Welcome to my word press website, here you’ll find various pieces written by me from the past semester

When it comes to literacy, progress is something one always looks for. The definition of progress is to move towards a certain goal, and my goal throughout the semester has been to improve my rhetorical analysis skills and other writing techniques with the help of writing strategies as well as meet the course learning objectives. This portfolio showcases my development as a writer from the very first writing piece to the last. One of my earliest works is my autobiography, here I spoke about the many events during my lifetime that have shaped me to be the person I am today. I met two-course learning objectives which consisted of utilizing rhetorical strategies and situations in order to narrate the events that occurred from birth to the current time. Some of the rhetorical situations I used were identifying the purpose, audience, and context. The purpose of my autobiography was to inform the reader about my life. The audience was the general public that was not aware of my personal experiences and the context/topic was on key moments of my life that influenced my upbringing. This was depicted all throughout my paper such as when I spoke about my birth story, my father, my self-love journey, etc. The rhetorical strategies I used were narration as I narrated my life in first person POV. I also used descriptive examples such as, “I don’t remember the moment I came out of my mother’s tummy, but I do know I was born at approximately 10:34 am by emergency c-section at Lincoln hospital in the Bronx.” I  incorporated pathos to evoke empathy in my readers. This was naturally applied when I narrated the moment I found out my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. I spoke about how this information was “the scariest news my family has ever received” and how that started “my fears of losing my dad” I believe this story to be a touching one. Obviously, most of the people reading my autobiography won’t be able to relate, but this doesn’t mean that empathy won’t be evoked.

The second writing piece I selected for my portfolio was “what resonates with me from mother tongue” by Amy Tan. This also connects to one of my rhetorical analysis assignments, Phase 2 part 1. In this piece, I list and analyze a couple of the rhetorical strategies I found throughout mothers tongue. Pathos is one of the strategies used by Tan that also showcased an additional course learning objective examining how linguistic standards can empower but also oppress language users.  In her text Tan talks about how “her mother struggles a lot with the language barrier. Not so much because they can’t understand her but more because of the inconvenience it causes them.” as stated in my “what resonates with me from mother tongue” paper. This ties into pathos because it evokes emotion in the reader especially if you are someone that comes from a minoritized population in the U.S. where English is not your first language.  In my phase 2 part 1 paper I also stated, “It saddens me to see that many people are treated differently, as though they either don’t speak English at all or speak broken English when 9 times out of 10 these people weren’t given the opportunity to do better.” This correlates to the idea of linguistic standards oppressing language users as the lack of resources and support can hinder their language development. I believe that my usage of pathos has improved throughout the course of writing these 2 writing pieces. Amy Tan’s illustration of her mother’s experience in a country that differs from her linguistically, has helped me acknowledge the use of pathos and thus, how to strengthen it in my own writing.  

The following writing piece is my “Language and literary essay”, the criteria I met were course learning objectives 1-5. I spoke about how my gained experience with language has allowed me to feel empowered about myself and how being bilingual is also one of those aspects,  as stated here “I can definitely say that the confidence I’ve gained because of my experience with language, has helped better my character development throughout the years. Knowing that I can depend on my speech skills to navigate myself through the world is one of the greatest parts of being bilingual ”. My use of rhetorical situations through the form of imagery allows the reader to envision some of the life experiences mentioned in the text. One of them in particular was my first day of preschool, I state“ After all, the environment I was placed in was meant to cater to my needs, with building blocks in every corner, a colorful rug in the center of the classroom, and picture books waiting to be picked up” . I also was able to engage with multiple audiences throughout my writing. At one point I focused on how my accent is something that demonstrates not only where I grew up but also my heritage so this could resonate with both people that were born/raised in New york and others that grew up in a dominican household. I believe that this piece has improved compared to my autobiography because i do more into details about certain things that may be confusing to the general public like for example when i talk about “dominican” spanish  “(the quotations around the world “Dominican” are used to showcase how diverse the Spanish language can be; such as its slang, dialect, etc)”.

Both my phase 2 parts 2 & 3 correlate to each other as part 3 is a summary/rhetorical analysis of part 2. In my phase 2 part 2, the argument I chose was cheating and its effects on people but before that, I speak about the things that I did in this text that showed some kind of improvement in my writing, “In this phase, I learned how to structure my writing to better execute my use of rhetorical strategies to evoke specific kinds of emotion in the reader. I have learned to be more intentional and how to efficiently convey my writing goals”. I also spoke about how since “ I’ve been drafting a little more often the act now comes quicker to me”. So this means that writing in general has become easier with my earned experience from this semester. In my text I hoped to provoke pathos in the reader but not in the same way I did it in my previous writing pieces. I decided that instead of evoking empathy I would make the reader feel guilty about their actions(since this piece was targeted towards cheaters). In doing so I give them a different perspective on the subject. “Imagine being completely in love with someone, so in love that you’re close to the point where you would do just about anything for this person,  and just as you are having these thoughts you get a call from someone claiming to have slept with your significant other. Now how do you think that would make YOU feel”? This is an upgraded take on pathos in my writing because guilt is a deeper level of emotion than empathy is since you feel it towards yourself and not other people. Phase 2 part 3 explains the audience and the genre I chose for part 2. My audience was cheaters and the genre I chose was a blog I decided on these two things because since my topic was cheating I felt as though a blog was the correct as to get my point across and my use of sarcasm and maybe even exaggeration are both characteristics found in blogs, and who better to speak about cheating with than the cheaters themselves. I thought, maybe I could make a difference.  Finally, we have reached my last writing piece in this “researched essay” where I speak about women’s rights and the gender bias between women and men around the world. In this essay, I touch on course learning objectives 2-8. I was able to locate academic journal articles, and newspaper articles with the help of CCNYS library’s database which allowed me to evaluate those sources for credibility. Some of the articles I found were Girls education: facts and how to help by (June 2021) Jasmine Owen, “In India, poverty, and lack of education are associated with men’s physical and sexual abuse of their wives” (Mar 2000) Gerstein, L. and “Understanding Economic Abuse Through an Intersectional Lens”  (Feb 2019) by Sundari Anitha. And I analyzed. I understand the growth that had been made in this essay and throughout the rest of the semester, I believe that this class has allowed to me use rhetoric to better my writing and the that this improvement will help me in the courses that I may take during my college career.