Unit 1

My College Essay:

    When I was little, I didn’t have a care in the world. I would run out of the house barefoot to jump around in puddles and mud. Mostly mud. I wore mix-matched clothes that didn’t go well together. Some days I wore striped shirts with polka-dotted leggings, and I thought I was the prettiest girl in the world. I rarely brushed my hair, claiming that it wasted too much time. Even with mud up to my thighs and knots at the roots of my hair, I never found a reason to not smile. I spent the days outside with my sister, playing make-believe, and my only fear was not hearing my mother when she’d stick her head outside and call us in for dinner. All of this quickly changed the day I walked into first grade and realized that all my friends had the same favorite color, but it wasn’t my favorite color. I was told that blue wasn’t a girl color, and only boys were allowed to like it. This was the first time that I remember feeling insecure. 
    As I got older and advanced to middle school my insecurity rose greatly, but it wasn’t because of childish things like favorite color. Middle school was the time that friend groups were formed and kids became mean. Girls in my class often made fun of my clothing, which was odd to me at first because I never saw clothes as something to be insecure about. But there I stood, very hurt that my clothes weren’t good enough for them. My black leggings and grey t-shirts were cheap and the only things that my mother could find to fit my chubby 10-year-old body. I started to realize then that I was different from the girls in my class. I was noticeably bigger than them, and I felt like everyone else around me saw it too.
    I struggled with being insecure of my physical appearance for a very long time. I started setting alarms at five o’clock in the morning to wake up early, before school, to exercise. I created a routine with the exercise equipment we had at home, and I stuck with it for almost an entire year. I had tried so hard to lose weight, but to my dismay there were little to no results after almost a full year. I was discouraged and ashamed of myself, and my comfort became food. During this time of my life, I didn’t leave my house. I barely went outside; I’d lay in my bed and listen to music all day. I didn’t talk to my friends much, so I sadly lost a great few. I slowly came out of this dark time when I realized that self-pitying wasn’t going to change anything. I stopped eating excessively and created new habits that I thought would help me. I began drawing again, something that had always brought joy in my life. Drawing helped me take all my negative emotions, slap them down on paper, and turn them into some of my most cherished pieces. 
    Today, I’m drawing almost every day. Creating always calms me down, whether it’s a little doodle on the side of my paper or a charcoal portrait. My talent in art has made me realize that everyone is different. Not everyone has the strengths I have, and I don’t have the strengths that they have. Everyone is breathtakingly unique, and we all should be proud of ourselves. I take every day one step at a time, and with these little realizations I learn to accept myself more and more. I’ve come to terms with who I am, and I continue to push myself to be my best self. I’m striving to be who I want to be, and I know I’m almost there. I’m content with where I am, physically and mentally, and I couldn’t be any more happier.

My Unit One Project:

Literacy: The Good, The Bad, The Misunderstood

I find it very disappointing that I’ve been in school for over twelve years and I have just learned, in my final year, the true meaning behind literacy. Before, I merely knew what the word meant. I would often hear it in my English classes, but I never fully grasped the concept of it. It was one of those terms that many assumed that you already knew, and just moved on from the topic without bothering to ask any questions. After reading many articles, essays, and watching Ted Talks, I have finally found myself understanding the concept of literacy, and being able to go deeper with it in this unit. Being literate, or having literacy, means more than just comprehending or understanding the piece of literature in front of you. Literature goes beyond essays and books, and as expected in this ever-changing world, the different types of literature are fastly growing. Spoken language, texts, blogs, and so much more are great examples of different types of literature. With many ways of literature, there are multiple literacies as well. There is more than one way to understand the literature you’re taking in or analyzing. There is more than one way of speaking and writing a language, especially knowing that many challenge the standard way of them. For that reason specifically, I have learned that literacy often divides communities and nations.

When many people, such as myself, are born to very opinionated families, it can be hard to see the other side of things. My family is much older than others’; my father is already in his late sixties. Because of that, at least sometimes, the way that my family thinks isn’t the best or the most accepted way to think in this current time. I’ve come to realize that it’s hard to change the opinions and mindsets of those who have been thinking those things for a very long time. To my disappointment, I have seen my family judge others for the way that they speak English. I felt divided in a way from many groups of people. I was exposed to negativity like this at a young age, and I never tried to understand why people spoke differently than the way my family did. As I grew up, I strayed away from their negativity on my own. I began to question as much as I could to understand things that they refused to.Why people spoke the same language differently became clear to me. Many people come from different places and backgrounds. Just because English was my first language, does not mean that English was theirs. 

But what about the people who were born here, that had English as their first language, and still speak it differently? This unit has shed light on this question for me. These people speak English differently because of their different cultures, ancestry or family’s origins. They speak versions of English that challenge the standard English because it wasn’t the first language of their ancestors. Their accents, tongues, and mannerisms were carried down by their lineages. For many cases, their languages were taken from them, as America a long time ago captured and stole many people from their native homes. “[They] had to borrow [our] language because [theirs] was stolen. [We] can’t expect [them] to speak our history holy while [theirs] is broken” (Lyiscott, “3 Ways to Speak English”).  These mannerisms are one of the only pieces of ancestry that many have left to hold on and cherish.  

Many fear that they will be judged for speaking English with their native tongue. They “either hide [their] original word habits, or [they] completely surrender [their] own voice, hoping to please those who will never respect anyone different from themselves” (Jordan 1). They fear that they will be deemed inferior because many have taken a single story, stereotypes “[that] make one story the only story” (Adichie, “The Danger of a Single Story”), of these intelligent people and used it to degrade them. The truth is that the people who refuse to understand them, and their language, are the illiterate ones. People who challenge the standard English language and those who speak English brokenly, but know other languages, are brilliant because they understand the complexity and diversity of multiple languages. We need to stray away from single stories, because they truthfully are dangerous and continue to cause division within our communities/nations. All forms of English are vital to our diverse nation, and denying their brilliance is and will always be ignorant of us. 

Works Cited

Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. The Danger of a Single Story. [Ted Talk] 2009 https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en

Jordan, June. Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan.     Harvard Educational Review; August 1988

Lyiscott, Jamila. 3 Ways to Speak English. [Ted Talk] 2014

https://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english