Mahir Shahriar

ENGL 11000

Phase 4 Final Self-Assessment Essay

I came into this semester of English not expecting much. I always struggled in English classes for varying reasons. I’ve always had difficulty writing essays and papers, and I always operated in a manner that there was always a right answer and a wrong answer. English classes always rode the line between right and wrong, using your creativity to create an answer that was neither right nor wrong. But I also knew this class was just a freshman introductory course for ELA. My upperclassmen said that the class was nothing too big and we wouldn’t do much. As time would have it though, this class would be a struggle for me. The writing we did had much higher standards than those that I did in high school and often took hours on end to complete. At the beginning of the course, we were presented with the course objectives, and through the coursework, we were tasked with meeting those objectives to the best of our ability. 

One of the objectives we were tasked with was to see how attitudes toward linguistic standards empower and oppress language users. I believe that I achieved this objective very well as some of the works we read resonated heavily with me. The pieces of literature we read at the beginning of the semester such as June Jordan’s “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and The Future Life of Willie Jordan” and Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” brought into perspective how the way someone speaks, regardless of how hard they try to show their emotions and relay their intentions. The standard of “white English” being normal and all other forms of English being wrong causes prejudice. Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” highlighted this best for me. The story of her mom getting discriminated against at the hospital due to her “broken” English resonated with me as my parents also did not have the best English back then, and they too were sometimes subject to discrimination. 

Our next objective was to explore and analyze writing and reading a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. While I believe I achieved the aspect of reading and analyzing a variety of genres quite well, my analysis of rhetorical situations could be much better. Even with the worksheets’ help, I struggled to set up the rhetorical situations and find key information to complete them. Through time, I was able to improve at setting them up but I still do not believe that my proficiency in doing so is up to par with the expectations you set for us. The texts we read throughout the semester covered a variety of genres, we read personal narratives, essays, and poems, and watched speeches in the form of TedTalks. While these are all very different genres, the authors were all able to convey a similar message from similar experiences regarding language and its effect on the perception of a person, mainly showing how it can negatively represent a person, regardless of who they are and what they are trying to convey. Reading these texts allowed my understanding of language to grow, as I never really thought of language as affecting someone’s public perception, I always thought of it as just a standard on how people communicate. 

       The third goal was to develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing. I believe I hit the mark for this objective. While my strategies for reading have stayed the same, I always enjoyed reading so it was always a strong point and I never needed to change my approach to it. My strategies in drafting, however, have changed. Before when I would go to the draft, I just wrote random ideas down, most of which were wrong and that would eventually get scrapped in the final version. Now I start with bullet points, trying to come up with my main points and ideas before I write. In terms of revising and editing that draft, I often write my second draft as if it’s the final version of the paper, putting my all into it. Then I put it through Grammarly to clear any mistakes, then I wait a couple of hours, maybe a day before I look at it again. When I go to look at it, I read it aloud to myself as my writing style is very similar to how I speak. If I say something and it doesn’t sound right, I know where to fix and improve.

Our fourth goal was to recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations. This is an objective that I do not believe I’ve made sufficient progress in. Over the semester, I’ve consistently struggled with this even with the help of all the different worksheets. After weeks of doing it, I feel that my proficiency in recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and situations has improved, however, I feel that I am not adequately proficient at it to consider this goal to have been met. That does not mean that I do not plan on continuing practice on this. Utilizing rhetorical strategies greatly helps with the comprehension of the text and its deeper meaning, and properly learning how to do so will greatly aid me in the future. 

Our last learning objective for this class was to adequately understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences. This is the objective that I believe I was most able to meet. I am someone who gravitates toward numbers, statistics, and research. Digital technologies such as Google Scholar helped connect me to research studies and academic journals easily and while I was introduced to it for the research paper we had to write, I definitely will continue to use it. I’m someone who enjoys research and learning more, and Google Scholar gives me easy access to accredited research studies and academic journals I can learn from. For this reason, I felt both extremely proud of my research essay and also quite ashamed. Those adjectives are quite contradictory, but the research paper was the first chance I had to do lots of hard research on a specific topic. I think for the first research paper I’ve ever written, it was quite good, but my passion for research was not satiated with that paper. I wanted to do more research, refine the paper more, and make it better, and I know I definitely could have if it were not for circumstances out of my control. 

