Reflective Essay

The first time we talked about this project, the main point was academic

discourse communities. I personally have never stopped to think about this before, but

we are part of a lot of different communities and the way we interact with each one of

them is totally different. Since I am from Brazil, English is not my first language and I

have trouble sometimes with the grammar, so I decided to study about the effects of

bilingualism and ESL. At first in this project I had to brainstorm my past experiences

with writing, making some bullet points or key words, and later turn them into questions

that I would like to know the answer to based on my future discoveries. Some of my

keywords to search for in the articles were "grammar, writing, second language, literacy,

bilingualism and ESL".

Also on the first step I had to figure out a topic that I wanted to talk about

according to my free writing and the two questions that I came up with: "Why is teaching

grammar a focus in school? And how does bilingualism affect literacy?". My grammar is

not the best, and it may be due to the different grammatical rules between Portuguese

and English. I struggled to understand the different rules of English grammar, and

though I’ve improved in the past few years, it is still an area of concern for me. Another

thing that concerned me was the lack of focus on books published about other countries

except for Brazil. I feel that most of the books I read during high school were published

by Brazilian authors concerning Brazil. I feel that it would be more beneficial to combine

literature from authors from other countries to have more exposure to different
perspectives, values, cultures, etc. Additionally, one thing that I found interesting was

my bilingualism. I wondered how my experience of learning how to read and write

compared to other ESL or immigrant students. For example, in my case, I learned

English through ESL, tutors, and pleasure reading. However, I also want to know if

bilingualism helps or hinders literacy. Further, another area that puzzled me was the

emphasis on following a strict writing structure, rather than allowing creativity within the

genre. This makes writing dull for many students, and this causes them to perform

poorly.

The second step for this project was to find which articles I was going to use.

During class time we went with the professor on a tour at the school library, and we

learned about where to find the articles and the different discourse communities. I was

on the library website for hours trying to find the right articles, going through a lot of

them, until I found four good articles that were exactly what I was looking for. They

connect to each other and cover the subject that I wanted to know more about. I not

only had to find four good articles, but once I had the main articles I had to find two

more additional articles using the citations, and another two more articles using google

scholar. This was a very interesting step and took a long time to skim through all the

articles to find their connections with each other. I had to read one by one, take a lot of

notes, find the main argument and find the thesis statement, before I could even start to

compare all of them together.

The next step was to write a paragraph with a big summary of all the articles,

explain what are the arguments that each one of them argue and find the relations

between them. To do this I had to re-read the articles and with my notes make a short
analysis containing all the information. It was actually hard for me to make a summary

where I had to find their arguments and write only the important points. Also on this step

I had to decide what my genre would be to complete the W2 project and write the first

draft. I decided to write my conversation as if I were writing an email to my professor

explaining all about the articles.

Finally the last step was to write a conversation about the articles and explain in

detail how they argue with each other, their similarities and differences. This step was

also very long. I had to go on my notes again and do some more research in order to

find specific phrases to mention and to make the right argument between them.

Works cited

Altwerger, Bess, and Bonnie Lee Ivener. "Self-Esteem: Access to Literacy in Multicultural and
Multilingual Classrooms." Kids Come In All Languages: Reading Instruction for ESL
Students. Ed. Karen Spangenberg-Urbschat and RobertPritchard. Newark: International
Reading Association,1994, pg. 65-81.

Brooks, Maneka Deanna. “How and When Did You Learn Your Languages? Bilingual Students’
Linguistic Experiences and Literacy Instruction.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy,
vol. 60, no. 4, 2017, pg. 383–93.

Carson, Joan Eisterhold, Patricia L. Carrell, Sandra Silberstein, Barbara Kroll, and Phyllis A.
Kuehn. “Reading-Writing Relationships in First and Second Language.” TESOL
Quarterly, vol. 24, no. 2, 1990, pg. 245–66.

Hayes, Nancy, and Leslie Schrier. “Encouraging Second Language Literacy in the Early
Grades.” Hispania, vol. 83, no. 2, 2000, pg. 286–96.

Janet Donin, Maria Silva, The Relationship Between First‐ and Second‐Language Reading
Comprehension of Occupation‐Specific Texts, Language Learning,
10.1111/j.1467-1770.1993.tb00619.x, 43, 3, 2006, pg. 373-401.

Reynolds, Dudley W. “Linguistic correlates of second language literacy development: Evidence

from middle-grade learner essays.” Journal of Second Language Writing, Volume 14,
Issue 1, 2005, pg. 19-45.