Class is Over Already? As we reach the end of my first semester at City College, I could see a difference in my writing and my attitude towards literature. Coming into my first semester, I was so annoyed that four of my five classes were non-STEM. I never had a love or interest for writing long essays and summaries. But taking English 110 with Professor Buño has significantly impacted my mindset in English. I went from tolerating the assignments to actually enjoying them. The first assignment that we got was a literacy and language narrative. We were all given the …

First draft Bilingualism: fluency in or use of two languages. Growing up, I always thought knowing more languages meant smarter. Until I started school, when I was taught to only use Standard American English. As I began to use American English more, I began to lose my native tongue. Was this the goal of the education system, to train everyone to function under one language? Technically speaking, knowing more languages is power. The older you become, the harder it is for you to learn a new language. For each additional language you can speak, you are able to communicate with …

“How to Tame a Wild Tongue” is an autobiographical essay written by Gloria Anzaldua. It was published in 1987 as part of her collection Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Throughout the essay she talks about how language is connected to one’s identity. Anzaldua begins with a story about being at the dentist and the dentist told her something that gave her the idea of how do you tame a wild tongue. She then uses this phrase “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” to connect it to her overall message that people should not be afraid to speak in their mother …

Original Essay “Did you know you sound white?” was an essay written by a former City College student, Brianna Aktins in 2018. Aktins talks about how she struggled as a Black woman between the two different types of Englishes she spoke. She talks about how it affected her identity from a young age. The two Englishes that she mainly writes about are Standard American English and Black English. Aktins is able to convey her message about the class difference of each type of English language through her personal anecdotes. She brings up the issue of how society views any other …

Original Essay In Safwat Saleem’s ted-talk published in February 2016, “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent”,  he talked about the struggles he faced growing up speaking English with an accent. He used voice covers and the magic of editing to cover his accent when recording videos in English. Eventually he was able to overcome the negativity and all the comments made about his speaking and decided to do public speaking. Saleem wanted to inspire and help people like him because there is a lack of representation for kids that do not speak English “perfectly”. He …

Cover Letter The audience I was writing for was my professor(you) and the people in my class since I knew that we would be doing peer review. I choose my language based on what I felt would inform, persuade, and entertain the readers the most. I wanted to write in a way that was able to get the readers to relate to my essay even if their experience is not exactly the same. I wanted to show that in a way, we all have similar experiences when it comes to hardships of the English language. Through the assignment, I really …

Welcome to CUNY Academic Commons. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!