College Essay
Discuss an accomplishment, event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
Heavy Lifting for the Mind
Over the last several years I have followed a strict regime of weight lifting. Six days out of seven I would find ways to fit training into schedule. I discovered that it gave my life a reassuring structure and influenced almost every aspect of my life. I adopted a healthy diet and studied nutrition to ensure that I was eating meals that would help me achieve my fitness goals. I also recognized that getting adequate sleep was necessary to recover from each workout. I learned that every aspect of this sport demanded not only dedication but also consistency. As a result I mastered the constant ups and downs that accompanied each new day with a dogged perseverance, knowing that the reward was worth the effort.
One day walking up to the squat rack, I glanced at the plates of weight neatly stacked and numbered on either side. I slid onto the bar the hundreds of pounds I would attempt to hoist upon my back. I took a deep breath and squatted slowly beneath the bar focusing my mind completely on the task at hand. I knew every ounce of energy must emanate from my legs so that the weight would not beat me. It did not. I stood back up tall but I was struck in that moment by thoughts of the weight I still was unable to master. I was not thinking of the cast iron plates at my feet but rather of the unseen burden that remained squarely upon my shoulders.
The weight I had yet to conquer had no number or size. It resided in all the unknowns that were before me at that stage of my life. I was not yet certain about what career path was right for me and I was worried that my life's true calling would not emerge in time to help me make good decisions. In school I have had success in many different academic subjects but none has yet awakened my passion. I looked to college in the hopes that there I would find a place I could continue exploring and developing what talents are within me. The not knowing and the infinite possibilities before me were the millstone I struggled with; they would be dead weight if it weren't for the most valuable lesson I learned from my years lifting weights.
I am capable of much more than my mind says I am. Frequently in the gym but also in school and during critical moments in life I have strained under the heavy load of my own mental limitations. Weight lifting has taught me to overcome these invisible yet restrictive barriers to growth. For example, if I went to lift a weight I had never lifted before and did not believe I could lift it, the chances were good I would not succeed. If, on the other hand, I went at the task with grit and faith in my abilities, I often achieved victory. In such manner I have learned to push past my limits, conquer my fears of the unknown, and venture into new endeavors with confidence. That is why I embark on my path to college with optimism and conviction despite not knowing what direction my studies will take. I know that the heaviest weights are sometimes the ones nobody can see or measure. But lifting them can be more a gauge of attitude than muscle. The secret to heavy lifting for the mind is in knowing you can before showing you can.
Reflect on an experience where you realized you held a “single story” narrative about a group of people, but then came to realize it was false.
I have fallen victim of judging a group based on a single story many times. As you walk through the halls of Cicero North Syracuse High School, or even through Destiny USA, you see groups of people enjoying themselves. Now, these people may not be people you would think you would have fun with or that fit in with you. In reality, I feel that we have more in common with others than we think.
As I walked into Cicero North Syracuse High School as a Sophomore, the first class I had was Gym. I walked in to see large bleachers with a massive amount of people sitting in them, almost as if there was a basketball game that was soon to be played. Luckily, I had two of my close friends in the class. We sat behind a group of seniors. Right off the bat, I was a victim of the single story. I saw them as bigger, more mature, and overall more confident than I was. They seemed arrogant and cocky, two words I never want to be associated with. As gym class progressed throughout the year, we had the ability to choose our activities. My two friends and I chose kickball for the first activity of the year, and so did this group of seniors. As we got out on the turf, Mr. Button let us pick our own teams. My friends and I did not know many other people in the class, so we seemed to be left as a team of three. Unfortunately, Mr. Button had to split me and my friends up, and I was put on a team with these seniors. I was nervous and worried I would not enjoy my sophomore year right off the bat. Little did I know, they were amazing, nice, funny, mature, and overall great people.
Falling victim to the single story was something I never realized until I watched Adichie’s TedTalk. I assumed these kids were no good for me, when in reality, they ended up becoming my good friends by the end of the year, and people I really looked up to! I learned to not judge others based on what you have heard or perceive just by looking at them.
After reading Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan, I have developed a further understanding of literacy, language, power, persona, audience, genre, English and writing courses, etc. Throughout this course so far, I have developed a much further understanding of literacy. It’s not just the ability to read and write, but also the ability to identify who you are talking to, understand the language in which you are speaking, interpreting genres, and creating a persona. All these ideas are identifiable in June Jordan's’ Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan. June Jordan brings the idea of Black English to the composure. Being literate doesn’t mean speaking the language others desire. It’s speaking your language and showing who you are through your words. This is evident in Black English as June Jordan states that, “If it is wrong in Standard English it’s probably right in Black English…” When you speak, under certain circumstances, you speak on or what you would like to hear. At least for me, I want to make it seem as though if I were a member of the audience while I am speaking, I would be engaged and want to keep listening. Audience plays a huge role in this composer, especially when the students are trying to decide if their statement about Willie’s brother should be made in Black English or not. While speaking, you give others a sense of your persona and power that you can portray. Throughout “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan” all these ideas come together as one and are very evident as you move through the writing.
