Analysis Of Richard Rodriguez 's A Stranger And Strange Lands Essay

In her article “I Stand Here Writing”, Nancy Sommers examines the writing process and formulating ideas for writing in a more empirical manner. She states that before she found her creative zeal/ niche her writing was often undisciplined, unmethodical, and sloppy. Sommers reveals that in college she was less known for her writing and more for her long hair and misapplication of phrases. She found her true inspiration while writing her Senior Thesis on Emerson’s “Eloquence.” Throughout the entire essay, Sommers provides the reader with advice about writing. A key point that she mentions is, “If I could teach my students about writing it would be to see themselves as sources, as places from which ideas originate, to see themselves as Emerson’s transparent eyeball, all that they have read and experienced-the-dictionaries of their lives circulating through them.”

The Article “A Stranger in Strange Lands” written by Lucille P. McCarthy is an examination of the writing process. This article follows a college student through a twenty-one month study to determine how the students writing ability is affected as he transitions from one classroom to another. Focusing on specific writing processes in different types of classrooms,this article hopes to uncover the importance and effect of writing towards a specific audience within a particular genre and to offer a better understanding to how students continue to learn to write throughout college.

In Dan Berrett’s article, “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing,” the idea of freshman thinking they are or must be a refined writer is discussed. Students may think this way coming into college, but their teachers do not. While students might feel satisfied and think that they are prepared with their writing skills, professors found that these students did not necessarily meet the expected level (Berrett 1). Many students reported that they would normally write around 25 hours every week. They said that most of those hours of writing was for more formal purposes like passages to make changes in society (Berrett 1). It was found that one reason the new students might feel this way is that their assumptions about writing differed greatly from those of faculty members and their expectations. One big thing that students will not get for a while, is that good writing is not just listed as a bunch of steps one is to follow that automatically make one’s writing good. Good writing requires one to be in different mental states; it requires the understanding of how to write for different audiences and different reasons (Berrett 2). Berrett includes in the article that writing is not just universal and that in order to do very well, writers must use different forms of writing specifically for their purpose (2). It seems as though students think that, before they even take a class, they are supposed to know everything about writing; in reality, they are supposed to learn new skills and enhance others (Berrett 2). Berrett says that many believe the schools these students previously attended with their test focus might cause these feelings about writing (2). Berrett ends his article by saying that students these days do not think that informal writing actually counts as writing, and that students should practice writing for informal purposes because it can help them (2). Even if they feel like it, students are not fully prepared to write in all contexts when they arrive at college.

Murray is insightful not only to instructors but also to learners. Murray argues that the challenge facing writing is the fact that teachers have treated it as a product rather than a process and the same concept passed on to students. The author holds that the main problem with this view is that students get to receive irrelevant criticisms that are not related to their learning goals. While I tend to agree with the author based on the arguments presented, it is notable that Murray has paid little attention to the idea of education in the contemporary world. In most learning institutions, the outcome of the writing is considered more than the process. As a teacher paying attention to the process of writing but not be consistent with the students, who are mostly driven by

In On Entering a New Place by Barry Lopez, he introduces the ideas of people always having to move forward but at the same time trying to let go of the hold the past has on them.There is freedom yet strong commitment which will affect future plans. Getting use to the demands of college will take time. I believe he is relating the land to life. Some days we feel overwhelmed and have to take one day at a time. Just when I think I have everything organized, things fall apart. I get an assignment I really need to do well on, but fear grabs me because I know I have a disease called writer's block and sometimes it causes me to fall apart and panic. College does not have a voice, yet voices ring in my ears battling for my time reminding me of all

In literary education, from childhood to maturity, individuals are taught how to write not to improve themselves as critical thinkers, but to fulfill the requirements given to them in a prompt. Whether to analyze or argue, this form of writing has led to a cease of literary improvement in students today, making many question the effectiveness of writing classes. Mike Bunns, in his article “To Read like a Writer”, explores this topic and stresses the necessity for young readers to critically examine the author’s choices in order to improve their own pieces of work. Bunns effectively argues to his audience of college students that improved comprehension comes from focusing on the rhetorical choices authors decide to make in their compositions by tying personal narratives with repetitive questioning throughout his article.

In the article by Downs and Wardle “Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions”, the author’s state a common misconception of writing for first year composition is that academic writing is somehow universal. This idea can be misleading since teachers have always taught that there is a basic set of rules for writing. However, I agree with the idea that writing is not universal because college students write for a various number of discourse communities and do not have one general audience. Content, context, and genre are bound to change while attending a university.

