The film I will analyze in my analytical research paper is Freedom Writers. 

Thesis: One’s background and upbringing does not determine one’s life. With the correct attention and dedication, one can learn the importance of giving students an equal chance at life and from the knowledge developed by the students they can mature and expand life skills. 

Source 1: “Education Changes Lives – Grace’s Story” https://www.continuum.uw.edu/story/student-impact/grace-ingram

One of the three sources I’ll be using in my research paper is a story on a college profile about Grace who is a family support specialist who describes her story to help benefit and inspire others to be and do better. Throughout her story, she explains how she was raised in poverty and her struggles and how it conflicted her education. Though she dropped out of school and got married at a really young age, the desire to want an education never left from within her. Years later she returned for a degree and made it. This is relevant to my paper because it touches on the topic I will be analyzing in my paper. Essentially, when students are granted an opportunity to progress and learn despite their differences, it allows everyone to grow in life. The article conveys how a good education can turn one’s life around similar to the students from Freedom Writers.  

Source 2: “Equitable Education for Students in Poverty Starts with the Teacher”

https://www.gettingsmart.com/2016/08/equitable-education-for-students-in-poverty-starts-with-the-teacher/

This is another important article that supports my thesis and shows why students with harsh uprisings need teachers who will make a difference in their lives, education wise especially. For example, in the article Emily Liebtag explains how students who come from poverty tend to need extra support and guidance in school because they find themselves engaged in gangs and the streets due to stress and worries. Those teachers who realize and acknowledge that each student has a different background which means each student needs a different type of focus/attention in school will allow the students to actually be determined to learn and want to make a change. Being that students spend lots of time with teachers, teachers along as parents play a significant role on how students turn out in the future. There are also different strategies for the classroom environment to help a student engage which also helps students become more interested in learning. 

Source 3: Education: Making a difference one student at a time. | David Rock | TEDxUM

This last source is quite different from the other two because it is not an article, rather it is a ted talk. Throughout the ted talk David Rock explains the importance of perception of teaching and learning. He also brought up a really good point from Socrates, “Education is the kindling of a flame, not a filling of a vessel”. Socrates alone is a good way to analyze and break down the education system. His analogy of the man in the cave conveys how education is manipulated and sometimes misled. This ted talk is extremely significant to the research paper because he emphasizes a lot the importance of teachers changing their ways of teaching to help students learn. Oftentimes, teachers blame students for learning but Rock explains that sometimes it may be the teachers and their style of teaching. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrzxXpAjiTk 

The film I’ve decided to focus on throughout my analytical research paper is “Freedom Writers”. Essentially, the film portrays how unique students who attend the same high school share things in common despite the obvious. With the help of their teacher, the students found themselves as a person and created bonds with each other. Though I am a little unclear about what issue exactly I’d like to discuss yet, I know this will be a good option because there are several issues demonstrated in the film. For example, the corrupted education system can be a topic to indulge in or even the poverty and struggles of the students. However, despite either of the two ideas I choose I’d hope to accomplish proving the point that there are several ways to learn besides reading directly out of a textbook. Engaging with students and connecting to them can allow “unteachable” students to engage in class and become “teachable”. Essentially, the point out of that idea is to explore the issues with the education system and its negativity. While also, another option can be to dwell and analyze that though we all appear different from one another and come from different backgrounds, we may share similarities such as struggles and experiences. I’d also like to discuss how lots of times poverty plays a huge role in one’s development. This film inspired my want to further research because in just one film, there were so many ideas illustrated. I hope to explore these ideas in my paper by presenting stereotypes and also connecting it to other events or ideas which correlates.

