L 2 Writerprofile

L2 Writer Profile: “Lily”
L2 Writer Profile
Christianna Otto
APLNG 412 Final Project
Karen Johnson
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L2 Writer Profile Project: “Lily”
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Table of Contents
1. Methods 3
2. L2 Writer Profile 3
a. Description
b. English background
i. Hong Kong
ii. American High School
iii. Penn State
c. L2 writer’s position on writing
d. View of self as an L2 writer
e. L2 writing strategies
f. Present goals for English
3. Text analysis 13
a. Personal statement
i. Genre and audience awareness
b. High school academic paper
i. Sentential Structure
ii. Micro-structure
iii. Macro-structure
c. College freshman ESL class paper
i. Sentential Structure
ii. Micro-structure
iii. Flow of ideas and transitions
4. Pedagogical suggestions 20
a. Sentence Structure: Finding common and uncommon ground
b. Organization: Paper-labeling activity
c. Encouragement in Identity
5. Reflection 28
6. References 30
7. Appendix of Resources 32
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Methods
To compile this writer profile, I conducted a series of three interviews, each lasting
roughly forty-five minutes. Each interview was digitally recorded so that the interview could
continue fluidly and so that notes from the interview would be accurately compiled. Afterward,
three text samples were collected and analyzed. Both the interviews and the text analyses were
used to inform pedagogical suggestions to further develop the subject’s L2 writing.
L2 Writer Profile
Description
The subject of this case study is an eighteen-year old female, “Lily” from Hong Kong.
Lily is a freshman in college at The Pennsylvania State University who intends to major in
statistics. Lily was chosen for this study because she is a friend of mine, and because I was
interested in getting to know her better through learning about her experiences with second
language writing. Lily began a foreign exchange program halfway through her junior year of
high school, and she was motivated in part to come to the United States in order to improve her
English. Her exchange program continued until the end of her senior year of high school, for a
total of one and a half years.
Lily’ time as an international high school student can really be summarized by two
words: unmet expectations. Before Lily came to the United States, she was very excited about
studying in the United States, imagining that America would be an amazing place beyond that
would surpass her wildest expectations. Sadly, though, the exchange program placed Lily at a
small high school in rural Pottsville, PA, with a graduating class of about 50 students. Not only
was the slow, uninterrupted pace of life a major shift for Lily, but she was also surrounded by
people who held unrealistic expectations for her. The people she met in Pottsville served as a
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stark contrast with the people she knew from back home in Hong Kong, and this difference was
most clearly seen within the dynamics of her host families. When Lily is with her family in Hong
Kong, she knows that her family will support her and be patient with her no matter what
happens. However, Lily always felt on edge while with her host families in the United States; she
felt as though both of her host families wanted her to “do something amazing,” such as teach
their children about other cultures, talk often, and help with housework.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Lily was unable to meet the high expectations of her host
families. After all, it was her first time being abroad, and because Lily has no siblings, she found
it hard to relate to children who were 6+ years younger than herself. Because Lily was unable to
meet the expectations laid out for her, her first family actually asked the coordinator of the
program to move Lily to another home, and Lily told me that the family had actually said some
very harsh things about her as they did so. Beyond this, Lily often struggled to make friends with
people from school because her families did not want to drive her to and from the school outside
of the regular hours. Thus, she was unable to join many extra-curricular activities where she
could have made more friends. Thankfully, her experiences at Penn State have been much better.
Though she had initially not wanted to come to Penn State, she now feels that the community she
has built here at Penn State has helped her enjoy her time in America more.
The lack of consistent and personal support during Lily’s time in the United States could
have potentially had major ramifications on her ability to learn and use English. Samway (2006)
points out that all L2 writers come from different backgrounds, have different needs, and their
learning environment and confidence within this environment can greatly affect their L2 writing
development. Throughout Lily’ time in high school, and even now, Lily’s parents have been the
main source of encouragement and hope in her life; even as she was patiently counting down the
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days until she could leave Pottsville to go back to Hong Kong, her parents were always available
to talk to over the phone to ease the loneliness and boredom. However, her parents have never
studied abroad, learned English, or gone to college. For this reason, in high school (and even
now) her parents are unable to truly empathize with her academic labors. Lily has lacked the
presence of an empathetic person and a willing community that could contribute to her learning
for a long time, which has undoubtedly affected her ability to quickly break into the community
of American English writing.
English background
Hong Kong
Lily started learning English in her first year of school in Hong Kong, and she continued
with English classes throughout school until she participated in the foreign exchange program to
the United States. In general, she felt that her English classes demanded much less of her than
her Chinese classes while she lived in Hong Kong. For example, while she felt that her Chinese
classes not only maintained qualitatively higher expectations for writing, she also felt that
English classes generally expected written texts which were much shorter in nature (200 words
or less), most likely because many of her English writing assignments consisted of responses to
test questions and prompts.
Occasionally, her teachers in Hong Kong assigned one writing task in particular that
extended beyond the form of test response questions: a reading journal. According to Grabe &
Zhang (2013), the integration of reading and writing together can be very beneficial for L1 and
L2 learners alike because the ability to summarize, synthesize, and critique written information
plays an important role in academic writing. In fact, the assignment of reading journals (similar
to those completed by Lily!) was actually suggested by Grabe & Zhang in their article as a
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practical way to pedagogically practice these skills. In these particular reading journals, students
were expected to summarize a news article or book chapter that they had read recently. However,
because Lily thinks that reading is challenging, she admitted to me that she would often find a
summary of a book chapter online and either copy and paste the summary into her reading
journal or try to re-phrase the online summary in her own words. In light of the literature, the
fact that Lily did this is not very surprising – literacy development for L2 learners, even those
with extensive ability in their L1, is a multifaceted experience composed of many variables, such
as different cultural literacy expectations and the student’s relative proficiency within the L2
(Carson et. al., 1990). Furthermore, the ability to effectively summarize and synthesize
information is extremely difficult even for L1 writers; this task becomes exponentially harder
when students with a more limited vocabulary and weaker comprehension skills are asked to
accurately paraphrase a text (Grabe & Zhang, 2013).
In all of these assignments, whether test question responses or reading journals, Lily’s
teachers prioritized learning to write clearly over following a prescribed rhetorical structure. This
suggests that her teachers may have been teaching from a more communicative approach to
English, and it could also partially explain why Lily reports struggling to fit meet the rhetorical
expectations of her high school teachers in the United States.
American High School
The first difference Lily noticed when she came to the United States was that many of her
English papers required a greater degree of work from her than those she had written Hong
Kong; however, this is most likely owing to the fact that she was only enrolled in English
literature classes (American literature, British literature) at her high school in Pottsville.
According to Lily, the main distinction between English writing in the US and in Hong Kong
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pertained to the breadth and depth of study required by the assignment. For her literature classes,
Lily would be required to read English poetry, short stories, and classic novels along with the
class; however, because understanding written English is more difficult for Lily, she would need
to re-read the same passage two or three times before she felt comfortable understanding its
meaning. For this reason, Lily was required to do two or three times the amount of work as her
American classmates within the same time frame. At the end of each unit, students would be
required to write an essay that critically reflected on the symbolism, plot development, and/or
motivations of the author/characters within each piece of writing.
From Lily’s point of view, teachers in the United States have high expectations for
English writing. Whenever her English teachers in the United States provided feedback on her
papers, they would do so by making comments such as, “You repeat this idea a lot – it is
redundant,” “This paragraph is too long, it should be shorter” and leaving grammatical and
spelling corrections throughout her paper. Furthermore, the majority of comments only made on
the final submission of the paper, and thus Lily only had the opportunity to see such comments
after the paper had been graded. While Lily perceives these comments as indicative of the “high
expectations” of American teachers, in truth they do not provide much in the way of informative
feedback for Lily. A study conducted by Zhao (2010) revealed that students are generally more
willing to revise based on teacher feedback, even when they do not understand the significance,
relevance, or underlying roots of the problem. If more informative feedback were left on Lily’s
papers, it could provide a written mirror of the spoken scaffolding and negotiation strategies
employed by teachers in Ewert (2009) which led to greater amounts of successful revision and
learning. Emphasizing the repetitiveness of her papers without providing alternative ideas to
combat redundancy, or correcting grammar without providing an explanation for why her work
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constituted a grammatical error, does not provide Lily with adequate support to implement
change in future papers. Furthermore, because such comments were mostly made on final drafts,
it left no opportunity for Lily to correctively work on and revise a single piece of writing in a
productive manner.
Penn State
Because Lily majors in statistics, her only experiences with writing in college were those
gained through taking English 015 through Penn State’s freshmen summer LEAP program. This
program divides students into “prides” in which their classes focus on a particular subject – for
Lily, this subject was film in music. The purpose of these courses was to provide students with
an understanding of the role that music plays in films to create unified, compelling, and
artistically satisfying pieces of art.
The English 015 class at Penn State was noticeably different from both the literature
classes Lily had taken in high school and the English classes she had taken in Hong Kong.
English 015 was extremely intensive in nature; Lily estimated that she wrote about six papers
throughout her summer semester stay. Perhaps because the class was so demanding, Lily often
went to her instructor’s office hours for advice and feedback on the papers she was writing. Lily
also trusted her instructor a lot, and it is possibly because of this that she considered her
instructor’s advice to be especially helpful – a fact that is reminiscent of the sentiments
expressed in Lee & Schallert’s (2008) article on how the relationships of trust built between
teachers and students impact students’ eventual learning. Spending time with her professor and
utilizing her instructor’s feedback ultimately allowed Lily to learn how to effectively plan ahead
before writing her paper, which is something that Lily believes to be the most impactful skill she
learned in English 015.

