I chose the article Aria by Richard Rodriquez for
this week which was a way nicer read the Delpit last week!! Granted I’ve been
at swim Championships all weekend so it took me a while to grasp it through all
the cheers and races. But I still liked it a lot better than the last one J
This week I decided to do the argument point because I think
there was a strong argument that Rodriquez made on the last page of his
article. This author argues that “children lose a degree of ’individuality’ by
becoming assimilated into public society.” (38) Rodriquez talks about how when
he was a boy (or at least I think it’s about him) the nuns at his school told
his Spanish speaking parents that they needed to learn English to help him do
better in school. Rodriquez talks about it made him lose touch with his
heritage and his family. His family began to talk to each other less as they
became more Americanized and as his father struggled to learn the new language
he began to talk and interact less and less with his family. Rodriquez talks
about how it is great to feel like an individual in what he calls the “public
society” or the English speaking society but that you lose sight of your
individuality in your “private” life. At least I think that’s what he’s saying
about how to be accepted into society you have to give up a part of who you are
and where you’re from.
I know in the classroom I'm working in this semester is an ESL classroom which is actually very challenging for me because I only ever retained the colors and months in Spanish so I found a website that has a lot of helpful tips to work with students who speak different languages.
Also sorry this is late I was at a swim competition all weekend and there was zero WiFi (which is dumb because we were at a college) and when I got home at like 1 am last night my computer wasn't working and so I had to take it to Best Buy today and they did all this work on it just to tell me I needed a new charger for it and ugh it was ridiculous! But here it is!!
I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that you have to give up a part of yourself to be accepted by society. Unfortunately, there's a standard set of "rules" that society has created for acceptance and normalcy in the world. I'm glad you talked about the loss of private individuality versus the acquisition of public individuality, because that's what I got out of this article too. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteI think it's really cool that you guys are working with ESL kids and from what you all tell us in class it has made me want to experience it myself so that I know how to handle a situation like that. I thought your post was really good, I agree with you when you say that he didn't want to loose sight of his private identity when opening up to his public one. Great job!
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