For the most part, this class was one of the most impactful English classes I’ve ever had. Most of the time, I go through English courses not learning much, not connecting to the texts, and not being proud of the work I was producing. This class was different, however. The work I was doing was meaningful and I was reading texts like Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”, that I could connect with. I learned a new perspective on language and literature that deeply changed how I see works of literature and the rhetorical strategies I learned revolutionalize the analysis of texts. The course objectives of exploring and analyzing writing and reading a variety of genres and rhetorical situations, discerning how attitudes toward linguistic standards empower and oppress language users, developing strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing, recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations, and understand and use print and digital technologies to address a range of audiences; they all were put in place to help us grow as readers and writers. While I may not have proficiently met a couple of these objectives to a high enough degree, I can unquestionably say that I have grown as a reader and writer.

Mahir Shahriar 

Engl 110 

Research Paper Cover Letter 

When I chose the topic of social media, I originally thought of it as an easy topic to write about. After all, I was chronically online. I spent all my time growing up on social media. I had seen the negatives of social media in the form of cancel culture, bullying, and even going through an eating disorder. I first got interested in this topic through the TedTalk I used as a source. My AP Computer Science A teacher from my senior year of high school showed it to us in class. It had nothing to do with computer science, so I was a bit confused, but as the video kept playing, I found myself relating increasingly to what Parnell was saying. It made me intrigued by the statistics of everything, why I related so much, and how many more people related to the video. 

In writing the essay, I wanted to learn exactly that. The statistics of social media’s effect on mental health, what exactly were those effects, and how many more people related to those effects. In doing the research, I found that around 95% of teens my age are now on social media platforms, and more than 80% of them go through some form of mental health problems from their use of social media. I find those numbers ludicrous, and it served as a warning to me to start to pull back on my social media usage and think about how even my little actions on social media, regardless of how mundane or mindless they were, had a negative effect on me. For my audience, hopefully, other teenagers and young adults who spend far too much time on social media, I hope they can see how absurd the effects of our rampant use of social media are and how it is imperative that we fix our ways before it is too late. As teenagers and young adults, our brains are still developing. If we break our bad social media habits now, we can avoid permanent damage to our brain and avoid living life through dopamine addiction and ADHD. I also hope reading this essay will inspire someone to go and commit more research into social media’s effects on mental health. Despite all the research that already has been done, few know of effective ways to avoid and treat social media addiction, psychological disorders, and low attention span.  

Mahir Shahriar 

Engl 110 

Research Paper 

Have you ever spent a prolonged period of time scrolling through TikTok, not knowing how much time had passed? I know I have. Maybe there have been days that just seem so endlessly dull. Or perhaps you had the sudden urge to change your life around at 2 a.m. Perhaps you’ve randomly gone through an extremely depressive episode where you just don’t know what’s causing it. All these events have become quite common in people, especially teenagers, since the social media boom. Chances are you also have been on social media. Almost everyone from 3-year-olds on their parents’ iPads to my 70-year-old grandfather has been on a social media platform like YouTube or Facebook. Social media has a profound impact on people; it can convey information around the world like nothing else, connect people across the globe, and allow people to make a living sharing information or entertainment media. Many people credit social media as the cause of most behavioral and psychological disorders in people, but some argue that social media has a net positive effect on people. While social media has allowed people to connect and learn from each other, the extensive use of it by teenagers and young adults has been shown to have detrimental effects on them, affecting their behavior and self-image, shortening their attention spans, and increasing their risk to psychological disorders such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and eating disorders. In this research paper, I aim to identify the extent of these behavioral changes and psychological disorders caused by social media and argue that despite the positives social media brings, it is detrimental to the mental health of today’s youth (including me.) 

Social media has a profound impact on our daily lives. It is one of the best technological advancements we have ever seen. We can connect to people worldwide through the internet and access the latest news at any time of day. People spread information that normally you would have to learn through hands-on experience or school freely with everyone in the world. To teenagers, social media can be a great tool to help them get through the struggles of growing up. Platforms such as YouTube have a diverse collection of content creators who aim to help people through their content, whether it be helping students learn how to study and organize their time, get over anxieties and eating disorders, or teach how to make money and live a more successful life. For teenagers struggling through life and unable to get over the hurdles of growing up, these videos can serve as great guides and inspiration to make changes within themselves and push society forward. We tend to learn a lot on social media; it tends to influence the people we choose to keep in our company, the way we think of the world, and how we think of ourselves. Professor of the Department of Computer Applications at Government Degree College Mendhar J&K, Waseem Akram, in his article “A Study on Positive and Negative Effects of Social Media on Society” published in the International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, addresses the topic of the effects of social media on various aspects of society. He goes over many general effects of social media, such as its effects on health, business, society, and education. One section of this article is dedicated to the effects of social media on adolescents, where he broadly mentions several positive effects on them, such as developing social skills, and awareness, and inspiring them. In talking about inspiring them, he specifically states, “With a minute control on teens, they can use the movie as encouragement, motivation, and inspiration! Maybe our teen will decide to take up martial arts training, all thanks to a Bruce Lee movie!” (Akram 353). This inspiration he brings up in this quote along with the other positive effects of social media that he mentions are all things I personally have been affected by. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself sitting at home all day, not talking to anyone, and just sitting there playing games. I hated how I looked and felt, and one day a video came up on my YouTube recommended page about long-term change, and how I could make my life better. That video inspired me to make a change; I started to go to the gym and box to lose weight, and I used social media platforms like Instagram and Reddit to keep up with daily news and events and used Discord to connect to classmates and friends to socialize with them.  

