Recounting My First Year
Language throughout time has evolved immensely and will only continue further. Peering into different worlds and not just countries, even states will show how language continues to grow and evolve with the community. Beginning freshman composition, I truly only took into account my own proficiency level and those around me as New York has such a tight, yet diverse community of people. Throughout the course, exposure to so many different writing styles, verbal communication, and forms of media, I was able to learn how much the subject matter of language could impact a person’s life. New information I will use in not only my future writing, but in my overall understanding of language is that heritage plays a crucial role in a person’s social literacy status, academic writing does not have to adhere to a standard English, incremented writing improves the overall quality of work, and emotion can be expressed both through reading and media, not just physically.
Acknowledging the large exposure to culture that I have already as a born and raised New Yorker, I have still been able to see the large gap in social literacy status with people of color, specifically families with immigrant members, compared to their white counterparts. Even as celebrated the diversity in New York is, one is able to see almost a hierarchy created to conserve power from immigrating families. The assignment of the Rhetorical Situation Worksheet analyzing Mother Tongue by Amy Tan allowed me to see that, “Growing up, Tan would see how her mother would be treated for not having the dialect of the arbitrary “correct English”…leading to Tan instinctively calling her own mothers form of English “broken” although she was able process and create complex thoughts.” Language was her only barrier.
Acknowledging the similar feelings I felt growing up with an immigrant mother as well, Tan’s writing greatly impacted the path I followed in writing my Language and Literacy Narrative essay. Throughout the writing process I, like Tan, expressed how much of a struggle it is for immigrant parents to properly show their level of intelligence due to the structural English of America. How I personally expressed my personal experience was recounting, “Most times a 17 year-old doesn’t know funeral jargon, causing me to turn around towards my mother and say “yo no sé” but “I don’t know” is no longer sufficient when you have become the new person of authority.” While expressing a similar sentiment, I was able to conclude how immigrant families face the issue on a large scale, focusing on that social literacy status while also acknowledging methods of improvement to not repeat the struggle that children of immigrant parents have to face just like Tan and I.
Taking what I first learned from freshman composition, I was able to broaden my comprehension of different dialects that do not specifically exist to satisfy a standard or uniform English. Working on the assignment Marshall: Reading Response allowed me to see an academic piece of writing which expressed, “Many minorities, especially people of color, tend to feel like they need a certain amount of fixing they need to do in order to be good for everyone else.” As the writing specifically spoke of Marshall and his experience with having a different form of English compared to his peers, I was able to interpret from his writing that the experience he shares is not only exclusive to him as a writer, but to people of color in general with reading, speech, and comprehension. Taking my understanding, my Translation 1 Presentation was influenced. Although my translation was not the same as the argument described by Marshall, I still built on the idea of an accepted form of language, scripting, “At the time, I did not know why I felt so disconnected from everyone around me, but looking back I now realize how close minded Latin culture is.” I was able to build on the idea of cultures having a standard that others have to adhere to including language, appearance, and mannerisms. Connecting to Marshall, there should not be a standard form of language, it blocks self expression and growth as an individual.
Although Marshall had a great influence on my presentation, it was not the only piece impacting the slides and writing I presented. Presented in class, media can be used alongside writing to help further deliver an intended message. Seeing and differentiating forms of media influenced me to not only share a writing piece created, but also a visual slide show to allow a full mental and visual idea of the intended message I was communicating. Creating the slideshow to align with my writing, I added only images and moving images in an attempt to add visual aid while also giving a small bit of humor to a personal bad experience. In order to ensure the writing I created, as someone with dyslexia, was written correctly and as clearly as possible, the incremented writing pieces submitted before the final piece allowed me to focus on a single section at a time to translate the story from my memory onto both writing and slides. Adding a brainstorm before the beginning of writing allowed me to find a multitude of ideas that could then be further built upon or combined. The slides and lessons with information largely impacted my style of writing.
Before freshman composition, I found myself writing very repetitive long essays, only citing pieces of text written before even the birth of my parents, quickly forgetting what I was supposed to learn. Throughout the course, contrary to my high school experience, I was able to genuinely see a growth and an expansion in expression when it came to my writing. The new skills acquired and the connection created to pieces of texts will be used for not only academic writing in the future, but even something as simple as journaling or writing a letter. I felt truly impacted by freshman composition.
Works Cited:
Belduma, Kimberly. Language and Literacy Narrative Final Draft for Portfolio. 10 November 2025.
Belduma, Kimberly. Marshall: Reading Response. 29 September 2025.
Belduma, Kimberly. Rhetorical Situation Worksheet. 8 September 2025.
Belduma, Kimberly. TRANSLATION 1 PRESENTATIONS, DAY 1. 6 October 2025