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L2 Writer’s position on writing
Like many people, Lily does not enjoy writing, and this applies to writing in Chinese and
in English. She also does not enjoy reading and avoids both activities as much as possible. She
cites the reason behind her dislike for these activities as her dislike for thinking; however, Lily
loves to think when she is working on a math problem or playing music! She differentiates the
two types of thinking, though, because she insists that the thinking associated with math and
music is very formulaic in nature: when one skill is learned, it can be used over and over again
until a desirable result is reached. From this, it can be seen that Lily conceptualizes the process
of writing as something that is always dynamic and changing; and while in some respects it is, it
may be helpful to show Lily how even writing follows a pattern.
Despite her general dislike for reading and writing, Lily believes strongly that
maintaining a practice of reading frequently would contribute to improvement in writing.
According to Lily, “When you are looking at better writing, it will influence how you think, and
how you organize the whole essay.” Reading the work of other people, then, affects her own
ability to write because it allows her to have a model off of which she can base her own work. It
is interesting to note that Lily is able to recognize that certain writings maintain distinct
rhetorical patterns, which are then manifested as the “models” off which Lily works, but that she
still feels that the actual process of writing follows no pattern. Therefore, while Lily’s
recognition of the fact that different writings are composed of particular rhetorical patterns
shows cognizance of the ways that genres are differentially represented, it may also be helpful to
explicitly point out the ways that text pattern together, as suggested by Millar (2011).
View of self as an L2 writer

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Lily’ perception of herself as an English writer has shifted over time, especially as she
has gained more experience with other writing communities. As a child in Hong Kong, she
remembers thinking of herself as a good writer because she could spell words correctly and form
simple sentences. She continued to think well of her English writing skills as she grew older,
despite the fact that she did not enjoy writing, because she performed well on English writing
assignments compared to her classmates.
However, Lily views now herself as a poor English writer. When she came to the United
States as a high school student, she saw the work of her American classmates and felt
comparatively inferior. Though she will reluctantly claim her greatest strength in English writing
is maintaining clarity, truthfully, she believes that her writing strengths are non-existent. Not
only does she see her use of simple sentences, invariable vocabulary, and repetitive ideas as
weaknesses, but she also perceives these actions as a reflection of her total potential performance
in English writing. These ideas seem to have been shaped in part by the words of her host
families, who she would sometime ask for help in editing her high school papers. During the
interview, Lily recounted a short conversation that her family members had between themselves
while proofreading her paper, which I have consequently transcribed below.
Family member 1 (to Lily): Why is this wrong? When you read it, you should know that it
is wrong.
Host mom: It’s what’s in her head! What else do you expect?
The molding of Lily’ view of herself as a deficient writer is especially seen in the almost
verbatim way that Lily described her weaknesses as a reflection of her English identity when she
told me, “I don’t know how to improve – that’s what’s in my head.” Importantly, she portrayed
herself in this manner before re-telling the story of her host family; thus, she could not have been
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primed to use the same words that her family members had spoken by re-telling the story to me.
So then, she characterizes herself as someone limited in her prospective English abilities because
of what she sees as a current lack of knowledge. While this view of self is sadly not a particularly
uncommon sentiment among L2 writers, Ortmeier-Hooper (2013) strongly refutes the idea that
L2 learners are “stupid” just because they cannot naturally write as well as native speakers. She
suggests that, to battle these ideas, teachers might consider finding space within their instruction
to help learners see all the options that are available to them, such as discussing individual and
personal concerns, creating time to openly reflect on what has already been written, or allowing
space to voice ideas in the L1 before attempting to write in the L2.
Harklau (2000) discusses how cultural representations and expectations placed on ESOL
students ultimately affects not only student’s attitudes toward classroom learning, but also their
own sense of identity and self. While this particular comment was not made by one of Lily’s
instructors, it reminds us that the way L2 writers view themselves is affected by a host of factors.
Because of this, educators may sometimes need to combat not only their own expectations for
students but also the identities that other individuals in their students’ lives are placing on them.
For Lily, this may look like encouraging her to see that she is not a deficient writer – instead, she
is an adaptive and determined learner who does in fact have the potential to improve her writing
if she so desires.
L2 writing strategies
Lily’ strategies in writing have mainly developed from mimicking the structures and
patterns that she observes in the writings of native speakers. Lily claims that the best advice she
was ever given concerning learning English was to invest time and energy into English
immersion. At the same time, though, Lily claims that this was the only advice she was given in
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learning English. While Sasaki (2009) might agree that spending time in an immersion context,
such as study abroad, might contribute to improvement in English writing, findings also indicate
that there are other factors that contribute to language improvement beyond that of the
immersion experience. To accomplish the goal of learning through immersion, Lily chose to
listen to native speakers, read the writings of native speakers, record her own speech, copy the
writings of native speakers, and eventually come to the United States. For Lily, then, the
theoretically best way to learn became learning through use.
Because Lily is also very conscious of her weaknesses in writing, she also often seeks out
the help of others. In high school, this manifested itself in the form of asking her host families for
assistance on her papers; at Penn State, this exhibits itself in the multiple visits to the Writing
Center and to her professor’s office hours throughout her summer English 015 experience.
Present goals for English
Lily is very invested and concerned about improving her English skills. When Lily
showed me some examples of standardized tests from Hong Kong that focused on writing, she
reflected on the questions by saying, “Wow, still, I think [understanding the prompt and
answering within the allotted time frame] is very hard.” This realization led her to doubt her
current abilities with English and caused her to wonder if her time has been wasted over the past
few years. According to Lily, if she has not made any improvement, then everything has been for
nothing. Lily’s concern for general improvement is demonstrated by her commitment to keep old
recordings of playing the piano, singing, and speaking in English. In all of these, Lily can feel
encouraged when she looks back years later and views the improvement she has made since the
time of the recording.
Lily identified five aspects of writing which she considers to be especially challenging:
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1) Interpreting the requests of writing prompts
2) Using a variety of sentence structures within writing
3) Organizing ideas within the context of the individual paragraph
4) Organizing ideas within the greater frame of the paper
5) Using varied word choice
Each of these traits represents a different aspect of writing that Lily has received
comments on in the past that she wishes she could improve on. Of the numbered features of
writing listed above, she prioritizes improving 2, 3, and 4 above all others. She considers them to
be the most feasible to improve upon, because she believes that these will be easy to correct after
she knows what she is supposed to do.
Text Analysis
I chose to analyze three pieces of Lily’ writing. One of these papers describes a personal
statement which she wrote for university applications. The other two papers come from different
points in Lily’ academic career. One is a descriptive article concerning the impact of fast food on
Americans which she wrote during her years in an American high school; the other she considers
to be her “best” work of writing from her time in ESL 015 at Penn State. The analysis of each
paper focused on the aspects of writing that Lily would like to improve upon, as well as the ways
that Lily currently uses her awareness of patterns, genres, and audience to create writing, in order
to later inform the pedagogical practices suggested.
Personal statement
Genre and audience awareness
Overall, Lily seems to be aware of the different types of genre and how to write in each.
As a writer, Lily is very good at finding the style of a text and mimicking the structure and style
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that she thinks her audience (be they instructor or someone else) may desire. However, at times
Lily has struggled with modulating the resources she has available to her to fit what she believes
to be the purposes of an assignment in a new and creative way. For example, in her personal
statement she wrote:
“I choose _____ university because it can provide opportunities for me to develop my