While those positives exist, the negatives far outweigh them. Founder & CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of #SafeSocial, an educational institution to teach people about social media’s impact on mental health, Bailey Parnell, in her TedTalk, “Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health?” addresses the topic of how social media hurts your mental health, and argues that despite how social media harms the mental health with its users, mostly adolescents between the ages of 18 and 24 but also starting at age 12, it does not have to be harmful.  Parnell’s purpose in giving this speech is to warn people of the harms of social media and show that by changing how you approach social media and use it, it does not have to be harmful. She adopts an informative tone for her audience, the listeners of TedTalks, and anyone else who is interested in the effects of social media. In her TedTalk, she states, “With every like, you get a shot of that feel-good chemical, dopamine. …We’re anxious if we do not have access” (Parnell). This dependence on dopamine, a chemical secreted by your body to make you feel good along with an anxiety known as the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) parallels how an actual addiction would work. You have this “thing,” in this case getting likes or messages on social media, that makes you incredibly happy. You become reliant on that feeling of happiness it gives you and become anxious when you do not have it. This reliance and addiction to social media can be a great hindrance to our daily lives. We can be in a conversation, not getting the dopamine we are so used to getting every time we check our phones, that we become distracted from that conversation. We check our phones while the other person is talking, we message someone else, or see some other media that provides us that dopamine, but we are not fully engaged in that conversation. Depending on the type of media we consume, we may also start affecting our attention spans. Undergraduate writer from Oxford University, Jui Zaveri, in her entry “TikTok and the Death of the Attention Span” in The Oxford Blue online newspaper addresses the topic of the rapid rise in popularity of TikTok and its correlation with the decrease in attention span in students and users. She adopts a friendly academic tone when informing her audience, the readers of The Oxford Blue, or anyone else interested in the effects of TikTok on attention span, of the harms of TikTok. In her newspaper entry, she says, “In fact, nearly 50% of users surveyed by TikTok said that videos longer than a minute long were “stressful”. The truth is that our attention spans are shrinking – so much so that the effect of short-form media on our cognitive functions has been given a name: TikTok Brain” (Zaveri). TikTok, one of the world’s most popular social media platforms, is made up of user-created “TikToks,” short-form videos usually under 30 seconds densely packed with information meant for entertainment, although it is used by some to spread information. The short length of the videos, paired with the immense number of available TikToks to view allows the brain to gain a large amount of dopamine and information in a noticeably short amount of time, something our brain becomes accustomed to. Especially in teenagers and young adults, whose brains are still developing, this is detrimental to their attention spans. The dopamine release caused by the digestion of TikTok’s short-form videos causes somewhat of an addiction. Many users are on TikTok for substantial amounts of time without realizing it, and they often start feeling strange when they have not been on TikTok for some time, an early form of addiction to the platform caused by the excessive amount of dopamine it allows the user to release. The high amount of information found in a TikTok along with the high amount of use it has among young adults and teenagers causes their brain to slowly lose the focus needed to internalize information for longer periods of time, which can lead to cases of ADHD. This is an effect that I have seen in both my peers and myself. I find it hard to concentrate and study for extended periods of time and when I spend time with friends, I see that it is often hard for us to stay on the same topic as we need to constantly change what we are talking about, or we just end up forgetting what we were saying.  

