Gregory Cunningham Jr.

Assignment III Final

My Interviewee was LaCorey Cunningham a sophomore student that attends Chapel Hill University. My older sister LaCorey was always an intelligent person to be around. LaCorey was constantly teaching me new words after school everyday, and giving me quizzes to see if I knew the answers to them. This was her way of being a good sister and role model while showing off her intelligence. LaCorey is now in college majoring in exercise science while participating in work study to help provide funds for school. LaCorey Cunningham grew up in a 3 sibling and 2 parent household in which she experienced a lot and learned even more. LaCorey was the middle child and had an older sister and a younger brother. Her older sister Latonia was a great athlete competing in volleyball as well as basketball where she would go on to receiving a full scholarship to western Carolina to continue her volleyball career. LaTonia was mediocre when it came to school and making outstanding grades. With this being said Latonia never made below a c in school. LaCoreys little brother Greg was also an outstanding athlete in whom he competed in track as well as football. He would go on to receive a full

football scholarship in football at UNCC. Gregory was also mediocre when it came to performing in the classroom. He was extremely lazy in school and only did enough to get by. LaCorey also played sports; she participated in track, volleyball, and basketball. LaCorey was good in sports but not as interested in it as her siblings and felt like she was always over looked in the household. LaCorey suffered from what she called middle child syndrome. LaCorey then began looking for ways to make her happy and her parents proud as her she felt her siblings did. LaCorey took a different approach and decided to take her schoolwork as serious as possible and competed in grades harder than any of her siblings had competed in sports. This was good and benefitted her because not only did it help her feel better about herself it was something she was really good at due to the fact that she was already far more intelligent than she even knew. It had gotten to the point where she never made a B in school. She received only one be her middle school career and through her high school career. The rest of her schooling consisted of As all the way across the board. LaCorey is someone I not only look up to but admire as a person. She takes school so serious and hasnt made below an A on the college level and she has never made below an A in English itself. For this type of history I feel as if she would be more than successful in todays educational system. I feel that she is just one of those people that just has a knack or learning and just get it, which is a very

special characteristic to have. On assignment one my response was Is there really a prejudice when it comes to professors and their grading of a paper with variety and foreign dialect? Should a student be forced to speak and write in a certain dialect? Could a person with too much of a distinct dialect be graded harsher than one with a common dialect? My initial reaction to the piece was, "what in the world am I reading?" As I continued to read and got to the third page, I was quickly drawn in by the topic. This is a vital concern because it's something that occurs everywhere. Everyone is unique in every way including their dialect so why should this be a personal flaw when it comes to constructing papers. According to what my response was it was evident that I felt that dialect diversity should be allowed but to a certain extent. Based of the interview questions in which I had LaCorey answer, 1 at what age did u learn to read and write? 2 How do you feel about reading? 3 Does this affect your way of writing 4 How many schools have you attended during your life 5 How did you get taught your reading and writing skills 6 How did school affect your way of writing 7 Has your reading or writing style changed overtime 8 Did any of your jobs require a lot of writing? 9 Did your school affect your speaking habits? 10 Did any of your past jobs require a certain writing technique 11 What are your strengths in reading and writing?12 how often does it require reading for your current job? 13 What are your weaknesses in reading and writing? 14 Is your writing and speaking dialect the same? 15 what is

your favorite book? 16 Are you a student? 17 Should we be able to write in our own dialect? 18 What is your primary language? 19) What is your education background? 20) What is your name and where are you from? She felt the same way as long as it was interpretable and included grammar. For example a paper that followed all the guidelines of the rubric should be accepted and this is a prime example Today is my first writing assignment in my freshman course English class. I am attending West Charlotte high school and my mother does not approve, but who cares? I surely dont! When making my decision as to what high school I should attend my AAU track coach who also coached at west charlotte persuaded me to attend his school. My home school had just been changed a year before due to the new school that was built, Mallard Creek high school. I didnt want to go to a new school because I didnt know how their athletic program would be. Also, all my friends were there and I knew I would get into a lot of trouble by goofing off on a regular basis. My friends and I stayed in trouble we were really immature. My father and I soon came to the conclusion that West Charlotte was the place for me. I didnt know anyone, I would have a fresh start, and I would have to mature rather quickly seeing that the school wasnt on the best side of town. My dad called it growing up and becoming a man. Back to my writing assignment! The assignment was to express yourself through a well-put together paper. I had fun with the assignment and put everything down that mattered. I worked as diligently as

possible and got a fair grade on the assignment. Thats where the problem occurred; my paper in which I worked so hard on the first day of class was just fair. I had really worked hard and couldnt figure out why she took certain points off for my style and the way I worded things.

