Living Between Worlds by Writing

When I came to the Bronx from the Dominican Republic at age 11, the world was like a muted movie. I remember seeing people’s lips move with only a sense of a jumble of voices that I could not understand, feeling alone in a world where I could not express what I felt either. I felt like I was outside the world, behind a glass wall where I could see the world outside with its possibilities, but I lacked the key to unlock those possibilities because I lacked the language to unlock the door to those possibilities outside with linguistic possession. This semester, however, it has been the power of writing that has allowed me to break down that glass wall to enter my world outside with possession because I have reflected upon my transformation from that curious but ignorant young girl to a bilingual researcher to discover that I write to unlock a space to voice myself in a world that categorizes people according to their sound.

Participation in Genre and Rhetoric

During the semester, I started to discover and examine different genres and rhetorical situations. Although in my essay for Language Moment, I employed narratives to describe frustration of being isolated and experiencing the “split” of having Spanish-speaking home culture and an English-speaking school culture. I started to understand and apply important rhetorical terms, including utilizing pathos to allow my audience to comprehend my need to feel a sense of belonging. Transferring to writing in Research Essay, a different genre is now used: argumentative writing instead of composing a personal story. A new rhetorical principle is applied. Rather than simply describing personal experiences, writers should look for credible sources of information to validate that language barriers are an institutional problem in America.

• The Research Process & Critical Thinking
• The Research Essay was a turning point for me. The essay enabled me to investigate how language attitudes enable and oppress linguistics users. Through my studies, I discovered several crucial points:
• It’s common practice in schools to adopt English proficiency as a proxy measure of intelligence. This creates a situation where the academic expectations of immigrant children are low.
• Tracking trends can contribute to a systematic discouragement of English Learners in pursuing advanced coursework despite their capabilities.
• Linguistic Isolation in neighborhoods has been related to elevated mortality and a lack of government resource accessibility.
• Accent discrimination operates as a sorting device within the workforce, inhibiting qualified professionals from attaining positions of governance.

To substantiate my claims, I had the opportunity to apply the skills of citing by convention systematically. The MLA style of citing sources such as Zhang et al. and Alejandro & Portes helped me learn how to write passages where a stance is given along with valid sources. It was understood that my experience is part of a social issue already recorded. Digital Literacy and Revision The development of my Digital Portfolio on CUNY Academic Commons has allowed me to exploit digital technologies to reaches different audiences. I had to cultivate approaches to crafting and recrafting. I did not only write and then finalize. I refined my Language Moment, Peer Profile, and Research Essay on the basis of comments from instructors. I can demonstrate from my AI Transparency Statements that I exploited technologies as structural aids to assist me in structuring my paragraphs and enabling me to be fluent and retaining my own voice. Conclusion I have learned just how powerful it is to be bilingual, even though society may view it as a problem. Although I am still trying to improve my grammar, I have gained the skills to write and read which enable me to tackle challenging academic assignments. I have fulfilled the requirements of this course by developing from telling my own story to analyzing society from a structural point of view. Through writing, I have come to realize that my boundaries were circumscribed by my background but now stretched by my background.