While reading The Good Immigrant Student, I noticed that Bich Minh Nguyen stated something significant in paragraph 28. Nguyen said, “I would like to make a broad, accurate statement about immigrant children in schools. I would like to speak for them (us). I hesitate; I cannot.” Through this, she means that there is no way to generally describe immigrant children in school. She says this and later explains that essentially everyone is different and therefore their reaction to being the “immigrant” student can vary. Nguyen uses her sister and herself  as an example to convey her point. In particular, Nguyen described herself as “… nearly silent, deadly shy, and wholly obedient.” However, she goes on and later states, “My own sister, for instance, was never as shy as I was. Anh disliked school from the start, choosing rebellion rather than silence” (paragraph 28). This is why Nguyen could not make a “broad accurate statement”. She witnessed first hand that all immigrant children in school are different resulting in her sister and her. Rather than being rebellious like her sister, Nguyen fought against her mental to be better than those who set bad reputations for immigrant students. For example, “This only propelled me to try harder to be good, to make up for everything I felt was against me: my odd family, my race, my very face”. She was aware that due to her differences, she would get treated differently and people would expect more from her. Nguyen defined and concluded in a way what it meant to be different in her writing. For example, she says “the idea of difference is easy to come by, especially in school; it is shame, the permutations and inversions of difference and self-loathing, that we should be worrying about.” Besides the obvious difference amongst immigrant students and the rest, Nguyen believes there is more to it. It is also having to deal with one’s own thoughts about feeling unworthy or useless due to their difference. Though Nguyen tried to generally describe immigrant children in school, she could not. Being that she experienced with her sister that not all immigrants feel secluded and odd so they try their best to “disappear” amongst the rest like Nguyen did herself, some may become rebellious and careless like her sister. 

After reading The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln and the Inaugural Address by John F. Kennedy, is it clear though the text shared several similarities and differences. Both presidents discuss the nation and how powerful the nation can possibly become if the people were to unite. Also, another shared concept was that all men were created equal. Lastly, both Lincoln’s and Kennedy’s intention were to grant the nation liberty and freedom.  

However, there was obvious differences amongst the president’s speech. For example, in Lincoln’s speech, he emphasized the issue the nation was undergoing at the time which was the civil war. He states, “Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war” (Lincoln, 324). He expressed about how important it was to recognize and honor the people who had been fighting the battle and for those who have died. It was the living’s duty to be “dedicated to the great task remaining before us” (Lincoln, 325). On the other hand, Kennedy’s goal was a bit different. He was focused on himself and conveying to the people how he would lead the nation and its people to solving their issues rather than discussing the issues like Lincoln did and actually including the people and their relevancy to the nation. For instance, “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty”(Kennedy, 464). Kennedy spoke more about himself as a leader.  

In addition, another distinction I noticed was the different approaches on the issues of the United States each of them had. Lincoln’s speech included how he thought the problems of the nations would be solved while Kennedy gave the people hope that something would be done in regard to the issues occurring. For example, Lincoln began his speech declaring, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” (Lincoln, 324). With this, it is clear that he believes the issue of the US is the discrimination and insisted that there needed to be equality amongst the nation. On the contrary, Kennedy gave the people of the nation hope that the situation will get better. He attempts to instill this hope and aspiration in people by declaring, “So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate” (Kennedy, 467). He goes on to explain what both sides of the issue need to do to ensure the issue be resolved to hopefully motivate the people of the US to take action.  

Though Lincoln and Kennedy differed in thoughts a bit, both their intentions initially are bringing on peace and freedom in the United States. Through their speech, they express their thoughts on where the US is failing the people and what needs to be done.  

    Oftentimes, when one is imprisoned, it is expected to  feel trapped or locked. However, Macolm X’s experience was different. During a time he was supposed to mostly feel locked in, he found a love for reading, writing and educating himself. In “Literacy Behind Bars” Malcom X describes how he felt after learning how to fluently read and write. Through his narrative, a relationship between literature and freedom is established.

After Malcom X’s experience of developing jealousy towards an inmate’s amount of knowledge, he was motivated to teach himself how to read and write. After Malcom read over the dictionary, studied the words and meanings, wrote over a million words and learned how to read rigorously, he mentioned “In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life.” The relationship between literature and freedom seen in his narrative suggests that once one is educated enough to understand what you’re reading, one can read whatever one likes. Also, the feeling of freedom Malcom X feels comes from being able to converse with Bimbi and read books but now actually understanding the words read. This was now a whole new world for him.