Social Media platforms such as Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and Snapchat are breeding grounds for body dysmorphic behavior and instability in people’s body images. Most of the content on these platforms are user-submitted photos, of themselves, of others, or just landscapes or anything else. By far, most of the images posted on these sites are self-posted photos of people. These images can be very damaging to people’s own body image and self-esteem. Dr. Anne Morris of the Department of Paediatrics and Psychiatry, in her entry to the Paediatr Child Health Journal for the National Library of Medicine, “The impact of the media on eating disorders in children and adolescents,” addresses the impact of media on the cause eating disorders and adolescents and states, “Among the narrative data was the frequent theme of subjects reporting an interest in weight loss as a means of modeling themselves after television characters” (Morris). At the time of this study, the main form of social media was television. Young girls would often see the women portrayed on television, showing off the “ideal body type” for women, that being a lean thin body. This is paralleled today on social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat, where many women post pictures of themselves conforming to that “ideal body type.” Those posts statistically get more likes and followers than posts of women who do not conform to that standard. For many people, that representation of how their body should look is almost unachievable, however, due to its widespread exposure in social media, many people believe that if they do not fit that standard, they are not good enough, that they must do whatever they can to achieve that body type to get more likes and followers. The need for dopamine from that increase in followers and likes causes people to develop eating disorders, such as anorexia, which is a fear of gaining weight that alters their perception of their own body, making them think they are fat when they are not. They often supplement their fears by going through periods of starvation to try make themselves “no longer fat,” causing extreme damage to their bodies, all for some extra dopamine from the likes and followers they can get. Those eating disorders that many women (and men) receive from using social media are only heightened with their use of social media, as many studies show that the severity of their disorders positively correlated with the time they spent on those platforms. Eating disorders affect not only their physical appearance but also their self-image and self-esteem. Telehealth Counsellor at Eating Disorders Victoria, Rosie Jean Marks, in her article “The pursuit of wellness: Social media, body image, and eating disorders,” addresses the topic of how social media interactions fuel eating disorders and how that can lead to a decrease in self-esteem. She states in her article that “[the] examined time spent viewing, commenting and posting images on Facebook among female adolescents, and found that heightened exposure to image-based content was associated with body dissatisfaction and internalization of the thin ideal” (Marks). The more time female users spent looking at pictures of other women who fit the ideal “thinness” better than them, the more they started to look at themselves and think that what they were doing was not enough. This is something I have experience with. While I am not a female, the effects on body image caused by social media also affect men. For around a year, I struggled through eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia as I saw these “shredded” models who seemed to have their bodies look good so easily. Little did I know at the beginning, that most of those models did not look that good, they were using steroids to make their bodies have more muscle and used Photoshop to make themselves look leaner. This hurt my mental state as I was constantly telling myself that I was stupid for eating. The deeper I went into the different forums and threads with pictures of these “models,” the worse my self-image got as I was not good enough for love if I did not look like that. While my self-esteem plummeted due to my body dysmorphia, many studies show that simply being on social media a lot can contribute to weakened self-esteem. Professor of Psychology and researcher at Syracuse University, Zahra Vahedi, in her research article, “Social Networking Site Use and Self-Esteem: A Meta-Analytic Review” published in the Personality and Individual Differences Journal, addresses the topic of active users of social networking sites (SNSs) and the relationship between their self-esteem and their SNS usage. Her study finds that there is a significant negative relationship between the use of SNS and self-esteem. However, her study highlights a different reason for this decreased self-esteem, stating, “SNS users may be developing weaker, online relationships on SNSs, which then begin to replace stronger, in-person relationships (Hill, 2014). The replacement of stronger, in-person relationships with weaker, superficial online relationships may be associated with poorer self-esteem” (Vahedi). While most sources highlight low self-esteem as a correlation with low body image on the internet, this study dives into the minority of people who have low self-esteem without a low body image. This makes sense. With people spending more time on social media, they have more time to devote to weaker non-existent relationships. When they get used to these weak relationships, people struggle to form any real connections with their peers, lowering their self-esteem as they believe that the reason they cannot form those relationships is because they do not deserve to.  

In conclusion, the impact of social media on the mental health of teenagers and young adults is a widely researched field, many, including myself, argue that it is a hindrance to their mental health and development. While social media platforms offer opportunities for the global connection of people and the flow of information, the widespread use of social media by the youth is detrimental to their development. As stated by U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy on the news channel TODAY in their video “Surgeon General warns of social media danger to mental health,” “We see rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among young people. I’m concerned that social media is an important driver of that” (Murthy). While the benefits of social media cannot be overlooked, and abstinence from social media not being an option, we as teenagers and young adults should think critically about our social media use and prioritize our well-being over some Instagram likes. 

Works Cited 

Akram, Waseem, and R. Kumar. “A study on positive and negative effects of social media on Society.” International Journal of Computer Sciences and Engineering, vol. 5, no. 10, 2017, pp. 351–354, https://doi.org/10.26438/ijcse/v5i10.351354. 

Saiphoo, Alyssa N., et al. “Social networking site use and self-esteem: A meta-analytic review.” Personality and Individual Differences, vol. 153, 2020, p. 109639, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109639. 