educational potential. As ___ university offers a wide range of program, it provides many
different subjects that I could study. Furthermore, the campus of ___ university is really nice
and comfortable for learning. It has a library for searching data, laboratories to work on
science subjects and swimming pool and many opportunities for recreation. I believe if I entered
__ university, I could definitely unleash my potential and arouse my interest in learning.”
In this, it can be clearly seen that Lily has identified the expectations of her audience: She
knows that her audience most likely wants to know 1) Why she has chosen to attend a particular
university 2) The advantages of attending a particular university and 3) The potential future
benefits if she attends said university. Lily has also (for the most part, and in the most general
sense) followed the expected structure in that she describes first why she would like to go to a
university, then supports her statement by providing examples of things that make the university
a good fit, and finally closing with a reminder of how her time at university will provide lasting
benefits. However, what Lily did not realize is that university evaluators are often looking for
creative fulfillments of these expectations; they are looking for students who think beyond the
rigid format of the typical personal statement and experiment with new styles and structures of
presenting this information. Furthermore, it could be helpful to provide specific details about the
features of the university that the applicant likes and explain why those features are especially
relevant to the applicant. While the application worked for Lily, and she was accepted into Penn
State, this example serves to demonstrate how Lily is aware of genre and the pragmatics
associated with it but may be afraid to take the steps beyond the typical structure of templates
within genres to create a piece of writing that can stand out from others.
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High school academic paper
Sentential structure
The sentences within Lily’s high school paper are extremely varied in their structure,
which is distinctly different than her college freshman ESL class papers. Within her high school
paper, Lily often makes use of complex sentences such as “Since fast food is one contributing
factor to obesity, and adolescents’ self-esteems are greatly influenced by their outlook, obesity
will greatly affect teenagers.” Furthermore, Lily attempts to use embedded clauses within her
writing. Consider the following excerpt:
“This industry has, in a relatively short period of time, transformed not only the way we eat, but
also our economy, as well as the cultural landscape. With fast-food restaurants everywhere,
from airports to hospital lobbies, Americans are spending more on these foods than they do on
higher education, computers, or new cars combined!”
In this example, Lily inserts additional thoughts such as “in a relatively short period of time” and
“from airports to hospital lobbies” within the larger frame of the sentences’ claims.
While the sharp difference between the sentence structures of Lily’s high school and
college papers suggests that she may have received extensive feedback (either from peers or
from her instructor) before finishing this final copy, at times Lily slips back into a pattern of
formulating simple sentences in list format. For example:
“There are health problems triggered by fast food. One of these is type 2 diabetes. The cause of
type 2 diabetes is excess weight and inactivity. At least 17 million Americans have type 2
diabetes. That is about one out of every 20 people. Taking more calories in the fast food is a
contributing factor of type 2 diabetes. That is about one out of every 20 people, Taking more
calories in the fast food is a contributing factor of type 2 diabetes. Another disease is
cardiovascular disease. Eating fast food may contribute to cardiovascular disease.”
While these ideas clearly connect together logically (e.g., health problems  specifier  cause
 description), the connection is structurally broken through the stuttered patterning of the ten
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simple sentences. Using the commonalities between ideas in sentences could allow for logical
flow to be realized within the sentence structure of a paper, which would in turn strengthen the
paper as a whole. Therefore, it would be beneficial to construct a pedagogical activity in which
Lily can practice identifying common themes within sentences and connecting the ideas between
them.
Micro organization
The “micro-organization,” or rather, Lily’s patterns of organization within individual
paragraphs, is actually not as poor as Lily may have been led to believe. The structure within the
paragraphs of Lily’s high school paper generally follows four simple rules: 1) Create an
introduction/attention-grabber 2) Make a topic sentence 3) Provide supporting information 4)
End the paragraph with a final conclusive detail. The organization of Lily’s fifth paragraph can
easily be broken down into a demonstration of these rules, as shown below.
1) [Introduction/Attention-grabber]: “The nutrition value of fast-food is astonishing. For

