Peer Workshop

ASSIGNED QUESTIONS

1.In your opinion, what is the biggest strength of this paper?

2.What global errors do you see in this paper?

3.What local errors do you see in this paper?

4.What is your overall opinion of this paper?

Writing Identity My literacy history has been a very rocky road. I was born in Riverside however my family and I moved to Mexico and lived there for 2 years meaning Spanish was my first language. When we came back I only spoke Spanish so it was very difficult to understand my teachers especially doing assignments that required me to write. Something that impacted me and made me determined to develop my literacy was a spelling bee contest. Mostly everyone around me was practicing the worksheet filled with words I was not yet to comprehend or pronounce. This worksheet was broken down into 3 parts of difficulty and I couldn’t get past level 1 without needing help. I was too embarrassed to ask for help because I felt ashamed I couldn’t spell out the word ‘butterflies’ which was the “easiest” as my classmates said. This event pushed me to expand my vocabulary and I started to read books with my brother's friend and she would stop and make me spell out the words until I said it correctly. I also had trouble with pronunciation which I am still struggling with despite knowing the definition. Just like in the autobiography Learning to Read written by Malcolm X, I would go to the library and check out books so I can expand my vocabulary and also learn new words. Malcolm X stated “I’d never realized so many many words existed! I didn’t know which words I needed to learn” (120). When Malcolm was beginning to expand his usage of words he started to understand the book and the storyline and not just bits and pieces. I related to this due to me reading and expanding my knowledge of words and I also began to understand what my assignments and teachers asked from me. I started to practice the spelling bee paper a while later and I proceeded to level two which encouraged me to keep going. In fifth grade I needed to write a story about a topic I do not recall but I just kept writing and using details to describe objects and some words I used were above my grade level and I realized that practicing and reading weekly really improved my writing skills as well. Fast forward to my freshman year in highschool where I was able to read and write in English just as any other student would be which was great until I realized I was so focused on improving in English I began to fall behind in my writing in Spanish. I spoke mostly Spanish at home but when it came to writing I couldn’t even text my mom which was frustrating at times. This led me to pick Spanish Speakers 1 as one of my classes. There was plenty I didn’t know and it made me feel like I did when I was trying to improve my English. Like Malcom X once did I wrote sentences repeatedly and studied them until I understood why the words were written that way. Once I passed that class I went into Spanish Speakers 11 and repeated the steps again but this time it was different since we had to speak Spanish the whole class period which made me speak with confidence. This made me realize that I was able to write and read both languages well enough. In the article How to Tame a Wild Tongue, by Anzaldua, Gloria, states “...-a language with terms that are neither espanol ni ingles, but both. We speak a patios, a forked tongue, a variation of two languages” (3). Writing is a big part of life since it is an everyday task from texting to writing an essay for school. I write almost every day and everyday I learn a new word that I didn’t before and this expands my writing skills. I may always have trouble with pronouncing words in both languages but I do my best to improve this and improve my literacy skills so in the future I can write a whole essay about a reading without having to use google for help. These events have taught me that there will always be something that holds us back but what we do about it is what matters.