Zaveri, Jui. “Tiktok and the Death of the Attention Span .” The Oxford Blue, 23 May 2023, theoxfordblue.co.uk/tiktok-and-the-death-of-the-attention-span/. 

Morris, Anne M, and Debra K Katzman. “The Impact of the Media on Eating Disorders in Children and Adolescents.” Paediatrics & Child Health, U.S. National Library of Medicine, May 2003, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2792687/. 

Marks, Rosie Jean, et al. “The pursuit of Wellness: Social Media, body image and eating disorders.” Children and Youth Services Review, vol. 119, 2020, p. 105659, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2020.105659. 

“Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? | Bailey Parnell | TEDxRyersonU.” Performance by Bailey Parnell, YouTube, TEDxRyersonU, 22 June 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0o. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023. 

Murthy, Vivek H, director. Surgeon General Warns of Social Media Danger to Mental Health. YouTube, TODAY, 23 May 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SvqoaZzyVs. Accessed 17 Nov. 2023. 

Mahir Shahriar
Engl 110
Peer Profile Cover Letter
10/20/23
This peer profile was excruciatingly difficult. As someone who is very introverted, it forced me to interview a classmate whom I had not spoken to yet and find out enough information to figure out who they truly were inside. Despite its difficulty, I believe I succeeded in the overall goal of the interview. I was able to connect to him and see who he was not only as a writer, but as a person. I am most proud of my ability to interview Anthony. As an introvert, I find it difficult to socialize with new people, but Anthony and I were able to connect through our similarities in interests and goals. We learned that both of us were Computer Science majors, who loved video games, built their own computers, and wanted to become so rich that money didn’t exist for us anymore. While his love of games facilitated his desire to be a game developer, I strove into the realm of Artificial Intelligence and its applications in software and games. Despite the small difference, we both have started to bond over our similarities.

In writing this peer profile, I wanted to use similar rhetorical techniques as
Anthony did in his original Language and Literacy Narrative. In doing so, I planned on trying to evoke emotion out of my reader in the same way he evoked emotion in me. I used pathos when I tried to compare the differences in our upbringing but show how, regardless of them, we had remarkably similar interests and goals in life. I also used allusion as Anthony did in his narrative when referencing the hit tv show The Amazing World of Gumball.

Writing this peer profile was able to connect me to the larger aims of the course such as language politics by showing me how despite language differences, people can be similar, both in interests and goals, and in culture as well. Anthony and I do not share
the same language, nor do we share similar upbringings; but we both have very similar goals and interests and have cultures that share similar customs and ideas. While I still agree that language and culture can affect how people act and are treated, writing this paper has gotten me to realize that the extent to which that statement is true is much lower than I believed. I thought that a person’s language and culture were a deal
breaker in who they were and how they are perceived, but I’ve come to see after interviewing Anthony that despite the differences in our languages (mother tongue and our use of English), I see him as a friend with similar goals in life.

The intended audience is of course Professor Lobell and Anthony, but I think the message I was trying to relay in the profile of people being close despite differences can be applicable to anyone who thinks that those differences will cause them to not bond or have anything in common, like students in middle school who are highly judgmental of
their peers, or elders who still are very old fashioned in the manner that their perception of people is very biased, and or judgmental. While these are just examples of people who would benefit in reading this, I aim to broaden how people think of each other in this profile.

Mahir Shahriar
Engl 110
Peer Profile
10/20/23

In his Language and Literacy Narrative, my partner, Anthony Ruiz, recalls the time when he first came to America. He had no knowledge of the people, the culture, or the language. I was curious to see how that upbringing could have affected who he is today. On that note, I interviewed him, trying to find out more about the boy whose seemingly unmeaningful interaction with a stranger at the airport left a profound impact on him and his character.