example, One Big Mac sandwich from a McDonald’s fast food restaurant has 590
calories. McDonald’s regular French fries have 570 calories”
2) [Topic sentence]: “From the examples we can see that fast food provides excessive
carbohydrates and calories to the human body.”
3) [Supporting information]: “Consider the sugar in coke, 355 ml of coca cola contains….
For example, a Double Whopper with cheese, an apple pie and a medium order of fries
contains more saturated fat than an adult should eat in two days.”
4) [Final conclusive details]: “Both type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease are linked
with improper diet. It shows that fast food is linked with disease because it provides
excessive caloric intake for people.”
These rules can sometimes be merged together, as revealed in her second paragraph where she
uses the question “First, how widespread is fast-food?” to both transition to her first topic and
catch the reader’s attention with a question. However, despite the occasional merger or re-
ordering of topic sentences and introductions, Lily’s main struggle does not lie with
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organization. Instead, it rests with her ability to identify which topics deserve their own
paragraph, or even their own paper.
Macro-organization
At times, it can initially appear as though the organization of the supporting details within
Lily’s paragraphs struggles due to her ambitious cramming of information. In her sixth
paragraph, Lily describes how fast food has an effect not only on the individual, but also on the
society as a whole. To substantiate her argument, Lily describes how fast food has had an effect
on the spending budget of the federal government, spending practices of individuals, the
availability of jobs, the mental health of adolescents, and food safety practices within the United
States. This is a lot of information to tackle in one paragraph! In fact, Lily probably could have
written her entire paper on an extended version of these topics. While they do all fit under the
umbrella of societal change, it would have been beneficial to identify the breadth of the topic
beforehand.
Ultimately, the paper suffers because of its thesis statement. The thesis, in which Lily
says, “Due to my great curiosity, I am going to discuss the impact of fast food on people in this
article,” is incredibly broad and poorly defined. Because of this, the rest of the paper lacks
specific direction, and novice writers like Lily may feel no other alternative than to cram all
related information into a single paragraph (as demonstrated above). After all, if a topic such as
societal change was to take up more than one paragraph (or 3-5 paragraphs, depending on how
many of the above topics were deemed worthy to have their own paragraph!) then this section
could be interpreted as going rogue from the rest of the paper. However, with a thesis statement
that seeks only to discuss the general impact of fast food on people, Lily has a lot of ground to
cover. Not only does she have to describe the extent to which the fast food industry has
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developed and the individual relationship that consumers have developed with it, but she also has
to describe how this affects their health, their pockets, and society as a whole. However, if the
thesis were defined in such a way that it determined how fast food impacts one or two specific
areas of people’s lives, it would most likely lead to a much better level of organization of ideas at
both the micro- and the macro-level. In truth, it is not really that Lily struggles with knowing
how to organize her ideas when the ideas are few. Instead, she struggles to organize an overly
heavy load of information within the constraints of a small paper – which is a feat that even an
advanced writer would struggle to accomplish.
College freshman English paper
Sentential structure
Unlike Lily’s high school paper, her college freshman English paper relies heavily on the
use of simple and compound sentences, and there are fewer instances of embedded clauses,
though they still exist. Lily misses opportunities to combine sentences to make them stronger or
maintain logical flow. For example, she says that “The Mise-en-scène has an unmistakable effect
on the rest of the movie as it sets up the scene. Mise-en-scène is a French term means ‘placing on
stage.’” These two ideas are clearly related – both sentences introduce details about what the
Mise-en-scène does and how it does so. While the way Lily phrased it was not incorrect, the
description of the Mise-en-scène could have been united more concisely if Lily had said “the
Mise-en-scène, which is a French term meaning ‘placing on stage,’ has an unmistakable effect on
the rest of the movie as it sets up the scene.” These missed opportunities can have a slight
influence on the logical flow between ideas. For her thesis, Lily wrote:
“My choices of music are ‘Clair de lune’ by Debussy, ‘Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major’ by
Mozart and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ by George Gershwin. They emphasize Don Quixote’s story of
sorrow, exploration, and hope.”
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If the word “because” had been added between the two independent sentences, then the
connection between the two ideas would have been slightly more explicit to the reader. Though
the reader should be able to infer the relationship between the two concepts due to the use of the
referential “they,” the addition of the word “because” serves to remove any doubt the reader may
have and join the main ideas of the paper together more fully.
Micro-organization: Flow of ideas
It is evident from Lily’s rich descriptions of how specific pieces of music could be
integrated into the story of Don Quixote that she is not only incredibly knowledgeable about
music but that she also thinks carefully about how music translates to thought and emotion. In
her third paragraph, Lily writes that “The tone in ‘Clair de lune’ is unstable and changing. It is in
the key of C and Db major. The [unsettlement] of the tonality makes us feel uneasy and insecure.
Don Quixote’s adventure is exciting yet dangerous.” Here, as in many places throughout her
essay, Lily demonstrates her ability to merge her musical knowledge (such as identification of
keys) with the feelings evoked by musical composition (insecurity caused by the switches in
keys). However, her astute observations are muddled by her recurrent alternations between ideas
within the paragraph. At the beginning of the paragraph, she introduces the idea of a melodic
heaven and eerie tragedy epitomized by the music choice. But then, rather than introducing all
points contributing toward the construction of a melodic heaven and then beginning to talk about
the eerie tragedy, she chooses to build the supporting details of her paragraph by writing about 1)
heaven 2) tragedy 3) review introduction 4) tragedy 5) heaven 6) tragedy. This flip-flop of ideas
is difficult for the reader to follow, and it would be easier to process a paragraph in which the
introduction led to all of the first points and then all of the second points.
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It’s interesting to note that while Lily seems to understand how paragraphs are generally
structured, she does stumble at times with within-topic organization. The lack of a strong thesis
statement is not enough to explain how the organization of paragraphs like the one described
above can still be scattered at times, because the thesis statement for the current paper (though
disconnected) was still narrow in focus. For this reason, while work on constructing a thesis
statement may help with organization overall, it may also be helpful to incorporate activities that
include a focus on potential strategies to thematically organize ideas.
Macro-organization: Introductions
Lily exercised good judgement when she decided to organize the overarching structure of
this paper’s body in a chronological order. Starting from the third paragraph, Lily chose to
describe which piece of music related to its corresponding movie segment according to its
sequential position within the movie. This makes sense within the context of the paper, because
now readers can follow along in the story and her description of music in the same way that they
would when watching a movie. However, even with this organizational “good choice,” poorer
decisions are also made. For example, Lily chose to summarize the story of Don Quixote
immediately after the introduction paragraph in a series of four short sentences. While this serves
the good purpose of providing the reader with a better understanding of the story of Don
Quixote, it seems out of place to explain the story without including a musical connection,
especially since the thesis focused so much on how music specifically emphasized Don
Quixote’s story. Furthermore, in the fourth paragraph Lily makes the point that authorship is a
central theme of Don Quixote’s story, and connects this to the uniform and organized structure of
“Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major” by Mozart. While this is a very good connection, it makes its
way into the paper seemingly at random, and the reader is not given any explanation about how
22
authorship plays an important role in Don Quixote’s story. If the reader had no experience with
Don Quixote’s story, they would probably be somewhat caught off guard and confused! If Lily
were to incorporate a fuller summary of Don Quixote’s story into the introduction, then the
following paragraphs would flow more smoothly.
Pedagogical suggestions
Lily highlighted three main areas in which she would like to grow as a writer: the use of
variable sentence structure, understanding of how to structure a paragraph, and understanding of
how to organize a paper as a whole. Using the above knowledge of Lily and the analyses of her
texts, three pedagogical activities have been created to aid her in the process of becoming a
better writer. When Lily has to write, she prefers to write about factual events and stories based
on real experiences because she struggles to creatively compose fiction. Therefore, to better
match Lily’s preferences, it would be helpful to incorporate non-fiction resources as well as
those that allow her to relate to her personal life.
Sentence structure: Finding common and uncommon ground
Lily has demonstrated in her writings that she is clearly capable of forming a variety of
sentence structures; however, the implementation of these variable structures is often lacking. In
Lily’s case, then, the goal would not be to explicitly teach how to logistically form a variety of
sentences. Instead, it would be better to teach her how to identify simply stated ideas within her
own writing that could be revised to form greater complexity. In order to accomplish this goal, I
propose the following four steps:
1. Find samples of her own writing
Because the ultimate goal is for Lily to ultimately be able to revise her own papers on her
own, it seems to make the most sense to also start with her own papers. Some samples that could
23
be used include the ones analyzed as a part of this writer profile. Once samples have been
compiled, it would be good to highlight sections of text that could potentially be combined into
one sentence. These highlighted sections will serve as the basis for the next step.
2. Identify common ideas within the texts
When writing, it is important to consider how ideas connect and relate to each other.
Identifying the shared and differential qualities between thoughts eventually inform the manner
in which sentences are formed, because the clauses within compound, complex, and compound-
complex sentences naturally require a type of comparison, contrast, or inclusion of additionally
related material. Therefore, using the highlighted sections of text, I would ask Lily to not only
identify common themes between two sentences but also explain how one sentence differs from
the other. By articulating these ideas, Lily will practice thinking through the ways her ideas
connect to each other even as they are presented in separate sentences.
3. Make sentential “rough drafts”
After identifying how each group of sentences relates to each other, Lily should be
prepared to formulate new sentences based on her observations. These rough drafts of sentences
will probably require the use of conjunctions (e.g., however, because, since) and for this reason it
may be useful to keep a list of possible English conjunctions handy to facilitate the sentence
brainstorming process. There is no set “correct” or objectively “best” sentence that can be
formed from each sentence group. For this reason, it could be important for Lily to make
multiple sentential “rough drafts,” or a list of 2-3 potential ways in which the ideas between
sentences could be combined to create a more complex sentence. Furthermore, by developing 2-
3 possible solutions, Lily is able to see that her ideas can form in a myriad of different ways in
order to convey meaning. Through seeing the varied possible connections in writing, hopefully
24
Lily will learn to productively pick out related ideas from her own texts in order to create a
landscape of more diverse sentence structure in her writing.
4. Semi-Autonomous completion of steps 1-3
As noted before, the goal is that one day Lily will be able to naturally progress through
all of these steps on her own to create variable sentence structure within her writing. However,
moving from the current plan to semi-automatic self-implementation may still be a relatively
large jump to make. For this reason, it would be beneficial stay with Lily as she progresses
through steps 1-3 on her own. Lily should first find sections within her own text that she thinks
could use more varied structure. Then, she should proceed to identify the ways that each
sentence relates to each other, make multiple drafts of potential choices, and then choose what
she considers to be the best example. Importantly, though, she will not be completely alone in
this process; while the selection of samples may require more independence, I would be
available to Lily as she follows these steps for questions and advice. Hopefully, this type of
semi-autonomous workshop would allow Lily to further gain confidence and ability in her use of
different types of sentences within her writing.
Organization: Paper-labeling activity
While Lily seems to be able to identify general patterns within genres, she sometimes
struggles with creating unique, inventive ways present herself within a genre. Furthermore,
despite her ability to mimic the general style of a paper, she remains adamant that the process of
writing itself maintains no patterns. Overall, her organization suffers due to poor planning and
weak thesis statements. The following activity combines the concepts of models, genre
awareness, and planning in one endeavor. Through this, Lily can learn how to better organize her
both on a large and small scale.

