Author: Maya Shaqiri

   The education narrative genre has been a pleasant genre for me to study. It introduces you to a new form of learning about studying unlike the traditional way. From what we have read so far in class the ingredients consist of specific details and stories that have happened in the past, complications and resolutions. After reading these three examples, I have been able to resonate with them since they are quite similar to the fact that I was born an immigrant and come from an immigrant family, just like all three of our writers. Our first reading Mother Tongue By Amy Tan, the author talks about her mother and the relation she has between her mother and language. I personally have a really close relationship with my mother and value our talks.  Although me and my mother communicate in three different languages we always understand each other the same way. Being an immigrant and knowing many languages is a huge plus when it comes to my writing and reading. I believe it will be really helpful and a great starting point with more of my writings in the future. When starting to write an educational narrative of my own, some concerns I would have would be if people will be able to resonate and understand it since I think we all have very unique ways of writing and understanding something. For example, in “Maybe I could save myself by writing” by Jose Olivarez he uses a lot of poetry which some people might not like or understand. In conclusion educational narrative writing is a really intresting way of writing since everyone has its own way of learning. 

The author Mike Bunn, who wrote the article “How to Read Like a Writer”  help’s college students in their new journey in reading and writing at a college level. The author starts us off with background on his life and with the quote “You are already an author”. By this he means that each and everyone of us are the author of ourselves, our story, our background. We each have our own way of writing and telling a personal story, meaning the way we write and the vocabulary we already use in our daily lives. I have many words and phrases that I use in particular from others, that I have used in things I have written. Some things I have already written are letters to my loved ones. In those very long letters I include very interesting phrases that only I use, and form paragraphs filled with my authorship. This existing expertise that I have already formed will help me in my college reading and writing career by already knowing how to articulate and express things in the most successful way for readers. There are many ways to read but one way which resonates with my personal life and my college major (architecture) are the two ways the author speaks about on page 74. He states “There are many ways to read, but generally speaking there are two ways. They correspond to the two ways in which we may be interested in a piece of architecture.”, as well as Allen Tate’s metaphor “reading as if you were an architect is a great way to think about RLW. When you read like a writer, you are trying to figure out how the text you are reading was constructed so that you learn how to “build” one for yourself.”. This example regarding architecture is really helpful to me since I have a passion for building as well as the history behind it. I will definitely use this example in my future writings. Lastly, I also noticed all the past students’ feedback and experience in college writing and reading. One that stood out to me in particular, is the way students mentioned to first consider the context of both the assignment you’re given and the text that you’re reading, before you even begin with reading. I would like to try to do this in my future writings, since i believe it will make a big difference.