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Imaginative Writing
This story takes place around Malcolm Gladwell's dinner table. Malcolm Gladwell, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Dan Meltzer and I are in conversation. This conversation picks up halfway through the Entree.
Gladwell: Yes, Adichie, you are extremely literate as Mr. Meltzer just said. If I were in your shoes, I would think it must be a hard life to live, always falling under the impression that I am less fortunate than others just based on where I came from. As a Canadian, I never really get looked at much differently in the United States, except for my accent I guess you could say…
Adichie: As you know many of us fall victim to a single story. Whether we are the ones getting judged or if we are judging others. As a child, “I wrote exactly the type of stories I was reading: All my characters were white and blue-eyed, they played in the snow, they ate apples, and they talked a lot about the weather, how lovely it was that the sun had come out. Now this despite the fact that I lived in Nigeria.” I fell victim to judging others based on a single story. I have also been judged based on a single story. “When I was 19 and I left Nigeria to go to University, my American roommate was shocked by me. She asked where I had learned to speak English so well,and was confused when I said Nigeria happened to have English as its official language. She asked if she could listen to what she called my ‘Tribal Music,’ and was consequently very disappointed when I produced my tape of Mariah Carey. She assumed I did not know how to use a stove. She felt sorry for me even before she saw me.,”
Gladwell: Wow, that is a remarkable statement! That reminds me of a story relating to Harvard around 1922. “The enrollment of Jews began to rise dramatically. By 1922, they made
up more than a fifth of Harvard’s freshman class. The administration and alumni were up in
arms. Jews were thought to be sickly and grasping, grade-grubbing and insular. They displaced
the sons of wealthy Wasp alumni, which did not bode well for fund-raising. A. Lawrence Lowell,
Harvard’s president in the nineteen-twenties, stated flatly that too many Jews would destroy the
school: “The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate . . . because they drive
away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also.” It is to my understanding that you could say Jews were judged and placed under a single story, similar, but much different circumstances to the encounter with your roommate at University.
Adichie: Yes, of course Mr. Gladwell. I think no matter where we are from or what our background looks like, we judge people selfishly, without seeking to learn about them at first. It is something I, as well as I would assume many others have to work on.
Me(Nolan): I would agree with you greatly Adichie. Many of us place others under a single story due to many reasons. For me, I have done so in the past because others I have encountered were less educated and literate than I am. Although this does not give me an exception to judge, I think I also have to work on seeking to learn about others first before I come to selfish conclusions.
Meltzer: “Maybe you associate being literate with Standard English.” That is what I associated being literate with for many years. Now, “These traditional ideas about literacy have been challenged by rapid transformations in America and around the world.” I understand how someone would be judged based on how literate or not they are, but you have to understand, a measure of literacy isn’t just based on the way you read and write, it involves many other principles as well. “There is no single definition of literacy.”
Me(Nolan): As I am much younger than most around this table, I can attest to what Mr. Meltzer just said. I had always thought being literate means knowing how to read and write well. Until I read your great composure, Everythings a Text, I never fully understood how complicated that word really is, and exactly how much meaning it has behind it!
Adichie: Nolan, as you get older and encounter others, such as professors and people of higher remark than you, you will learn and become even more literate yourself!
Me(Nolan): Sometimes I feel as though me not being as literate and educated as I could be at this point in my life is a disadvantage. Many people my age, I would assume, stress about SAT and ACT scores, as they ultimately determine if we get into the college we want or not. I know my mind is limitless, and whatever I put my mind to I can achieve, but being less literate and educated than others, overall receiving lower scores on key exams will do me a disservice later on in life.
Gladwell: I understand where you are coming from, but I would beg to differ. In my mind, I don’t necessarily believe that receiving the best score on an SAT, ACT, or even an L.S.A.T means you aren't capable of doing what others who score well on these exams are capable of doing. “Most élite law schools, to cite another example, follow a best-students model. That’s why they
rely so heavily on the L.S.A.T. Yet there’s no reason to believe that a person’s L.S.A.T. scores
have much relation to how good a lawyer he will be. In a recent research project funded by the
Law School Admission Council, the Berkeley researchers Sheldon Zedeck and Marjorie Shultz
identified twenty-six ‘competencies’ that they think effective lawyering demands—among them
practical judgment, passion and engagement, legal-research skills, questioning and interviewing
skills, negotiation skills, stress management, and so on—and the L.S.A.T. picks up only a
handful of them. A law school that wants to select the best possible lawyers has to use a very
different admissions process from a law school that wants to select the best possible law
students. And wouldn’t we prefer that at least some law schools try to select good lawyers
instead of good law students?”
Adichie: That is a great point Mr. Gladwell.
