Isela Pena

Professor Vanessa Doutherd

English 5M
19 November 2017
Two Different Readings

According to Elizabeth Wardle and Doung Downs, the text Writing about Writing
...asks students to work from their own experience to consider how writing works, who they are
as writers, and how they use (and dont use) writing. (Downs and Wardle v). Therefore, if an
outsider considers the readings from this course they would learn about themselves as a writer
and how their backgrounds have an affect on their literacy. Likewise, readings from this course
also offer skills students can learn and then transfer to their own writings. (Downs and Wardle v-
vi). Although it is important to understand how a person's background and community shapes
their literacy, it is more important to consider the types of readings that provide writing skills.
For this reason, units within this book What Counts as Good Writing and Understanding and
Applying Rhetoric are more important than What Contributes to My History as a Reader and
Writer?
The first unit in this course from Writing about Writing is What Contributes to My
History as a Reader and Writer?, and discusses the importance and role a community has on a
persons literacy. According to Deborah Brant who is an author within this unit, she states that
sponsors can be older relatives, teacher, priests, supervisors, military officers, editors, or
influential authors. (Brant 47) Furthermore, Brant states that some literacy sponsors [can be]
organizations or institutions, like a public system or a major corporation, whose sponsorship
affects large numbers of people. (Brant 44) This demonstrates how these sponsors are part of a
community who can make a difference in a person's literacy. Therefore, it is important for
readers to be aware of who the sponsors are because they may become sponsors to others as well.
For example it may be important for a student who is considering becoming a teacher to
understand how their role can impact students lives. The teacher would eventually influence a
student's ability to know how to read and write that will have an impact on students future
literacy. Furthermore, this reading shows how a person's sponsor can affect their future (Brant
52) For this reason, it is important for a community to be able to sponsor people's literacy. For
example, if a school doesn't have good sponsors, it would greatly affect students literacy and
would cause many to struggle in school. This lack of sponsorship will greatly affect students
literacy for the future and possibly make them fall behind. For this reason, it is important for
readers to know how people in a community can affect others literacy. If readers know the
difference sponsors can make in a person's literacy, it will make them as sponsors themselves
become better sponsors.
In addition, Brants reading allows reader to see how a person's background affects
people's literacy. Brant states that poor people and those from low-case racial groups have less
consistent, less politically secured access to literacy sponsors (Brant 49) Brant tries to point
out how people who are minorities or poor are put at a disadvantage. This is shown by
comparing two people where one was a minority and the other was not. Brant demonstrates how
a multilingual person has to work harder in order to get literate. Another important reading from
this unit that shows this is How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Anzaldua Gloria. Anzaldua states
that being Chicana sometimes makes people feel embarrassed or uncomfortable. (Anzaldua 58)
The author also stated, that speaking her native language would get her in trouble and would
often be judged. It is important for readers to see how a person's background affects the way
people are viewed. Being chicana affected their literacy because they had to adapt to other
writing expectations. Since the course focuses on ML students it's important for people
considering to take this course to see examples/stories of other ML students and their struggles.
On the other hand, reading Shitty First Drafts by Anne Lamott is one of the most
important readings from the second unit What Counts as Good Writing? that students
considering this class should read. In this article, Lamott makes readers realize how all writers
struggle with writing. The author shares a writing process after writing a shitty first draft such as
... sit[ting] down, go[ing] through it all with a colored pen, tak[ing] out everything [she]
possibly could, find a new lead somewhere on the second page, figure out a kicky place to end it,
and then write a second draft.(Lamott 530) Reading this article allows reader to see how writing
a shity first draft is not bad after all. Many students struggle when writing and tend to writes a
shitty first draft; however, Lamott demonstrates how no matter how long and bad peoples first
draft may seem, they can always go back and do all the things mentioned above. Lamott
demonstrates the process of what doing a good writing is like such as 1. Doing a shitty draft, 2.
Fixing the first shitty draft and finally 3. The final draft where people fix the last errors.
Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitive Analysis of
Writers Block by Mike Rose is another important reading from this unit students should
consider. This reading changes students perspective on writing rules; in fact, Rose discusses that
having less rigid rules can be better. Rose states that student experience writer's block because
they are trying to stick to the writing rules that ultimately affect their writings instead of helping.
(Rose 534) This shows that people who experience writer's block usually tend to use writing
rules. Seeing how writing rules affect people's writing will allow them to move away from the
rules and realize that the writing rules students learn are not always very useful and can even
have a negative affect when writing.
In conclusion unit What Contributes to My History as a Reader and Writer? has two
reading that do not benefit readers who are considering taking this course. The readings
Sponsors of Literacy and How to tame a Wild Tongue discusses how a person's background
and community shapes their literacy. Although it is good to know this information, these
readings are not as important because it doesn't teach writing skills student can then transfer to
their own writings. In contrast, units What Counts as Good Writing and Understanding and
Applying Rhetoric has many reading that would greatly benefit a student considering this
course. The readings from these units provides readers with writing skills and things writers
should do to create successful writings.This course requires a lot of writing assignments;
therefore, it is important for students to consider readings that teaches writing skills rather than
general information. Reading these assignments will not only benefit students for this class but
others as well. The readings from these units offer many writing skills that can be transferred
into their own writings for this and other classes as well. These reading will have a long term
effect and could benefit students writings unlike the reading from the first unit.

Work Cited
Wardle, Elizabeth, and Douglas Downs. Writing about Writing: A College Reader. 2nd ed.,
Macmillan Higher Education, 2014.

Revision Summary
 After looking at my peers revisions and reading my outline again, I have gone back and
made some changes. First of all, one of the obvious things that I changed for my second draft
was converting the outline format to essay format. After this I looked back at this essays
requirements and tried to include them all. That being said, for this draft I added a title, MLA
format heading and a work cited page that I had forgotten to include.
Also, after reading the comments from my peers I came to see how some of my examples
were confusing. For this reason, I went back and further explained the explanation part for some
of my points. Reading through this essay once more also made me see some grammar mistakes
as well as the use of personal language. Therefore, I read carefully through my essay and tried to
fix most of my mistakes. Another thing that I also changed for draft 2 was the wording of my
thesis. Since one of my peers felt it was confusing; however, for me since I knew what I was
trying to point out I did not change it as much.
Due to draft 1 being in outline format, doing draft 2 forced me to include more sentences
in order to make this essay flow better. Also, another thing I did throughout the essay was go
over and see if each paragraph talked about one topic. One thing that I was not sure of doing in
this essay was having a long explanation for one point. For example, I was not sure if my first
point could have been separated into two different paragraphs; however, since I was trying to
explain the same point I decided to combine everything into one paragraph.