Author: milennyalmanzar

Migrating to a new country shaped me as a person and definitely had an impact on my education. In 2016 I moved to the United States with my family from the Dominican Republic. It was an entirely new way of living and a complete change in school education. Before I started school, people like family and friends who lived here would tell my parents that school in New York was chaos. That “the education system is not safe.” That students could do whatever they wanted to and were not always supervised. This created a lot of fear, especially in my mother, who we can call a very protective parent. She always was very attentive to me and strict. Of course, my parents thought that I would change my values because of other people to fit into a new environment. Some people told my parents I would get “lost”. “La niña se va a perder aquí, va a cambiar.” Because of this, my parents always gave me lectures about it. About the values they taught me and that they wanted me to continue on the path I was going.

Honestly, before moving here, I did not really understand why I put effort into my education. I was just doing well in school because that was what my parents wanted. When I started school here, I felt rewarded for my efforts and wanted to be better every day. It was even more competitive. I started to change my view on my education and career. At this point, I gained knowledge because I liked it and not anymore because I had to. I was one of the best in my grade and continued being who I was, leaving back those prejudices that people imposed. I graduated High School with honors and I am now pursuing a degree in the Arts. I remember in 8th grade the summer before high school started. My family was in a taxi and we were going to eat. My father was talking to the driver about the economy. My father turns around, points at me, and says: “Start forgetting about college and think about finding a job. Hispanic people are not able to go to college in New York.” That was the day I decided to give my best and accomplish things for myself because I knew I deserved it.

The “ingredients” of an education narrative can include personal life experiences and anecdotes that shape and mark a person in their life, opinions on topics, and how this journey impacts a person’s identity. Everyone comes from different backgrounds and we go through different life journeys. This makes everyone have a different experience when it comes to education. Some of us are immigrants and this has an impact on our education. As an immigrant, I could relate to the education narratives we have read. All the anecdotes that the authors have shared have shaped their identity. Writing has enabled them to understand situations that we immigrants and people of color go through.

For my education narrative, a good place to get started would be writing about where I come from and the values my parents have taught me in terms of education. For example, I can start writing about how my mother being a teacher had an impact on my education, as well as how my parents always tried to make me one of the best students at school, which also affected my experience with education. Then, I could write about my experience moving to the United States and adapting to a new educational system. When my family moved to this country, they were scared of the education system. People would tell them things that are not necessarily always true and try to scare them. I demonstrated to those people that these things do not always happen if you are dedicated and do your best. Those are some of the things I can incorporate into my education narrative.

As of now, I do not have any questions regarding education narratives.

Mike Bunn expresses in his article that “You are already an author”. Bunn means that we, as readers, develop our writing skills as we read a form of writing. While reading, we can learn about the author’s choices that they made for their writing and learn about techniques that you can use in your own writing. These techniques can help you connect more to your writing yourself, as well as other readers. An example seen in the text is when the author describes in detail the building in which he worked. He illustrates The Palace as “a beautiful red brick, four-story theatre” in the heart of London’s famous West End. This is a great example of a choice he made as a writer and we, as readers, can learn from it. This means that as we read, we are already becoming authors. I already write a lot of things in my everyday life. Writing is a crucial form of communication that I need every day to communicate. I communicate with my friends, family, and myself through writing. Even through texting, writing is important. Even texts have tones and the words that you choose can impact others. Besides communicating with others, I also use writing to communicate with myself. Every night I write in my journal. I to myself about my feelings, and write positive affirmations. This helps me connect with myself and feel more motivated. Besides communication, I also use my writing for daily to-do lists. This helps me keep track of the things I need to do in advance and not get behind. This will help me in my college reading and writing career to stay organized with my thoughts. Since I like to keep track of my ideas in writing, I will be able to annotate them in my notebook so that in the future I know what I want to write about and have my ideas ready. I will also be able to use my annotation skills to better understand other people’s writing and learn more writing techniques. 

A good writing technique I would like to incorporate into my own writing is to ask questions to the readers. For example, Bunn states: “I started asking, how—how did the writer get me to feel, how did the writer say something so that it remains in my memory when many other things too easily fall out.” Using questions in your writing can help readers and writers learn more about themselves and see how they would manage a situation.