Meltzer: I agree as well. Going back to what you originally said Nolan, you are referring to what I call academic literacy. “Academic literacy is only one kind of literacy, and even academic literacy is not a universal standard or unified set of rules. What we value in academic writing in America is not necessarily what is valued in academic writing in other countries. Even in your own college, each field(the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities) will present you with a different version of what it means to be literate.”
Me(Nolan): My takeaway is to be patient and put my best foot forward. I will always try the best on my key exams and everything else, but in the back of my head, I will always keep the idea that test scores don’t necessarily determine success. I need to be the best possible person I can be and hope I will find where I am supposed to be in the future!
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Unit One Project
Nolan Firth
Ms. Schilly
SUPA Writing 105
9 Monday November
Becoming Educated Forever: The Importance of Being Literate
Nearly four and a half billion years ago, the Earth was formed. Six million years ago, creatures began to evolve into what we know present day as Humans. Through those years, Earth has allowed us Humans to evolve, build tools, create civilizations, adapt to our environments, and ultimately become who we are today. Obviously, these Humans were not as advanced as we are today, with little knowledge of anything. Civilizations began to rise, with the first known civilization of Sumer, located in Mesopotamia. It was in these newly sprung cities and civilizations that the earliest known form of writing, cuneiform script, appeared around 3000 BCE. The history of literature begins with the history of writing, although they are not equivalent. What this means is that scholars have conflicting views concerning written record-keeping and exactly when that was considered literature, as the oldest known literary texts date about a full one thousand years after the invention of writing. Due to the fact that writing and literature are not synonymous, it is reasonable to conclude that being able to write does not mean you are necessarily literate.
If being able to read and write does not necessarily make you literate, then what does? As Dan Melzer, a professor in the University Writing Program department at University of California Davis, wrote in his composition, What Is Literacy, it is mentioned that when we first hear of the word literacy, we immediately think, “reading words in books, magazines, and newspapers, or writing essays for class”(Melzer & Coxwell-Teague 2). As we can tell, in today's world, we have progressed a long way from the earliest form of writing, cuneiform script, to now communicating online through texts, emails, and even social media. The conventional scheme about literacy has been challenged by swift transformations in the United States and around the world, as shown by the examples listed above. As for me, I have always assumed that by being considered literate, you were well spoken and educated, being able to portray your thoughts with actions. With this comes the ability to read and write, which is the base to becoming literate. Other than being able to read and write, Dan Melzer suggests that being literate, “means being able to evaluate what you read and being able to reflect critically on your own reading and writing processes”(Melzer & Coxwell-Teague 3).
In order to reflect critically on these reading and writing processes you have to be aware of your situation. There are a number of instances that a reader or composer has to consider in any literacy condition. You need to be aware of the audience you are speaking to, while also showing your purpose. Everything we compose has a certain purpose. This purpose may be to persuade someone to buy your product, to get a good grade on a test, or even to brainstorm a topic for an upcoming speech in class. “The composing we do in and out of school calls on us to read and write,” the base of literacy, “for multiple purposes, and the literacy situation will play a role in constructing our purposes”(Melzer & Coxwell-Teague 7). For example, if you are preparing for an upcoming test, your purpose will be formed by the test questions.
What about the audience? In the example I listed above, the teacher would be the audience due to the fact that she will be reading and grading your test, so you are trying to perform to her standards. A teacher can play more than one role in this situation though, asking you to play the role of a historian, chemist, or even just an interested reader. “Composers always have both a purpose for composing and an audience or audiences to receive their message”(Melzer & Coxwell-Teague 10). Audiences we compose for can be extremely diverse. “Every time someone sits down to compose, he or she imagines audiences they’re writing to, and they’re shaped by the audience they’re imagining”(Melzer & Coxwell-Teague 10). Malcolm X, an African American minister and human rights activist, gave three different speeches each to a different audience. The first speech was to a Civil Rights group in Detroit, the second speech was given to Harvard Law School, and the third speech was given to the Nation of Islam. These are very dissimilar audiences, meaning Malcolm X has to speak accordingly to each audience. Your audience will always influence the way you compose and what you say. Being able to adjust your composure based on your audience develops your understanding of literacy.
As you can tell, from cuneiform script to modern day technology, our knowledge and understanding of literacy has grown tremendously. A study conducted by Our World Data Organization states that, “While only 12% of the people in the world could read and write in 1820, today the share has reversed: only 14% of the world population, in 2016, remained illiterate” (Roser & Ortiz-Ospina). We can see that only two centuries ago, only the elite had the ability to read and write. As we continue to develop overtime, our understanding of audience and purpose, in relation to becoming literate, grows. As nations, such as the United States, continue to grow and become diverse, becoming literate is a must.
Works Cited
Melzer, Dan, and Deborah Coxwell-Teague. Everything's a Text: Readings for Composition. Pearson Longman, 2011.
Roser, Max, and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina. “Literacy.” Our World in Data, 13 Aug. 2016, ourworldindata.org/literacy.
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