25
Paper-Labeling Activity
1. Finding patterns within genres
The first phase in this activity, which encourages the recognition of rhetorical patterns
and structures within genres, should be relatively easy for Lily to complete because she is able to
identify the structures within genres with comparative ease. First, I would find an example of a
genre of writing, preferably one that Lily may also need to write in. This could be an
argumentative-style or an analytic paper that she may need to write in order to fulfill one of her
general-education requirements in college.
Before meeting with Lily, I would cut out a set number of pieces of paper and label one
for each of its corresponding parts of the paper (e.g., “supporting argument” “expected criticism”
“thesis”). While meeting with Lily, we would read over the paper together, and I would lay out
each piece of paper on the table. Then, Lily would have the opportunity to go through and label
each section of the article with one of the pieces of paper. If Lily had any questions, I would help
to answer them, or prod more to ask about what she thinks is best and why. If she mis-labeled a
section, I would ask her why she chose to label a section a certain way. These questions would
help provide further insight into the ways in which Lily processes genre and rhetorical patterns.
When Lily has finished organizing the pieces, they would be transferred to the side of the
table without losing their order. Through this first phase of the activity, Lily would learn to
explicitly identify the organizational structures within a particular genre, and thus build a
“model” for herself. Macbeth (2010) criticizes the use of models because they are fraught with
what she calls “false provisions” in that a written model can never truly present a stable exemplar
of a genre which can be universally generalized to all writing within that genre. This is, of
course, true to an extent; while models may provide overarching patterns of writing (such as
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introduction  body  conclusion), they are incapable of providing the “nitty-gritty” details
concerning how a writer chooses to support their individual claims and transition between ideas.
However, MacBeth also recognizes the ubiquity of models within teaching, and within this
ubiquity strength is found: models ultimately allow writers to see the general rhetorical patterns
within genre. Millar (2011) argues that it is the responsibility of teachers to help L2 writers learn
these rhetorical patterns, and that teachers must do so explicitly. Thus, it is precisely because
models serve as crippled teachers that they are useful for this activity: they allow Lily to clearly
see the patterned nature of a genre while compelling her to fashion a way to fit her ideas within
this genre for herself.
2. Application to personal writings
After Lily has constructed her own model, we would return to more paper cut-outs. I
would ask Lily to write out her ideas on each paper cut-out; each major point or idea would
receive its own piece of paper. When Lily has written out all of her ideas, she would be able to
re-organize the pieces to fit the order that she imagines that she would write out her paper. Then,
taking pieces of paper identical to those she had used to label the model, Lily would proceed to
label the organizational process of her outlined paper. By doing this, Lily would be able to see
how well her rhetorical structure matches that of the model and what parts of the structure might
be lacking. She can continue to re-organize and move the pieces of her paper around until she
feels satisfied that she has appropriately matched the model’s structure. Then, on a final piece of
paper, Lily can write ideas for a potential thesis statement. Depending on the genre, the thesis
statement should create a type of argument or analysis while it fully addresses every major idea
from the rest of the paper. In doing this activity, Lily will not only be able to effectively plan for
her final paper, but she will also be able to see how practically feasible her topic is and
27
understand how the organization of her final paper reflects the organization of ideas within the
thesis statement.
3. Possible extensions
Dependent upon the success of the paper-labeling activity, a few extensions can be added
to further address Lily’s writing development. In her personal statement it became evident that
Lily is sometimes unaware of what her audience truly desires. To address this, I could begin by
asking Lily what she thinks her audience expects her to do, and transition to asking her what
knowledge her audience needs to know in each main point section. In doing this, we would
create opportunities to discuss how Lily anticipates meeting the needs and the expectations of her
audience, which may help her in the writing process.
Furthermore, this activity can be replicated and shrunk to fit concerns of micro-
organization by focusing on one paragraph in particular. To do this, we would perform the same
paper-labeling with a genre example on two or three paragraphs, with the hope that one or two of
these paragraphs would differ from each other in how they use information to support their main
point. The use of authentic materials and discovering differences in how supporting claims are
constructed within the same paper would minimize some of the “false provision” effects noted
by MacBeth (2010). The goal in this activity would never be to copy and paste the style or words
of the model into Lily’s paper, but rather to use the model as a tool that can teach the general
patterns of how paragraphs transition from one sub-point to the next.
Encouragement in Identity
Lily views herself as a “poor” English writer, and because of this, she does not have a lot
of confidence in her own writing abilities. She even believes that she does not have any strengths
in writing at all! For this reason, in the midst of conducting the two pedagogical activities above,
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it is important to continue to encourage Lily in her identity as more than a deficient English
writer. To do this, I have compiled a few “mini-suggestions” which can be used to strengthen
Lily’s belief in her writing abilities.
1. Build a community of learners like herself
Aside from her time in Hong Kong, Lily has never really had a community of learners
like herself who she could partner with in learning. Since coming to the United States, her
classmates have been largely native English speakers, and the comparisons between her own
papers and theirs has deteriorated her own view of self. While this may or may not be achievable
or practical based on Lily’s current plan of study, if Lily were able to join a group of L2 English-
speaking students in peer review, this may not only serve to bolster her perception of herself as
an English writer but also improve her ability to revise her own papers. Even if she does not see
the value of peer review, like many learners, the practice of revising others’ papers may expand
her own ability to revise her own papers (Lundstrom & Baker, 2009). Consequently, as she gains
more confidence with revision, she may also gain more confidence in herself as an L2 writer.
2. Create times of open reflection
In Ortmeier-Hooper’s (2013) article on the needs and struggles of L2 writers, reflection
often elicited greater understanding of the student’s thought processes and current difficulties
with writing. By creating times of open reflection, a greater understanding of Lily’s thoughts and
ideas can be achieved. This understanding would allow for continuous, accurate address and
appraisal of the struggles hiding beneath the surface which plague Lily’s perception of self.
If a group of peers is formed, this time of open reflection would also provide Lily with an
outlet to express her thoughts on feedback she received from her peers, difficulties she
encountered during her own peer review process, and patterns/concepts she noticed in her peers’
29
papers that she may have liked/disliked. Ultimately, this type of reflection on the peer review
process would function in order to further strengthen her confidence in herself and her writing
decisions.
3. Provide balanced and informative feedback
According to Zhao (2010), many learners often incorporate feedback from instructors
into their writing without ever understanding the underlying reason for the feedback in the first
place. Lily has received plenty of un-informative feedback throughout her English-language
experience; comments such as “this is too repetitive” and “too long!” are extremely characteristic
of feedback given to her throughout her American high school experience. Because these
comments provide no route to further improvement, they can only serve to further frustrate
Lily’s attempts to improve and deteriorate her beliefs in herself. Therefore, it is important to
provide informative feedback to Lily during the writing process and make time to communicate
about any questions she may have about the feedback. By doing this, Lily will be provided with
a solid base to make improvement from.
4. Form a “time-capsule” for the future
Keeping a sort of time capsule is actually a strategy that Lily utilizes in other areas of her
life in order to re-assure herself of her improvement. Lily has kept recordings of herself reading
out loud in English, singing, and playing the piano for the sole purpose of being able to look
back at where she started and realize the progress that she’s made. So then, it could be extremely
beneficial to do a similar sort of thing with her writing samples from the beginning of working
with Lily until the end. It may be difficult for Lily to see for herself the improvements she has
made over time at first glance; for this reason, it would be helpful to identify 2-3 specific
examples of areas of improvement to demonstrate to Lily before bringing the saved papers to
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her. This “time capsule,” which contains a record of progress, should serve to encourage Lily
that there is no ceiling on her ability to learn. Lily has immense potential, and she is not limited
by “what’s in her head.” With patience, time, and determined encouragement, I believe that Lily
can truly develop into a self-respecting and respectable L2 writer.
Reflection
Part of the reason why I chose to use Lily as the subject for this study was that I was
interested in getting to know Lily more as a result of our interactions. Lily is my friend, and I
care about her a lot. Asking questions about her language learning experience opened up doors
and paths of conversation that I am not sure I would have otherwise learned about so easily.
Before speaking with Lily, I had no idea the extent to which she disliked her stay with her host
families in Pottsville, and the reasons why. Learning about these experiences helped me to
deepen our friendship and better understand how Lily has become the person she is today.
Learning all of these things about Lily also caused me to think critically about the
students who I might teach in the future. What identities will they bring with them into class?
How might their perceptions of themselves have been affected by friends, family, guardians, or
comparisons with others? What circumstances in their lives might be affecting their development
as a writer and as an L2 speaker? The answers to these questions seem to be extremely relevant
to the process of learning to write. However, I cannot help but wonder how many times teachers
have assumed they know the reason why a student struggles with a particular concept or behaves
in the manner they do in class while only knowing half or less of their individual story. Before
talking with Lily, I had absolutely no knowledge of the experiences she had and how they have
affected her as a writer. Understanding Lily’s story greatly impacted my ability to construct
pedagogical activities to fit her needs; if I had not understood how Lily has come to view herself
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as a writer, the experiences she has had with feedback, and the lack of a community of writers, I
never would have proposed a section of pedagogical activities solely dedicated to improving her
confidence as a writer. While teachers are often limited in their ability to learn about the needs of
each individual student, writing this paper has demonstrated to me just how much can and should
be learned about each writer to meet their needs. Even now, even as I feel that I have a relatively
good grasp on who Lily is as a writer, I cannot help but wonder what other information is lying
beneath the surface or in the past that is impacting how she lives her life today.
Peer review is something that I have never particularly enjoyed. I often see the theoretical
benefit of engaging in conversation with my peers about a paper, but practically I have seen how
peer review seems to fall apart over and over again. Out of all of the peer review sessions, I felt
that the first one was the most helpful; it was earlier in the semester, and I think that people in
general had more time to prepare their thoughts beforehand. However, as the papers increased in
length and deadlines approached seemingly more and more quickly, I think that the tendency
became to read less of each other’s’ papers and concentrate more on our own. Since we were less
informed about the context of the questions, we were less equipped to answer each other’s
questions, which ultimately undermined the peer review process.
In spite of this, I think that this peer review process was actually quite helpful, especially
compared to other peer review sessions that I’ve been a part of. I think that having the ability to
read and comment on our peers’ papers before the actual review session was the best part of the
process because it provided students with the time and space critically think through the paper
they were reading. Furthermore, because we had just completed the section in class about
providing informative feedback, I felt like the comments that were passed around were much
more useful than they otherwise might have been. For myself, then, if I ever did use a peer
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review activity (as I suggested using within my pedagogical suggestions) I would provide a
quick workshop on what good feedback looks like before students see their peers’ papers and
ensure that students had the opportunity to review their classmates’ work before coming to the
review session.
References
Carson, J. E., Carrell, P. L., Silberstein, S., Kroll, B., & Kuehn, P. A. (1990). Reading writing
relationships in first and second language. TESOL Quarterly, 24(2), 245–266.
Ewert, D. E. (2009). L2 writing conferences: Investigating teacher talk. Journal of Second
Language Writing, 18(4), 251–269.
Grabe, W. & Zhang, C. (2013). Reading and writing together: A critical component of English
for academic purposes teaching and learning. TESOL Journal, 4(1), 9–24.
Harklau, L. (2000). From the “good kids” to the “worst”: Representations of English language
learners across educational settings. TESOL Quarterly, 34(1), 35–67.
Lundstrom, K., & Baker, W. (2009). To give is better than to receive: The benefits of peer
review to the reviewer's own writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 18(1), 30-43.
Lee, G., & Schallert, D. L. (2008). Meeting in the margins: Effects of the teacher–student
relationship on revision processes of EFL college students taking a composition
course. Journal of Second Language Writing, 17(3), 165–182.
Macbeth, K. P. (2010). Deliberate false provisions: The use and usefulness of models in learning
academic writing. Journal of Second Language Writing, 19(1), 33–48
Millar, D. (2011). Promoting genre awareness in the EFL classroom. English Teaching
Forum, 2, 2–15.
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Ortmeier-Hooper, C. (2013). The ELL writer: Moving beyond basics in the secondary classroom.
New York: Teachers’ College Press.
Samway, K. D. (2006). When English language learners write: Connecting research to practice,
K-9. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Sasaki, M. (2009). Changes in English as a foreign language students' writing over 3.5 years: A
sociocognitive account. In R. ManChon (Ed.). Writing in Foreign Language Contexts:
Learning, Teaching, and Research. Samual View Publications, Clevedon.
Zhao, H. (2010). Investigating learners' use and understanding of peer and teacher feedback on
writing: A comparative study. Assessing Writing, 15(1), 3-17.

