Meg Pemrick

Jessica Zerr  

English 110  

21 February 2017  

A World Between Two Worlds: A Learning Guide Describing Different Aspects of

Academic Writing

In McCarthy’s “A Stranger in Stranger Lands: A College Student Writing Across the

Curriculum”, McCarthy conducted a research study involving a college student named Dave. She

studied his writing behaviors throughout three classes, Freshman Composition in the spring of

his Freshman year of college and Introduction to Poetry in the fall of his sophomore year and

Cell Biology in the spring of his sophomore year of college. The study she conducted included

many different methods: observations, interviews, composing-aloud protocols and text analysis.

These were all helpful in allowing her to better understand Dave’s writing patterns in

his different classes. “A Stranger in Strange Lands” means that in every class ones takes, the

teachers will have different expectations on how the writing should be structures and what it

should be about; the student must figure out all of these things on their own. McCarthy is an

English teacher herself, thought this she became more interested not in what the teachers that she

was sitting in on and observing but more about how the students were understanding the

information. If the students could coherently understand the curriculum, then they would

obviously do better on the writing assignments. To conclude how the research ended was that

Dave as a student did well on the things that showed relevance to him and the subjects where he

was able to work with others he was more successful.

 For Dave it was easier for him to do well in classes he was interested in, such as Cell

Biology. As a Pre-Med major, Dave had more incentive to do well in this class because he

knew that it would be essential to his future career. On the other hand, he had an incredibly hard

time with Introduction to Poetry because he could not grasp the rules of that

class. He struggled with analyzing the poetry and being able to summarize it. In both his Biology

and Composition classes, the students were encouraged to talk with their peers about ideas they

were having and how the others were going to put their papers together. Through

interviews, McCarthy gathered that Dave needed to discuss with his peers about assignments in

order from him to put forth his best work.  

In Richard Rodriguez's “The Achievement of Desire”, he tells a story of a young boy’s

literacy journey that leads him into becoming an educated adult. Richard came from a middle

class working family with parents who were less educated than their children. In

this memoir, young Richard Rodriguez is referred to as Richard and when he becomes an

educated adult he is referred to as Rodriguez. As a child, when Richard started going to a good

school and receiving a well-rounded education, he was become slightly arrogant about his

knowledge and became very cruel to his parents. As a result of their lack of education, they

could not help him with his homework or understand the concepts of what he was

learning which embarrassed him. Richard worked very hard in school, copying everything his

teachers taught him. He made sure he was reading all the books that others said would make him

educated which is how he learned most of the concepts. He really looked up to an author

named Hoggart, the only man who seemed to understand and put into words how Richard felt all

throughout school.  
 Richard's literacy journey showed how when making different

decisions, people regret some things. In this case, he became nostalgic of the time that he had

with his family before schooling became his life. He began to regret not spending as much time

with his parents and started missing his life was before he receiving an education. He realized

that not everything needed to revolve around school work and academic readings. Rodriguez

learned from his experience that people should be very thankful for an education; however,

they should not forget or look down upon the people that helped them get to where they are.

Even though while he was in school he bonded with the nuns, he should have taken what he

learned and shared that knowledge with is parents. This could have made their relationship

stronger and resulted in him not having to regret his education.  

In McCarthy's research report, she states that students in different class are considered to

be strangers to the new “language” that the teachers introduce for their specific subject. “This

study also raises questions about how teachers can best help students 'strangers' to become

competent users of the new language in their academic territory” (McCarthy 626). This ties in

with what Rodriguez writes about because when Richard was a young boy, he was thrown into

school not knowing very much English or information prior to beginning classes. “Not for the

working-class child alone is adjustment to the class room difficult. Good schooling requires that

any student alter early childhood habits” (Rodriguez 47).  

Both works state that if a student is not ready or prepared enough by a teacher, then

that student will not do their best. A student of any age, such as Richard in elementary

school and Dave in college, need great deal of guidance by the teacher or professor to grasp all

of the concepts of learning. Dave being older than Richard shows that even with the age gap

between, there is a very similar comparison when it comes to reading and writing.  
 In the very beginning of the “Achievement of Desire”, Rodriguez speaks of a young girl

that reminds himself very much of himself.  

A girl, maybe fourteen. In this grey room her eyes shine with ambition. She keeps

nodding and nodding at all that I say; she even takes notes. And each time I ask a

question, she jerks up and down in her desk like a marionette, while her hands waves

over the bowed heads of her classmates. It is myself [as a boy] I see as she faces me

now [a man in my thirties] (Rodriguez 43).  