Upon starting the interview, I learned many things about Anthony. I had seen the interview as a way to get to know one of my classmates, and perhaps make a new friend, but one thing was very apparent: our early lives were nowhere near similar. Anthony, unlike me, lived in many separate places. While I lived in New York for the
entirety of my life, Anthony grew up in the Dominican Republic, until the age of 12, when he would make the pivotal move to the United States, which he covered in his narrative. He would first live in Miami and Las Vegas, before coming to New York, eventually attending City College. Despite living in so many different places, Anthony is still deeply linked to his ethnic culture and traditions. He defines culture as a reflection of important beliefs and practices by a person and their people, not just ‘what my family did.’ One part of his culture that stood out to me was how they dealt with blessings. In his culture, they often ask elders, neighbors, and family members for blessings, and they would say “God bless you.” He stated how he would often ask his dad for blessings. This intrigued me as in my Islamic-Bengali culture, we often do the same thing; asking elders, parents, friends, and family members to pray for them in the same manner. While he remained connected to his culture after all that moving, I found myself drifting away from my culture, even though I have lived in New York City my entire life with family and relatives, all of whom kept their culture above American culture. While his culture does include traditions like mentioned that involve God, he himself is not religious. When I
asked, he stated that no one in his family was religious, so he had no inclination towards it. This is quite the opposite of myself. My culture is very linked with my religion. Oftentimes, Bengali Muslims confuse traditions and beliefs as being a part of the religion, when they are actually a part of the culture, and vice versa. While my parents wanted me to be deeply religious, I tended to be hesitant towards religion, but as I have gotten older, I’ve slowly come back to my religion. Despite this, our current goals and aspirations are similar. Anthony, like myself, is also majoring in Computer Science. He said that once he saw technology with his own eyes, he was engrossed with it. In his narrative, he talks about how on the plane to America, he watched The Amazing World of Gumball, which is where he learned his first English words of “thank you,” which he
used to express his gratitude towards the man for giving him the two dollar coins. That early exposure to technology-based media jumpstarted his interest in tech. He would go on to build his own computer and become so infatuated with video games that he decided he wanted to make them for a living in the future, aspiring to be a video game developer upon graduating. I, too, was so infatuated with technology-based media that I
decided that I wanted to go into tech. While it wasn’t a show like The Amazing World of Gumball that inspired me, I knew that I wanted to create something using technology; and similarly, to Anthony, I would gain a love for video games and build my own computer as well. One line from our interview that I will always remember was Anthony saying, “you know, it was kinda hard talking to people when my English was bad, but I always found comfort playing video games.” I resonate with the statement heavily as I would fall back onto playing video games in times of stress and hardship as it gave me a place to relax and just enjoy life. We also talked about our opinions on the relationship between language and culture. While I believed that my connection with Bengali culture was tied to the language of Bangla, Anthony believed the language did not affect the language and vice versa; they were their own separate entities which coexisted together.

Upon doing the interview, I was able to understand his narrative at a deeper meaning. His narrative takes place in the first person, allowing us, the readers, to take a step in his shoes, allowing us to emphasize him and his feelings during that experience. The narrative being an anecdote going in chronological order also helps us feel more connected to him as he explains everything as he went through it, immersing us into his feelings at the time. Anthony’s beliefs about the interaction between language and culture are also shown in the narrative. While he didn’t understand English, he was still able to watch The Amazing World of Gumball and understand the culture behind it and what the message was. His decision on keeping his connection to his culture is mirrored in his narrative as he keeps the coins given from the man. The coins symbolize a sense of hope, that he could learn English and become American, and that there is good in people, as exhibited by the man he met in the Atlanta airport. Keeping the coins reflected his desire to stay connected to his culture, in which the coins represent an important aspect of who he is and his moral character.

Overall, Anthony’s narrative highlighted an early, pivotal time in his life; where he made the journey to the United States and went through an encounter that would shape his morals and way of thinking. The interview gave me a deep dive on who he was today and allowed me to fully grasp the effect the interaction with the man had on Anthony. Anthony could have just shrugged that interaction off. He could’ve been blind to that man’s effort in making Anthony comfortable in a new country with a new language, but Anthony took that experience and learned from it. Despite the differences between how we grew up, Anthony and I ended up having many similarities in interests and goals, like how we both want to be so rich that money no longer feels like anything. It showed me how upbringing did not force you into a set path; rather it was what you did with those experiences that determined who you were and what you wanted to be.

this phase was very hard. At the time of writing this, i haven’t yet finished writing my paper. I keep going back and looking at my sources and cutting them and choosing different sources as the sources I am getting are either not in depth enough with statistics or just don’t fit the different criteria of sources. I want to get an A so i need to make sure I have enough sources and use them efficiently enough to get the 8 pages required to get the A. While this might not be in the final version, I am taking a risk right now by starting the essay off with the counter argument, showing how social media is good, and writing about how it is bad for the remainder of the essay.

I don’t revise my work. I use grammarly after im done writing and whatever it tells me, I fix. I also read my paper aloud and if it doesn’t sound right when I’m saying it, I change it. when I write, I try to make it so the paper can be said during a conversation or speech, because I think the most effective way of writing is the way we speak.

I thought that phase 2 was interesting but I don’t really know what I got out of it. I thought that interviewing Anthony was fun as I found out that even though our upbringings were very different, we were very similar in interests in goals. Perhaps it was the questions I asked, or maybe the fact that we didn’t interview in person, I wasn’t able to connect who he was as a person to the writing he portrayed in his narrative. It could be that a persons character doesn’t affect how they write, but rather what they write; or I just am blind and didn’t see the connections.