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Appendix of Resources
1.1: Personal statement
Please provide details about why you left each of the above secondary schools.
I left my school in Hong Kong because I chose to participate in an exchange program. I came to
America as an international student and I am currently attending an American high school. I
enjoy both school life in America and Hong Kong. 53 words max.250 words
My name is [omitted]. I am a 17-year-old international student in America. I have been
studying in America for half a year. The main reason I came to the United States is to
experience a different culture, to enhance my English skills and to broaden my horizons.
In my impression, the United States is a country of freedom. Everyone is willing to express
their thoughts such as in politics, social issues, etc.. It is a great melting pot. Different cultures
and races are combined into one country. In the United States, there are different races like
Caucasian, Asian and Africa American. Therefore, I can see various cultures in the same region
in the United States.
What I learned from the exchange program is adapt to a new culture. I was not used to the
American culture when I first got to America. There are many precious things to learn from
American culture. For example, the people in America are open-minded and willing to accept
changes and innovations. Growing up in Chinese culture, I tend to be traditional and inert. After
I came to America, I became more creative and I love to accept new ideas or inventions. For
instance, when the students talk about problems in the science class, the American students
often come up with new ideas. They can think out of the box and challenge the teacher with
more in-depth questions.

36
am interested in actuarial science and want to become a statistician in the future because I love
numbers. When I do a Math problem, I feel energetic and excited. I have good analytical skills
and interpretation skills. I can understand the situation readily and quickly when I have to solve
problems. Finally, I can solve the problem efficiently. I am enthusiastic in Math and science
subjects. Among all the subjects I have studied, Math and science subjects’ grades are the best.
The other reason that I want to become a statistician is I want to help people to deal with
problems related to Math, as it is my favorite subject. If I become a statistician, I can help people
using my strengths. While doing my favorite Math problem, I am helping people to satisfy their
needs. Therefore, I want to become a statistician in the future.
I choose _ university because it can provide opportunities for me to develop my educational
potential. As _ university offers a wide range of program, it provides many different subjects that
I could study. Furthermore, the campus of _ university is really nice and comfortable for
learning. It has a library for searching data, laboratories to work on science subjects and
swimming pool and many opportunities for recreation. I believe if I entered _ university, I could
definitely unleash my potential and arouse my interest in learning.
In four years, I am going to become an expert in actuarial science. After I have enough
knowledge for the career field, I will start the internship of being a statistician. My aim is to enter
a large-scale, organized company, gain experience in being a statistician and finally set up my
own company. To achieve my dream, I have to specialize in actuarial science, experience how to
be a statistician and learn more about the world of business. These things I will accomplish
during my college experience.