English 3010 is an intermediate course in reading, research and writing; it is designed to create, in Anne Beaufort’s words, a better “product.” Beaufort boldly claims that the current freshman writing courses make freshmen ill-prepared writers, incompetent and limited to one discourse community. i.e. bad “products.” However, English 3010 is a course for upper-level students, and the emphasis is on conducting research by drawing from the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and professions in preparation for Writing Intensive courses in the majors and beyond. In relation to the course learning outcomes, the works I have done have been majorly about Discourse, discourse communities, genres, writing expertise, research questions, and collection and analysis of qualitative data. Over the semester, I was tasked with completing several pieces of writing that would demonstrate my progress in understanding of the above mentioned topics. In order to achieve this understanding, I was to review literature from respected writing scholars, namely Beaufort, Bazerman, Gee, Johns, Swales and Merriam. The literature was used to create analytical texts. These texts were to demonstrate my understanding of the literature, as well as showcase progress in achieving ENG3010 course learning outcomes. These course learning outcomes are the following:

As one may be aware, a typical English class, at least that of which I am aware of, consists primarily of two of the fundamental functions of widely accepted language skills: reading and writing. This common theme unifying the English education of students worldwide, as a basic expectation, constructs the curriculum of the AP English Literature class. In effect, students of the class, not limited to but including me, can expect a selection of novels, plays, and other mediums of language that will range from the most interesting to the greatest degree of banality possible. As a result, the natural progression of skill development, in terms of reading and writing, proves to be an inherent process, not necessarily in aim, with considerations of

Educators are charged with not only teaching the content of their subject, but also responsible for creating a learning environments that fosters communication, engagement, and reflection so that the students will be prepared for their future careers and learning. Creating a classroom that fosters reading and writing is one way to engage students while promoting that they reflect on the material and communicate their understanding or misconceptions of the content. In order to form a literacy-rich classroom educators need to increase the amount of time students interact with all forms of print and literacy and the classroom environment is an essential key to setting the precedent and model behaviors that will make students more successful and capable of high level learning. (Tyson, 2013)

In over twenty years of teaching elementary school I have heard a lot of discussions about teaching writing. When I was living in Texas the writing test was given to the students in the fourth grade and those teachers were expected to teach a curriculum which taught a formula style of writing. This made all the students’ writings very similar with little voice and creativity in their final product. Now the push is the Six Traits of Writing which is a very structured way of writing. There are six steps in the writing process that all the students are to follow and for some students it seems to be more of a challenge to follow each step without getting bored. As I look into the importance of education on society I cannot help but think that many theorist have influenced the development of our educational system. I reflect back to Maxine Greene’s contributions to education and her belief and theory that aesthetic education can have a profound effect on a child’s education. Maxine Greene’s philosophy was based in existentialism, which is the philosophical theory that individuals are able to determine their own development through acts of will, but she was influence greatly by John Dewey whose philosophy is based on pragmatism, which is the idea of change and your beliefs are affected by your environment. Their philosophical beliefs were different but she shared many of Dewey’s beliefs in education and she quotes him many times in her writings. Her book Releasing the

Having been homeschooled for the first twelve years of my life, I had a rather untraditional childhood. While my friends were required to go to school from 6:20 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon, I was at home studying or on a field trip to a relevant lecture or museum. Incidentally, this less rigid environment also gave me the opportunity to freely explore my own interests. Following my curiosity, I realized that the pursuit of literature was one of the most compel-ling paths I could follow. As a result, I quickly developed a fondness for reading by the age of eight. Alternatively, my desire to read also inspired me to take up writing as a semi-serious hob-by. Despite all my passion, I never took the time to learn any particular writing style besides advanced placement essay format. Instead, I developed my own through imitation and experimentation.

Over the semester, we have studied the importance of reading and writing across the essential studies curriculum. In our studies, we have analyzed 3 pieces of literature: Richard Rodriguez’s “the Achievement of Desire”, Lucille P. McCarthy’s a “A Stranger in Strange Lands”, and David R. Russell, and Arturo Yanez’s “’Big Picture People Rarely Become Historians’. We have used these 3 heavily cited and well known articles and narratives to sculpt our ideas around what the purpose of reading and writing in general education is. From the past several papers I have written, I have been able to compile a list of important characteristics from each individual studied in the texts, and have been able to devise my own theory of regarding reading and writing.

Times are changing and so too are traditional roles in diverse classrooms. No longer is writing just strictly done in the English class. Subjects are intertwining as students are connecting more and more of their worlds. Reading and writing are vital components of all subject matters, for early literacy is linked with academic achievement and beyond. Donald Graves, who many consider the founder of the Writing Workshop movement, states that writing is important because it is “a highly complex act that demands the analysis and synthesis of many levels of thinking” (Graves, 1978 p. 6). As such, in order to address the growing needs of a 21st century learner, all teachers must incorporate literacy into their present curriculum. One way to do

Learning to read and write, or getting an education in general, is something that is easily handed to us in the world today. Imagine living in a world where you were expected to be uneducated, illiterate, and stupid. In the texts “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie and “Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass, these young boys grew up in different worlds where they were looked down upon and were expected to fail due to the standards they grew accustomed to. Although Douglass and Alexie underwent contrasting hardships on their educational journey, they both shared the realization that learning to read and write was both a curse and a blessing. With those shared