I believe writing is important. Even though I am very bad at writing, I think that people use writing all the time. In this day and age, articles are being replaced with videos, newspapers being shown by the daily news, and books being formatted into audiobooks. Yet, writing will never cease. Most sources of media today were at a certain in writing. However, I do believe that slowly but surely, many of the writing classes will cease. This class in particular has helped me better express myself in writing, but that betterment in my writing has positively affected my expression in speech as well. I believe that instead of classes like this that benefit peoples expression in writing, there will be instead classes that solely seek to positively affect peoples expression in speech and online. I don’t believe that in the future, traditional English classes like this will have much of a purpose. While I believe Writing is an important skill, I do not believe that classes in the future on this subject will matter so much.

This class has been going better than most of my English classes have gone. Normally, I get tortured through the English class with countless writing assignments and readings that I don’t find interesting or have time for, but the writing assignments and reading have caused me to reflect about my own life, something I did not know I needed to do until this class came along.

Mahir Shahriar

English 110

Cover Letter

Writing this essay forced me to truly reflect on my experience with language. For a long time, I hated language. Simply put, I was bad at it. In English, I never knew the right words and struggled with my vocabulary. I would often search up synonyms for words for my writing assignment (I’m doing it right now for this assignment) as I felt that the simple words, I knew weren’t able to convey how I truly felt. With my mother tongue, Bangla, it’s even worse. I do not know how to read or write it. I only knew how to understand it for a long time, and to an extent, even to this day. I only learned how to speak very simple words and phrases, and I can’t hold a full conversation without stuttering or not knowing how to say the things I want to say. Well, I guess the same thing happens with English.

When writing this essay, I had to go back and think. ‘When was there a time when language deeply affected me?’ I knew that my narrative would have to be something about my struggle with Bangla; I always struggled to talk in it. So, I sat there, thinking about my experiences failing at Bangla, when I remembered the time when my problems with Bangla became clear to me. When my grandparents came to America. Yet, in thinking about all my experiences, I reflected on each of them. How I struggled through all of them, and what I learned from them. It truly made me proud of all the things I went through, and I learned from them. And when finishing the essay, I felt most content with what I had written. For the first time in a long time, I felt that I was able to properly explain how I felt in a piece of writing and that’s something I’m very proud of.

My intended audience in writing this essay was obviously Professor Lobell and the rest of the class, but it could be read by anyone who struggled with balancing their mother tongue and its culture with English and American culture. The story I told in my narrative is something similar to what many bilingual children go through. They have two languages on their hands, and can’t balance them, choosing to pick one and focus on that alone, as I did. My message to them is to try finding a balance between them, as it makes it easier to speak to their family and others from their culture; and they can coexist with the American culture they live in.

This narrative is an anecdote of a time in my life when I struggled with my language, Bangla. Whenever I read anecdotes, I feel connected to the writers and it brings a lot of emotion out of me, which I aimed to replicate by writing an anecdote. I wanted to use pathos in an anecdote to resonate with the reader to show that the struggle that bilingual kids go through isn’t unique to them and we all go through it.

In the class, we read multiple texts and watched Safwat Saleem’s TedTalk; all of which talk about issues that people had with language, whether it be “broken” English used by immigrants, accents, or “Black” English. They all try to bring to light how language isn’t binary, how even in one language, there are multiple ways of using that language and every one of those ways is valid; and how their relationship with language shaped who they are. The experience I wrote about, shaped how I looked at language and communication as I felt the struggle of not being able to convey how I truly felt, similar to how many who speak with an accent or “broken” or “black” English.

Mahir Shahriar

English 110

Language and Literacy Narrative

Summer is always a fun time for a young student. They don’t have school. Any homework? Any responsibilities. They can just spend the entire summer relaxing by themselves, playing games with friends, sleeping, spending time with family, but most importantly, not having to worry about homework being due. But for 6-year-old Mahir, summer was just a little bit different. His grandparents were coming home from their home in Bangladesh for the first time in his life, and he could not wait.