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1.2: High school academic paper

[omitted]
Mr. Connolly
4th Period Advanced American Literature
6 May 2017
Fast Food Chain and modern American relationship
Do you remember when was the last time you went to a fast food restaurant? Yesterday? At
lunch? Or just now? While you are enjoying your affordable, tasty meal, can you imagine that
fast food can have a huge effect on Americans? Due to my great curiosity, I am going to discuss
the impact of fast food on people in this article.
First, how widespread is fast food ? According to the statistic of Number of establishments
in the U.S. fast food industry from 2004 to 2018, around half of the number of fast food units
in the U.S. is made up of quick-service franchise establishments. Subway had the most units
in the U.S., with 25,549 stores, followed by McDonald’s and Starbucks. In 2013, McDonald’s
was by far the most valuable fast food brand in the world. It was worth over 90 billion U.S.
dollars, and it exceeded its closest competitor, Starbucks, by more than 72 billion U.S. dollars
in brand value. These statistics reveal that fast food chains are everywhere, and lots of people
are eating fast food on a daily basis. One in four American visit fast food restaurant each day.
There are so many fried and unhealthy choices. Do you know how unhealthy Americans are?
Apart from diet, exercise is also a main constituent of a healthy living styles. Based on
American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults, at least 150
38
minutes per week of moderate exercise or 75 minutes per week of vigorous exercise is suggested
to improve overall cardiovascular health. However, more than 60% of American gets no form of
exercise daily. Also, the average walking steps of American is 5000
steps, which is very limited and not enough to maintain health. One of the reasons of limited
walking is people depending completely on their car for transportation. Therefore, walking
becomes such a chore that we rely on machines to do it for us. As a result of unhealthy diet and
not getting enough exercise, there is a doubling of overweight and obese children and
adolescents.
We can actually see the obese epidemic getting more severe in the past few years. Nearly 100
million Americans are either overweight or obese today. That is more than 60% of all US adults.
Since 1980, the total number of overweight and obese Americans has doubled, with twice as
many overweight children and three times as many overweight adolescents. Overweight and
obesity can lead to countless problems later in life. They can lead to many diseases such as
hypertension, coronary heart disease, stroke, gallbladder disease, osteoarthritis etc.. At least 17
million Americans,which is about one out of every 20
people, now have type 2 diabetes. With more people becoming obese and overweight, we can
actually see that this phenomenon is linked to the widespread consumption of fast food.
The nutrition value of fast-food is astonishing. For example, One Big Mac sandwich from a
McDonald's fast food restaurant has 590 calories. McDonald’s regular french fries have 570
calories. From the examples, we can see that fast food provides excessive carbohydrates and
calories to the human body. Consider the sugar in coke, 355ml of coca cola contains 39 g of
sugar, about 140 calories. A 30-year-old male adult only needs 2600 calories per day, and with
39
excess calories and sugar intake, and no form of exercise, how can he not get fat? There are health
problems triggered by fast food. One of these is type 2 diabetes. The cause of type 2 diabetes is
excess weight and inactivity. At least 17 million Americans have type 2 diabetes. That is about one
out of every 20 people, Taking more calories in the fast food is a contributing factor of type 2
diabetes. Another disease is cardiovascular disease. Eating fast food may contribute to
cardiovascular disease. Sodium, a major factor in developing heart disease, should be limited to
1,500 mg per day, according to the American Heart Association. In a study of 6,580 fast food
meals, the New York Health Department found that 57 percent contained more than the daily
sodium limit, according to Help Guide. Limiting saturated fat in the diet helps to reduce the risk of
heart disease but fast food meals often provide extreme amounts of fat. For example, a Double
Whopper with cheese, an apple pie and a medium order of fries contains more saturated fat than an
adult should eat in two days. Both type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease are linked with
improper diet. It shows that fast food is linked with disease because it provides excessive caloric
intake for people.
Decreasing health not only affects the people who have the disease, but the whole society. In terms
of financial effects, there is more money spent to cure diseases. The direct cost associated with
diabetes has doubled, from $44 billion in 1997, to $92 billion in 2002. Resources are limited.
When there is more money spent on health and medical, the other resources will be depleted. That
means fast food will affect social well-being apart from health. On any given day, more than a
quarter of all Americans will eat at a fast- food restaurant. This industry has, in a relatively short
period of time, transformed not only the way we eat, but also our economy, as well as the cultural
landscape. With fast- food restaurants everywhere, from airports to hospital lobbies, Americans are
spending more on these foods than they do on higher education, computers, or new cars combined!
A generation ago, more than three-quarters of the money spent on food was spent
40
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on ingredients to cook at home. Today, more than half of money spent on food is spent on food
eaten outside of the home. Also, fast food has negative influences on the psychological well-being
of people. Since fast food is one contributing factor to obesity, and adolescents’ self-esteems are
greatly influenced by their outlook, obesity will greatly affect teenagers. They may lack confidence
because of obesity. The fast food chains’ vast purchasing power and their demand for a uniform
product have encouraged fundamental changes in how cattle are raised, slaughtered, and processed
into ground beef. These changes have made meatpacking, - once a highly skilled, highly paid
occupation, - into the most dangerous job in the United States, performed by armies of poor,
transient immigrants whose injuries often go unrecorded and uncompensated. The same meat
industry practices that endanger these workers have facilitated the introduction of deadly pathogens,
such as E. coli 0157:H7, into America’s hamburger meat, a food aggressively marketed to children.
Again and again, efforts to prevent the sale of tainted ground beef have been thwarted by meat
industry lobbyists and their allies in Congress. The federal government has the legal authority to
recall a defective toaster oven or stuffed animal, but still lacks the power to recall tons of
contaminated, potentially lethal meat. To conclude, fast food has detrimental effects on whole
society.
In order to remedy the situation, there are lawsuits regarding fast food. For example, Joseph
claimed that McDonald’s, which promised to cut trans fat levels in its cooking oil in
September 2002, failed to effectively inform the public when it delayed the change in
February 2003.McDonald’s agreed to give $7 million to the American Heart Association for a
campaign to educate the public about trans fats, and spend $1.5 million to update the public on its
progress in finding a trans fat substitute. Joseph’s suit was hardly frivolous. It served to alert the
public about the potential danger of fast food. Not only lawsuits can help the situation, the
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most important thing is to stay away from fast food ourselves and exercise more to improve
our health. In this way, we will be healthy even if there is fast food.
Work cited:
Number of establishments in the United States fast food industry from 2004 to 2018, 2002,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/196619/total-number-of-fast-food-restaurants-in-the-us-sin
ce-2002/. Accessed 20 May 2017
How Many Steps a Day Should You Really Walk?, 2015,
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/06/how-many-steps-a-day-really-walk.html. Accessed 20
May 2017
Nutritional Value of Fast Food, 2016,
http://www.ehow.com/about_4740469_nutritional-value-fast-food.html?ref=Track2&utm_so
urce=IACB2C. Accessed 20 May 2017
10 Biggest Fast Food Lawsuits, 2017,
http://www.criminaljusticedegreesguide.com/features/10-biggest-fast-food-lawsuits.html.
Accessed 20 May 2017
American Heart Association Recommendations for Physical Activity in Adults, 2016,
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/HealthyLiving/PhysicalActivity/FitnessBasics/American-
Heart-Association-Recommendations-for-Physical-Activity-in-
Adults_UCM_307976_Article .jsp#.WSDKVmnyuM9. Accessed 20 May 2017

