i was changing the way i acted i was building a new character i was growing up and getting different morals and beliefs. I soon was a class sea grant twice and i have now been class commander for two years in a row showing that my leadership skills have grown tremendously throughout high school. Even though many people thought I would never go far in life when they first meet me in my freshmen year or before i didn't let that stop me from growing and getting over the old habits. Looking at my transcript you will see i did horribly my freshmen year and started doing very good towards my junior year many people would be disappointed if there's looked like that but not I, I'm proud that I was the way I was because not many people can say they have came as far
With the inclusion of a multitude of perspectives, experiences, and emotions outside her own, her expertise heightens allowing her to be more respected as an influential writer on the subject at
Do you know that Shakespeare is not the only gifted writer in his family? This mysterious member exists in the English writer Virginia Woolf’s imagination. In her famous essay “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Woolf uses the hypothetical anecdote of Judith Shakespeare as her main evidence to argue against a dinner guest, who believes that women are incapable of writing great literature. During the time when Judith is created, women are considered to be naturally inferior to men and are expected to be passive and domestic. Regarding her potential audience, educated men, as “conservative,” Woolf attempts to persuade them that social discouragement is the real cause of the lack of great female writers without irritating them by proposing “radical” arguments.