The 6-year-old me was ecstatic. The last time I saw my grandparents was when I was 2, when my family visited Bangladesh. I didn’t even remember that time; I only knew that it had happened from old photos and the dates on them. I was told the news of them coming to live with us in May of that school year. It was only first grade, but I already dreaded going to school and was desperately waiting for summer to begin. The news only made me happier for the summer to begin. The night I was told, I ran around our apartment with joy, chanting “I’m going to see Dada and Dadu.” (Grandpa and Grandma) My mom chuckled at my excitement and told me that when they arrived, I had to talk in Bangla because they did not understand English. “All good”, I thought. I hear my parents talk in Bangla all the time. They even speak to me in Bangla. There won’t be a problem that my grandparents didn’t speak English because I understood Bangla too. However, in my little 6-year-old head, I did not piece together that understanding Bangla, just was not the same as speaking it.

At the airport, three days after school had ended, I waited with my family. Some members of my extended family were there too, waiting for my grandparents. My maternal grandparents were there, ready to see my paternal grandparents for the first time in a long time. My mom’s younger sister and two older brothers and their families were also there, ready to help bring all the luggage home in their cars. I waited, so excited that I couldn’t keep still. I ran around, constantly saying to myself, “Dada and Dadu are coming!”, “Dada and Dadu are coming!”. My parents and maternal grandparents had to tell me multiple times that we were in a public space, to be quiet and calm down. Still, I was ecstatic and awaited the plane’s arrival.

At 3:55 p.m. EST, the plane landed. As it was in the early 2010s, airport security gave my Muslim paternal grandparents a hard time as they tried to get through immigration and retrieve their luggage, extending the time I had to wait before seeing them. An hour and a half later, my grandparents finally made their way out. The state of euphoria I was in could not be described. I ran to them, going under the line divider rope that stopped people from going to the exit of immigration, hugging them until my arms went sore. “Mahir, balo aso?” my grandma asked me. I knew what that meant. ‘Are you good?’ for a direct word-for-word translation but it was just how you said, ‘How are you?’ in Bangla. “I’m good. I’m so happy you’re here.” I replied. But my grandma just looked at me, chuckling after ten or so seconds. “English busi na”, she told me. (I don’t understand English.) It was then I realized I had no way of talking to my grandparents. My mom reiterated that I had to speak Bangla. After that, 6-year-old me lost it. I was on the floor, bawling my eyes out, screaming, “I CAN’T SPEAK BANGLA. YOU DIDN’T TEACH ME.”

Back at home, my mom explained to my grandparents that I couldn’t speak Bangla, but I could understand it. My parents would come in as my translator, translating everything I had to say to my grandparents from English to Bangla. While on paper this seemed fine, I hated it. I felt like I couldn’t properly connect to my grandparents. My grandparents would often just chuckle when I’d try talking to them, all while I knew they couldn’t understand me. They had flown all the way here from Bangladesh, and I had waited so long, just for our exchanges to be very awkward. I knew my grandparents enjoyed my company, but I was also aware that they felt disheartened by the fact that I couldn’t speak to them. I made it my goal that summer, to be able to speak Bangla with my grandparents. My parents had prioritized so heavily that I learned English to be able to communicate with people at school when I was younger. I’d often be sitting at the dining room table at breakfast, just reading the long, confusing words on the nutrition facts of the cereal box because my parents said it would help me read. This summer, I wouldn’t be doing that. Whenever my grandparents or parents talked in Bangla, I would try my best to listen carefully and repeat what they said. August rolled around, and by then I started mustering up the courage to speak in Bangla to my parents and grandparents. However, it did not go great. I could only say very simple phrases and everything I said was very broken, but I was able to get my point across. It motivated me so much, and by the end of the summer, I was able to answer my grandma’s first question from when she first landed, “Mahir, balo aso?” “Ami balo asi.” (‘I am good’- word-for-word translation.) 

The problem I faced is actually a pretty common problem with children in immigrant households. Oftentimes, when bilingual children grow up, they tend to ‘pick’ one language; either their mother tongue or the language of the country they live in, in this case, English. However, in doing so, they lose connection with the other and its culture. Most commonly, they end up choosing English, causing them, like in my case, to barely know how to speak their language, and not even know how to read or write it, or just barely be able to do so. This language barrier also causes a rift in their connection to their family and culture. Oftentimes, families of the child feel neglected or disrespected when the child doesn’t speak to them in their native language and reflect the practices of their culture. It is where the term ‘whitewashed’ comes from. Children often adopt the cultures of “white” America and not their native cultures. In uncommon scenarios, the children pick their own native language and culture over English, causing them to be “behind” in their English and knowledge of American culture. This leads to a rift between them and the people they meet in school, at work; anywhere outside of their culture. They are often subject to discrimination and bullying at those places, due to the way they speak and their lack of knowledge about American culture. I hope that in writing this, bilingual kids who faced a similar issue to mine can understand the importance of building a balance between their native language and culture, and American culture and English.  

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