43
1.3: College freshman English class paper
[omitted]
Professor Netzer
ENGL 15
9 August 2018
Best Song Choices for Don Quixote
Adventures of Don Quixote is a film that adapted from a spanish classic novel written
by Miguel de Cervantes. The film is directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst in 1933 and it is the first
sound film based on Spanish Classics ( Classical Archives ). I choose the first 15 minute of the
film to do my music choice because it is the opening. It sets up what the film is about, tells the
tone of the movie and conveys the message such as imagination, sorrow and excitement of the
movie. The Mise-en-scène has an unmistakable effect on the rest of the movie as it sets up the
scene. Mise-en-scène is a French term means “placing on stage”. It includes lighting,
background music, actors, costumes etc. The music is a part of Mise-en-scène and it is vital to
choose the right music for the Mise-en-scène. My choices of music are “Clair de lune” by
Debussy, “Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major” by Mozart and “Rhapsody in Blue” by George
Gershwin. They emphasize Don Quixote’s story of sorrow, exploration and hope.
Adventures of Don Quixote is about Don Quixote falls into chivalric stories and wants
to become a knight. He tries to achieve his impossible dream by riding in his old horse and
starting the adventure with the squire. This story has a sad ending that Don Quixote dies
because of a fever. Also, he did not become a knight that everyone admires.
44
The first 2 minutes of the movie is the brief introduction and the opening of the movie.
“Suite bergamasque, L75: III. Clair de lune” by Debussy is an excellent choice for this particular
part of the movie because of its dream-like arrangements, the melody is made of high-pitched
notes, that matches the imaginative and tragic theme of the story. It is important to let the
audience know what the movie is about at the opening scene while Don Quixote is about a man
dream to become a knight. In “Clair de lune”, the song begins with ascending chords. Then there
is some simple, pure melody. Next, the piano sounds crazier, more exciting and unrealistic by
playing lots of arpeggios that is imitating the harp. This is definitely not true or viable and can
only be a dream. The song name “Clair de lune” means Moonlight. The overall tone is sorrow
and full of imagination. This characteristic matches the theme the is about the delusion and
enchantment of Don Quixote. Reading too much chivalry makes Don Quixote makes him cannot
see the reality and starts having wild thoughts. The thoughts of becoming a knight and do
whatever you want is an innovative and bold thinking at the time of Don Quixote so “Clair de
lune” is a nice match for the opening as it is provoking and gives you space to dream. The tone
in “Clair de lune” is unstable and changing. It is in the key of C and Db major. The unstattlement
of the tonality makes us feel uneasy and insecure. Don Quixote’s adventure is exciting yet
dangerous. “Clair de lune” tells us the mood in the story by using a beautiful melody line. The
music is impressionistic. It is like thinking the most wonderful thing in the world. And, the
dissonant chords are talking about how depressed when Don Quixote’s dream did not come true.
Therefore, “Clair de lune” i s a nice match for the open 15 minutes because it highlights the tone
of tragedy and imagination.
After the opening, next 8 minutes are about how Don Quixote become a knight and what
is his personality. He turns mad by reading a lot of chivalry. He dreams to become a knight and
he is actually getting some armours to put on himself. When he sees the lady in the inn, he
45
imagines himself is in the castle and address the prostitutes as nobles. The innkeepers, who are
some thieves therefore could not understand Don Quixote. In this 8 minutes, I think the music
should be joyful and adventurous while having some weirdness in the middle because the
protagonist is doing strange things. In this case, “Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major” by Mozart
will be the best choice as it is a delighted string quartet with a little variation in the middle. The
general tone of the music is established as loud, agressive, fast, and exciting. The melody gives
us energy while we are listening and it is really fascinating to listen to it. It is strong and
powerful that will horrify the audience. Also, the main melody of the music is repeated many
times so it is accented. “Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major” starts with a surprisingly clear
melody line played by the violin which matches how eager and enthusiastic Don Quixote is.
After that, other strings like viola and cello joins in. It gives the music more texture. The music
is building up too as the music sentence is softer at first and gradually becomes louder. This
part of the music blends in the story as the eagerness of Don Quixote of becoming a knight
never get weaker, only stronger. Authorship is another central theme of the story. The music
gets into that by having emphasized melody and the strings are uniform which means it is
organised and having power. “Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major” is suitable for underlining the
eagerness and joyfulness when Don Quixote is going to fight.
The last 5 minutes I am going to choose “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin for the music
choice. The song is very playful, delight and fast. Moreover, it consists of ascending and
descending scales which describing how quick is Don Quixote for his battling. “Rhapsody in
Blue” highlights the fighting scene in Don Quixote by using jazzy music. It also describes the
exciting battle life that Don Quixote has. The music’s tempo is changing a lot. That indicates
Don Quixote’s battle life is varying and not the same throughout the story. At first, a clarinet
plays solo at the beginning and other instruments join in. Noted the dynamics changes
46
factor of type 2 diabetes. Another disease is cardiovascular disease. Eating fast food may
47
frequently. Sometimes it is exaggeratingly loud and sometimes it is unusually quiet. The
dynamics help establish the mood of Don Quixote that he has different reactions like. In the
movie, Don Quixote is having an unforgettable experience when he is travelling around. He
imagines an ordinary lady as a beautiful noble lady and promised her will fight for her glory.
Also, he hears crying sound on a bush and discovered a labor that mistreated by his master. All
those wonderful adventure is suitable to use “Rhapsody in Blue” to describe as the music is full
of twists and exciting. The music itself have some climax. The first climax is given off by a
crescendo that trumpet and trombone leads to. The music reaches climax again at the finale
while the whole orchestra is playing. The contour of the music fits Adventures of the Don
Quixote that full of twists and changes.
In conclusion, “Clair de lune” by Debussy, “Nachtmusik Serenade in G Major” by
Mozart and “Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin are undeniably well-made music that can
touch the audience by connecting the dream, craziness and wildness in Adventures of Don
Quixote. They are the best choice for the music. It fits like a glove to the film and make us truly
feel what the writer is trying to say.

48
Work Cited
Jacques Ibert “Jacques Ibert - Don Quichotte (Film Score) - Classical Archives.” Classical
Music on Classical Archives: Home, 2018, www.classicalarchives.com/work/73687.html.
Jacques Ibert Jacques Ibert. “Jacques Ibert - Don Quichotte (Film Score) - Classical Archives.”
Classical Music on Classical Archives: Home, 2018,
www.classicalarchives.com/work/73687.html.
Allysia. “An Analysis of Clair De Lune (For Casual Music Fans).” PianoTV.net, 21 May 2016,
www.pianotv.net/2016/05/analysis-of-clair-de-lune/.

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L2 Writer Profile: “Lily”

APLNG 412 Final Project

used to inform pedagogical suggestions to further develop the subject’s L2 writing.

total of one and a half years.

of American English writing.

test questions and prompts.

accurately paraphrase a text (Grabe & Zhang, 2013).

expectations of her high school teachers in the United States.

American High School

motivations of the author/characters within each piece of writing.

artistically satisfying pieces of art.

instructor’s advice to be especially helpful – a fact that is reminiscent of the sentiments

learned in English 015.

L2 Writer’s position on writing

may be helpful to show Lily how even writing follows a pattern.

maintaining a practice of reading frequently would contribute to improvement in writing.

View of self as an L2 writer

assignments compared to her classmates.

while proofreading her paper, which I have consequently transcribed below.

space to voice ideas in the L1 before attempting to write in the L2.

theoretically best way to learn became learning through use.

Present goals for English

time of the recording.

1) Interpreting the requests of writing prompts

2) Using a variety of sentence structures within writing

3) Organizing ideas within the context of the individual paragraph

4) Organizing ideas within the greater frame of the paper

5) Using varied word choice

she knows what she is supposed to do.

to later inform the pedagogical practices suggested.

Genre and audience awareness

statement she wrote:

“I choose _____ university because it can provide opportunities for me to develop my

High school academic paper

writing. Consider the following excerpt:

formulating simple sentences in list format. For example:

paper as a whole. Therefore, it would be beneficial to construct a pedagogical activity in which

The “micro-organization,” or rather, Lily’s patterns of organization within individual

introduction/attention-grabber 2) Make a topic sentence 3) Provide supporting information 4)

easily be broken down into a demonstration of these rules, as shown below.

1) [Introduction/Attention-grabber]: “The nutrition value of fast-food is astonishing. For

paragraph, or even their own paper.

advanced writer would struggle to accomplish.

College freshman English paper

Micro-organization: Flow of ideas

include a focus on potential strategies to thematically organize ideas.

following paragraphs would flow more smoothly.

variable sentence structure, understanding of how to structure a paragraph, and understanding of

match Lily’s preferences, it would be helpful to incorporate non-fiction resources as well as

those that allow her to relate to her personal life.

Sentence structure: Finding common and uncommon ground

propose the following four steps:

1. Find samples of her own writing

2. Identify common ideas within the texts

complex sentences naturally require a type of comparison, contrast, or inclusion of additionally

connect to each other even as they are presented in separate sentences.

3. Make sentential “rough drafts”