    Now that X was able to read, he felt like a different and better person. There was no better feeling than having knowledge. X states, “I have often reflected upon the new vistas opened to me.” He was filled with different views that he wasn’t before. Now he was able to explore thoughts and ideas. Also as he says, “As I see it today, the ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to mentally alive.” His ability to read did not only obviously educate him but it changed his mental state. He was observing and analyzing things differently. Reading made X happy. Reading satisfied X. Reading made X feel free in a time he was locked away. Reading changed X’s life allowing him to become an advocate for Pan-Africanism.

The language of English is defined differently amongst all people. Depending on how much you know, people consider it perfect or broken down. After reading “Mother Tongue” we learn about the importance of language and how one’s tongue is powerful. From the reading, it is clear that language played a significant role in Amy Tan’s life. As she said, language defined her and also shaped her to be who she is. In essence, the language of English helped her mature.

Language heavily changed Amy Tan’s perception of  herself. Though she loved language and how “it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth” she became more attentive and conscious of herself as she spoke. For example, she explained that she’s always given speeches to large crowds with no issues but the night of her mother’s attendance, she caught herself talking a “different” English. She described it as different because it was way more complex than the English that was used between her and her mother. Amy was able to somehow switch the English she used without even realizing it. For instance, a few days after, she caught herself talking to her mom with the English her mother uses, which is not the same from the night of the speech. Furthermore, It was a constant sense of turning on and off of “perfect” and “broken” English. This caused Amy Tan to mature faster than others would. At such a young age, she was in situations others her age would not typically be in. For example, “In this guise, I was forced to ask for information or even to complain and yell at people who had been rude to her”. At only fifteen years old she was facing hardships that allowed her to develop faster mentally. For a long time, Amy explained that she believed that because her mother’s English was imperfect so was her thoughts. However, as she grew she learned that was not true. One’s english does not determine one’s intelligence.

I believe that those who learn English as a second language tend to be more aware of how language is used around them. I believe this happens because there might be situations or possibilities that they’re using a word in the wrong context or they learn a new word. I myself am also aware of how English is used around me as well for the same reason. I have always been insecure on the way I talk and write therefore I am always aware of those around me so I can better myself. Also, much like everyone, we tend to alter how we speak depending on the environment. Different places class for different levels of professionalism.

Hello, my name is Eliana Espinal (she/her). I am a transfer student here at Lehman and currently my major is undecided though I plan to major in Biology.

As I start a new journey at Lehman I look forward to several things. After reading and reviewing the syllabus I am excited for a few things specifically in this course. I have always enjoyed writing though not all topics grasp my full attention. However, I am excited to write about social and cultural issues. I sometimes enjoy stating and explaining my opinion about certain topics and issues that we may face today. I am also excited to improve my writing skills. I know there is always space for improvements, so I look forward to that as well.

Generally, there are a few common qualities I believe good writers attain. For example, good writers are organized and clear with their writing. The goal is to not perplex the reader and ensure the reader understands the writer. Also, they tend to have powerful and complex vocabulary allowing the writer to develop a detailed and well written work. Good writers also always find a way to keep the reader engaged whether through the hook, style of writing or through the information written in the text. It is important to be able to write well because firstly, life mainly involves being able to express yourself regardless if it is done through writing or verbally. Also because knowing how to write well is essentially a useful skill.

The easiest part I believe writing is for me may be getting words written. As mentioned before, I enjoy writing so I can write and write and write. Once I start writing, it becomes hard to stop. However, in connection to it, it is something hard for me because at times, I write so much I get off track. Also, another hard part for me is getting started at times. When it is time to begin a paper, I tend to get stuck because I do not necessarily know where or how to begin. Lastly, another hard part for me is my vocabulary. It is not as strong as I wish it was. However, those are things I hope to improve through this semester.

In my intended major which I believe as of right now may be Biology, I expect to write a lot about the science of the human body. Also, how certain illnesses or bones of the body affects another part/bone of the body. I believe that Biology will include lots of writing.