Tyler Mangru September 25, 2021

Cover letter

Dear reader,

The Multimodal Language and Literacy Narrative project is finally over and I have a chance to reflect upon it. My WLLN was crafted to appeal to my peers since it took place in my high school. I specifically chose a moment that I felt like most of our class could enjoy or relate to. This was an effective strategy as I received positive comments during our peer editing sessions. I also tried to convey this during the SLLN, however, my audio was low (I will include the script/pointers I used). Throughout the writing of this paper, I have realized that language isn’t just what we speak but it’s who we are. This was a concept I never understood until some of the readings we had in class such as the ones by Amy Tan and Gloria Anzaldua. In fact, it was these readings that also influenced the moment that I would choose to write about. Learning about these authors and what they went through with their experience with language made me understand how important the directed audience is for a text. As I mentioned previously on how I created my paper and tailored it towards my peers, I could tell that these authors also did the same so that their readers could relate. This was a strategy that I explored for the first time in literature while writing the WLLN. The WLLN also helped me achieve a course learning outcome, specifically numbers 2 and 3. I learned to analyze texts and incorporates some of the literary techniques in my own piece which is associated closely with course learning outcome 2. Also through the reading of these texts, I developed personal strategies for reading which I will be using in the future readings of this class and perhaps the rest of my undergrad. However, this project didn’t go without some bumps. My videos audio came out low, which I now know never to do again. The professor was forgiving thankfully. Overall, the WLLN was a chance for me to reflect on some moments of high school, some of my best years all while learning about the importance that reading and writing have on someone.

From,

Tyler

Notes for the video I made-

• To me, language was always what people spoke. For the longest time I had this mindset, never did I associate language with one’s culture as I do now.
• It was When I read Amy tans mother tongue it helped open my eyes
•  The experiences  Amy Tan described with the English language and her mother in her essay “Mother Tongue”,  helped me remember my experiences in high school
• For some context I am guyanese. I wasn’t born there but my parents were and many of the traditions were passed down to me

Show multimodal aide

This is a plaque of Guyana my family got for me. It’s pretty cool

• People from Guyana and the Caribbean speak broken English
• I grew up in an area without a lot of Guyanese so I knew this wasn’t common
• So I tried to hide it
• I was able to hide it until highschool
• My sister and I went to the same school and was close to one of the teachers ms persaud
• Because of this, the teacher was familiar with me
• This teacher was Guyanese
• Since we were close she would talk to me in broken English
• With this, all the attempts at fitting in were wasted
• People would ask questions like what language
• Some would make fun of me
• This made 9th grade hard since shed do it frequently
• After 9th however, I realized that I shouldn’t have been embarrassed since she was only being nice
• After I received the news that she passed I started to see how important these memories were

WLLN

To me, language was always what people spoke. For the longest time I had this mindset, never did I associate language with one’s culture as I do now. As Amy Tan described her difficulties with the English language and her mother in her essay “Mother Tongue”, I remembered the experiences that made me change my point of view. These experiences that I was reminded of are now memories of my high school life that I hold closely.

I am Guyanese. I wasn’t born in Guyana like my parents, but I grew up with the culture and tradition that has been passed on to me. Who I was, was always something I kept to myself. Occasions in which I had to show my Guyanese routes often embarrassed me when I was younger. Although right now I can’t pinpoint what exact part of my culture is used to embarrass me it would be our language. Guyana and many other parts of the Caribbean speak English like many parts of the world, however, what makes our form of English unique is often how people refer to it. “Broken English” is the term I am familiar with, and it is what many Guyanese and other Caribbean people speak. Personally, my siblings and I don’t speak this way, but a lot of the adults I grew up with do since they came from Guyana. Since I grew up in a part of the Bronx without many other Guyanese people, I quickly realized soon that this way of talking wasn’t normal compared to my peers and their families. Because I always wanted to fit in I did my best to hide this. For a while, hiding worked out really well. That was until I started high school.

My middle school and high school were connected, and on top of that my sister had attended there before me as well. This means that I was very familiar with the people and the building although I was just starting high school. Even though I had already been going to this building for years, at the time in ninth grade I wanted nothing more than to not stitch out as much as I did in middle school. One example of me trying to fit in is when I  joined the soccer team, which I joined because my friends did. As I mentioned, my sister had gone to this school as well and because of that one of the teachers knew me before I started class. This is when all the attempts I made to not stand out failed. The teacher that I was familiar with was Guyanese, and similarly to the adults, I grew up with she sometimes spoke broken English. Due to the fact that she knew me before I attended classes at the school through my sister, she would often use broken English to communicate with me specifically. When this first started to occur, I absolutely hated life in her class. Many people did not know what she said to me and because of that, I would get flooded with reactions after class. These reactions would vary from “what language did she speak to you” to straight making fun of me. The fact that most people thought of this as another language made me hate it because it made me stick out in that class so much. Everything I did to fit in like joining the soccer team meant nothing when that teacher was around. I even went out of my way to avoid her after class. In fact, to this day my friends still bring up these events, and I have to explain to them that it wasn’t a different language. 

 However, after my freshman year ended, and I got to view my experiences with hindsight, I realized that the way the teacher spoke to me was her way of relating to me culturally. She knew the two of us shared a similar story and used this as a way to help me feel included and represented, something I never actually felt regarding who I was. As another year passed, I grew to look at these events fondly. Unfortunately, I was met with the news that the teacher with who I had shared these memories had passed. Although I was sad, the way she treated me made me appreciate who I was and helped me grow as a person, something I would have never accomplished without these memories.

Materials and Media-

This is my High School. The narrative took place there

2. This is a Guyanese plaque my family got for me. It has the Guyanese flag and it is the shape of the country

3. This is a classroom from my high school. Most of the narrative would have taken place here