Below you’ll find the cover letters for each assignment, which were called “phases” in class. While the fourth phase was a general reflection of my development in the class (self reflection on ‘Welcome’ page), these cover letters detail my experiences and thinking process for each individual assignment.

Phase 1 (Literacy Narrative)

Prior to this assignment, I had never written anything regarding my experiences. I’m generally a private person and don’t like sharing anything personal. Additionally, all of my previous English assignments for school mainly consisted of reading and analyzing texts or novels, and I usually had to reflect on the authors’ messages/themes. For the first time however, I had to reflect on my own experiences, as well as write a few pages on them (let alone speak for a couple minutes, which was nerve-wracking to say the least). When first given the prompt I wasn’t sure how I was going to answer it, nor was I sure where to start. However, after listening/reading about other people’s experiences regarding “Standard English”, I became more comfortable with the idea of sharing. The fact that the whole purpose of the assignment was to kind of “break the ice” and share our experiences with our fellow classmates, who had similar experiences, helped as well.  As they were the audience for this narrative, I didn’t feel pressured to use fancy words; common words sufficed as they were what we all understood best about the English language. Bringing items for the presentations helped as most of them were well known, and other medias such as videos or music enriched the experience and made it more relatable. I think out of what we learned so far in the class, the idea of changing your writing style to better fit your audience impacts me the most. For instance, when Amy Tan talked about going on from writing Standard English novels to ones with her “English”, I was kind of surprised that she was “allowed” to do that, as well as surprised that those books got her a lot of traction, given how most native English-speaking Americans feel about anything other than Standard English. This, along with the other texts and presentations helped me realize that there should not be a “right” or “wrong” way to speak English especially when so many people speak the “wrong” way; it doesn’t diminish the intelligence of a person. These narratives also helped me with one of the Course Objectives for this class: “Examine how attitudes towards linguistic standards empower and oppress language users.” To me, Amy Tan’s work most clearly showed how she was empowered along with being oppressed. Another narrative that helped convey this to me was from one of the class presentations. The student was talking about how they had to move frequently as their mother was something akin to a diplomat. As a child they had many negative experiences, from not speaking one language, to struggling to learn another language, to being teased for having an accent. However, they’re now able to speak English, Spanish, and Portuguese fluently, and can change their accent to the point where they’re mistaken for a native speaker. While those linguistic standards initially caused the student to have many setbacks and negative experiences, they also pushed the student to master not only one but several languages, which is very admirable. While I can’t say I understand that struggle, I do have my own struggles with English linguistic standards as you’ll see in the essay below. 

Phase 2 (Rhetorical Analysis)

I had a much easier time with this assignment compared to the Literacy Narrative. I chose to include a lot of facts in my argument and used a slideshow as it is commonly recognized for presenting facts and information. While I didn’t particularly learn anything about language in general for this phase, one of the things I learned in class was choosing what type of argument to use for particular audiences. For instance, for one of the example topics discussed in class about reducing the use of fossil fuels, someone made the point that as big companies are the ones with the strongest influence, they aren’t going to listen to points like “you’re saving the environment and making the world a better place”, or “it’s the most morally right decision”, which are geared towards individual people. To sway big corporations you’re going to have to show them how reducing the use of fossil fuels gives them an advantage, and how it directly benefits them. Usually, when listening to others advocate for this cause, I’ve almost always heard the arguments about making the world a better place or that it’s the right thing to do, but rarely arguments that will strongly appeal to big companies; the ones that have the most power to bring change. From this I learned that you’re more likely to appeal to your audience if the cause you’re talking about benefits them in any way, which I incorporated into my argument. This kind of strays from logos and leans more toward pathos, as I’m focusing more on the audience’s feelings about how the issue directly impacts them instead of just listing off facts and logical points. This somewhat correlates with the fourth course learning outcome: Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations. I was able to clearly distinguish between ethos, pathos, and logos as well as use them all efficiently to support my argument, as you’ll read below. 

Phase 3 (Researched Essay)

This essay argues for mandating paid maternity leave for the entire country of America. When writing the essay, I intended to write it for the national government and just employers in general. While a major part of this argument centers around the emotional/mental wellbeing of the workers and their families, it has become so common to use this argument that companies have most likely become desensitized to it, despite the severity of the situation. No matter how morally wrong it is to subject half the workforce to the trauma inflicted from lack of policy, companies will always focus more on things that benefit them. As a result, this essay focuses on the idea of improving wellbeing to increase productivity, as well as mentions several other effects that positively impact the company/country if they do decide to implement paid maternity leave. While I do include emotion-invoking testimony of other women’s experiences, the tone of this essay is meant to be more “cold” and formal. 

When writing the essay in general, I found it very easy to make an argument and back it up with evidence from different sources. However, I found it a little more difficult to incorporate analyses of the authors and their purposes for writing into it. I had no trouble with the analysis itself; it was more about making it seamlessly transition from the arguments and facts I made. The topic itself was easy to write about as I personally think it’s ridiculous that out of all countries the United States has no policies about paid leave. I also have family members who have struggled in the workforce (personal experience with topic) with unpaid leave, which made it easier to develop a strong argument for it. I definitely learned how to integrate analyses of authors into my writing as before I didn’t really do that, which aligns with learning outcome 4: “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations”. I was already familiar with the other learning outcomes such as looking for sources, etc, but this outcome is what I learned the most of during this phase.