Cantice & Gaiza, Threads of Similarity

 

February 18, 2015

Threads of Similarity

                In the reading from my Connections book English 1101, Your English My English by Cantice Green and Gaiza Lawson (2014) a narrative essay, the authors’ collectively discussed their experiences  of speaking in other dialogues, the similarities of the different cultures, and the different language that enhanced their lives.  The authors write of learning two distinct languages, Spanish and English,  and how the languages help them to communicate with others of their past and even today.  Cantice Green and Gaiza Lawson writes to show how they acquired their different languages in order to help others overcome the barrier between cultures.  They speak of the desire to learn another language other than  that of their native tongue.

Cantince Greene speaks on where she was raised in South Phoenix, an area mostly populated with Spanish speaking individuals, and where she first desired to study the Spanish language.  As the ambassador of the high school class, she emphasized the importance of linguistics.  Cantice Green goes on to inform us of how the different dialogues came to past from the bible.  She speaks on how different cultures she encountered in her life shared different but yet similar lifestyles.  Cantice found as teenagers being around other cultures, they all like to dance all night and listen to pop music and singing out loud to the music on the radio.

Gazia Lawson tell a story of coming from a small country call Togo in West Africa.  In Africa this is where each country has different tribes, and each tribe speaks a different language within their community.   He writes of how his continent has a colonial language which is French and English, this is where they all can understand each other across Africa. Gazia Lawson said that learning a different language for him was a difficult task, but with determination any one can succeed.  He expressed, by him learning the English language, it helped him communicate his emotions, his feelings and his thoughts.  English helped Gazia Lawson to express his views on religion, his tradition , and how the political environment works in Africa compared to the United States.  Learning the English language helped him to educate others on the lifestyles of his African people.

The two Authors believe that learning a new diverse language is a great benefit that would allow doors of opportunities to open by helping inform, educate and assist other cultures understand each other.

Richard Wright

February 19, 2015

           

The Eye Opening Readings of Richard Wright

            In this mind changing personal essay by Richard Wright (1945) from Connections Book, English 1101, Richard Wright explains that how trips to the library became eye opening experience for him, changed his way of thinking, and allowed him to want a better life for himself.   Richard Wright expressed an era of time when a black individual was treated less than human and reading was prohibited by blacks.  He writes about how he would have to degrade himself in order to remain humble after gaining knowledge from the books he read.   Richard Wright wrote this essay to inform: black males like himself, white males with hate of other races, and the younger generations of future times that reading is power. 

            Richard Wright provides an informative essay which describes the early 19th Century era when black the Jim Crow laws in the south was highly expressed.  The senseless killing of blacks, slavery, and lynching’s were at an all time high.  The essay explains how Richard Wright acquired the desire to read by reading an article in the news paper of H I Mencken, a white author, hated by other whites.  He wanted to know how a white man could be hated as much by other whites as a black man.  This was the flame which sparked a burning desire to read; he had to read H I Mencken book.  With his job giving him access to the library and sizing up his coworkers, he acquired a library card from a co-worker, by using the co-worker’s wife name, and began checking out books to read.  The words of HI Mencken was gas to the fire, Richard Wright had never read such style, clear, clean and fighting with words.  He stated that these words were used like a weapon.  His eyes was seeing more clearly now within the world he lived.  The more he read, the more obsessed he became to want to read more books.  He knew he had to change his living environment or die.

            Richard Wright’s thoughts, now after reading books, gaining knowledge and getting a better understanding of how the blacks were treated in the south opposed to the north, he had no other option but to impose his knowledge on his family and set plans to save money to pursue a better life in the northern states.                                                                                                 

 

           

 

 

 

Dorothy Allison - Context

                                                       

 

February 3, 2015            

                                           

                                                                  CONTEXT

                                                                   

This Rhetorical Reading Response  “Context” by Dorothy Allison, (1994) a personal essay from the Connections book describes how the author, Dorothy Allison, looks back at her past that shows the differences between privileged, rich, or financially stable people versus less fortunate or poor people.  She recalls more than 10 years ago when she decides to take her lover to meet her family.   Dorothy Allison reflects back on the long drive, the stops in different cities along the way in order to stall for time and her concerns of how her lover would react to such a diverse culture of people.  Dorothy Allison wants the readers to visualize her past and take a glance at how the Context of her life impacted her as a child and how being judged by her life style caused embarrassment.

She wrote this essay to show people that not everyone is the same and nor does everyone have the same struggles.  Dorothy’s intended audience is anybody that has been through pain and can relate to her story.  The use of the words “my lover” within the essay was used by Dorothy as reference to her significant other.  This story really gets you to use context clues when reading for better comprehension. Her word choice allows you to see her emotion that she was feeling when it came to her spouse meeting her family.

            In a time when people were so easily judgmental of each other, Dorothy Allison looks back over 10 years and beyond of her life.  She thought about how such things as  color of your skin, the types of different life styles you lived “gay or straight”, and the class of wealth you had “deprived or more privileged” caused you to be judged harshly by others.  Because of the uncertainties of what the outcome may bring to her relationship, she recalls the road trip to take her lover to meet her family and the stops along the way to stall for time.   Dorothy Allison remembers as a child being deprived and how her mean tempered step father was judged by the store owner who stared at her family as they browsed the store, with no intentions of buying anything.   Lastly, she reflects back on how she felt then and even to this day.

Mary Lamb - Connections

27 January 2015

In response to Reading and Writing Connections

           In Mary R. Lamb book, “Reading and Writing Connection” (2014): Academic Writing Begins with Reading, she compares the difference between  skim reading and slow reading; she states that skim reading is reading only the information you want, while slow reading is analyzing the information and identifying the writer`s motive.  In this section, she teaches you the different layouts, rhetorical strategies, writings styles and word choices in creating a good essay.  In order to capture the learner’s attention and give him the resources to write a perfect paper, the author uses different inserts from various authors such as John Beam “Effective Writing Begins with a Perception of a Problem”.  In addition, the section “Connecting to Genre” provides the reader or learner with the knowledge of fiction and non-fiction materials and explains the different types of papers written such as expository paper and argumentative paper.

We are intrigued by the way the author Mary Lamb gathers the data and compiles it from several sources so that the reader can learn with understanding.

 According to Mary Lamb, the third type of paragraph is critical thinking which comes after the Précis and the RRR or Rhetorical Reading Response.  She describes the styles of paragraph writing, the MLA and APA formats, creating a thesis, designing formats and reflecting on what you have wrote.  The thesis contains the main idea along with the topic sentences and three major topics that relates to the main idea.  The three major topics allow the essay to transition from one paragraph to the next.  The RRR, Rhetorical Reading Response, allows you to reflect on what you have read or written and revised.  The analytical paragraph is the meat and the gravy of the essay and captures the audience’s attention by providing your audience a good read.  Lastly, do not forget to include citations in your essay so that you may give credit where credit is due. 

 Mary Lamb captures her audience’s attention by not only her own instructions to writing a paragraph but the teaching of several authors who inspired her teachings.  She connects the different thoughts and ideas of other instructional writers such as Christina Haas, Linda Flower, Kenneth Bruffee, (84)(85) of “Connections Book”.  Mary Lamb allows the authors to enhance her teaching by describing topics such as:  Connecting to Genre through Reading” which discuss the different types of writing[JL1]   such as (text book, editorial, blog, novel, short story or even a poem” and Connecting to Writing through Reading(84) which allows you to engage in rhetorical reading for analyzing the context of what is being read.  Finally, she describes the different between fiction and non-fiction, purpose and context for the reader to learn the techniques of writing.