My teacher gave the whole class a systematic way of writing in which we had to follow each and every day. The system was rather straight forward and to the point and told you exactly how she had expected to see your paper. On these cut out consisted: how many paragraphs were expected, what each paragraph consisted of, (intro, 3 ideas, then conclusion.), the transition words you should use in each paragraph and each paragraph varied, and what point you were looking to make in each sentence of each paragraph. This made writing soooo much easier for me. Not only did it make writing easier and straighter forward, but also it made it mundane and difficult to be whom you were through your paper. So when we are asked to do papers about our self, they all ended up being somewhat the same due to the key transition words everyone had to use in each certain sentence in each different paragraph. I really appreciated the concept but, I wanted my papers to be way different from anyone else in the class so my teacher wouldnt get bored grading my paper and grade it more harshly.

In my English II class (10th grade English) my teacher made us write a journal for our warm up. In this class we were forced to write a journal for a warm up each and every day. For our journal we would have to write a page front and back and under the time limit in which the teacher provided for us. Depending on how long the topic was our teacher would give us 5- 10 minutes. Her aim was to get us to get started on our papers faster and not waste too much time thinking. After the completing of our warm ups, our teacher would then make us share to show the different backgrounds. This would show everyones different dialect and way of writing. One class our English teacher made us read different articles. These articles talked about the different ways you can express yourself. It had different adjectives and even ideas when it came to formatting papers. It told us what types of papers we could write as well as when it was appropriate to write these different papers. This was the day that my teacher expressed to us that we must develop our own writers style. Not only that but we must get comfortable with writing and make it become our second nature. She explained to us that writing wouldnt go away and if we didnt began to like it now that it would kick us in the butt as we advanced in grade level as well as age. On this day my teachers made us come into class pick up a slip of paper

off her desk and prepare a formal essay. This was no ordinary essay; this essay was in essay form but was done verbally. We were giving 5 min to write what every we wanted but this wasnt enough time to write what she was asking for exactly. We then went on to find out that what she wanted from us to be creative but also write a main topic for each paragraph along with two main points to go along with each. While doing this, it gave people the opportunity to express who they were as people and get their point across without being systematic. Although there were still guidelines, you had to talk formally (no slang) and, utilize the use of word endings. On this occasion my English teacher went over the different ways she expects to receive a paper. She asked us if our previous teacher had taught us to systematically write our papers a certain way. Of course everyone in the class told her yes. This is when she suggested that we should develop our own identity when it came to writing. She said when reading our papers she should be able to tell it was Gregorys work. By this she meant we need our own style or charisma. She said that when you develop such panache it makes it easier to tell you havent plagiarized when doing a big assignment such as a research paper. I get my first assignment in college and its based on writers dialect. We were told to read an article and basically give our insight on the article and how we feel about it. Seeing that in the past Ive had different types of teachers and they had different view on

this topic. Me personally I think that everyone should be different when it comes to writers dialect, let your dialect shine through your paper! Dont write systematically let your individuality take over.

This assignment was rather fun and I wish all writing assignments took this fashion. It was pretty much free of a certain way of writing and this was something I had everlasting ideas doing. I had so many ideas I lost my train of thought multiple times and was too unsure of what I needed to have in my paper. Once I was ready to wrap up my paper I was also unsure on how I would do so. It was my first time doing journal entries instead of an actual paper so it was pretty much trial and error. In doing this paper I realized that Id rather people who writes something to have their own identity. By thus I feel that writers dialect is necessary and should be allowed in writing everywhere. After assignment one we proceeded into assignment two in which we were to interview someone and transcribe into a fashion I had never worked with or completed before. Within this assignment two, we had to have multiple guideline to follow which was outlined on our rubric. One of those outlines was our reflection. My reflection two was as follows, Assignment two I found extremely difficult do to the fact that we had to inreview someone we felt worthy for the assignment and transcribe it word for

word. This meant that we had to wright every single thing down that we recored and put it into our paper. After that we had to complete the assignment rough draft and all. This was something I wasnt exactly use nor was I exposed to it. I was thinking to myself how would I be able to actively ask questions listen record and do all of the things requested knowing I would have to go in later and transcribe everything I heard. Although I felt this was a difficult task I eventually got it done. For assignment three we were told to write a 2,000 word paper in which I felt would be too difficult. In the end it wasnt that bad after all.