This reveals how when a person is very interested in something, they are going to

almost always do better than they would if they had no interest in it what so ever. In McCarthy’s

research, she states the same thing about Dave. When he was asked two years later if

he remembered anything about his Introduction to Poetry he could not recall much of anything

except that he had a very hard time with it. One of the main problems that Dave had with his

poetry class was that he could not understand or follow the preset rules expected from him like

he could in his other classes.  

Dave said that the comments on his first paper did help some with his second, but he

really did not refer to Dr. Forson’s responses on the second paper as he wrote the third.

Nor did Dave use the comments on the third paper when preparing for the essay question

on the final exam. Dr. Forson required no revision in direct response to his comments,

and the expected carry-over of her response from one paper to the next did not occur,

Dave repeated similar mistakes again and again (McCarthy 260)  

This quotes shows that a person must take the teacher's writing expectations seriously to

do well and get desirable grades. In Dave’s case, if he would have been more understanding of

what his Poetry teacher expected like he was in his English and Biology classes, he would have
received similar good grades. Over all, it shows that even if a person does not know all the

information, if they correctly put together the essay and make changes when they are told to

do, the paper will meet that expectations of the teacher.  

Like Richard, Dave always did exactly what the teacher wanted from him; following the

guidelines given to him. Richard was interested in everything he was learning in school;

therefore, writing on academic topics might not have been such a struggle. However, if it came

to a topic that was nonacademic, he would struggle. He would have a difficult time grasping the

guidelines since each writing structure is different.  

In both ‘The Achievement of Desire” and “A Stranger in Stranger Lands: A College

Student Writing Across the Curriculum”, similar thoughts of writing not being only for school

use even though that is what it was learned for in both stories came across. Both Richard and

Dave both needed to know how to write correctly to do well in school, which was taught to

them all through their schooling. From what is stated in these texts, there are different types of

writing, not all are the same. There could be some that hold some of the same standards true and

others that are completely unlike anything else.  

First, this study adds to existing research that which suggested that school writing is not a

monolithic activity or global skill. Rather, the contexts for writing may be so different

from one classroom to another, the ways of speaking in them so diverse, the social

meanings of writing and the interaction patterns so different, that the courses may be for

the student writers like so many foreign countries. (McCarthy 260)  

For Richard, his writing style as an elementary school student would be different from

the college papers that Dave was drafting and Rodriguez's as an adult would have a more

complex structure than Dave’s college papers. This shows that reading and writing can be
used in many different contexts, from academic writing to simply writing a letter, never the less

any more unusual.  

In “A Stranger in Stranger Lands: A College Student Writing Across the

Curriculum”, there are many concepts that go against what is said in “The Achievement of

Desire”. The most prominent difference is when it comes to what Richard thinks and what

Dave think. In “The Achievement of Desire”, Richard feels as though reading and

writing are the only things that are important to him. He held them on such a high

pedestal because he knew they were going to give him a better life. That would be better than the

life his less educated middle working class parents created for themselves. For Dave this was

different. He grew up in a family that was wealthy enough to send him to college and made sure

he would have a solid education. McCarthy’s research showed that Dave was a bright person but

not as motivated to do as well as Rodriguez had.  

After analyzing “A Stranger in Stranger Lands: A College Student Writing Across the

Curriculum” and “The Achievement of Desire”, both seem to have an extremely different writing

styles. In McCarthy's Research Report, the approach was very utilitarian because of the

fact it was a scientific paper and not meant to be a story. This was written to provide information

about writing patterns a student had in different collegiate courses. In comparison, Rodriguez's

memoir was meant to be a story explaining his literacy journey. Both texts showed the ways in

which Dave and Richard improved as well as failed.  

Both of these works showed a different kind of literacy journey although both surround

the idea of reading and writing. They are both portrayed in different ways. In “The Achievement

of Desire”, a story is told about how Richard needed to have reading and writing to escape and

how he became swept up in his education. Even though Richard would try very hard by reading
all these books, he never understood them. He thought that the only way to be educated was

though reading no matter if it made sense or not. For him, it was the fact that he was reading all

of the academic books that made him feel that he was more educated than others. Dave's journey

was slightly different because he was an average college student. It would make sense that he

would struggle in different classes when it comes to writing. Dave, a freshman in college with no

prior knowledge of what to expect from a college writing class, is right where he is supposed to

be. McCarthy's observations show that Dave is average and is probably not much different than

other college freshman and sophomores.  

 
  

Work Cited  

Rodriguez, Richard. “The Achievement of Desire” The Hunger of Memory: The education of

Richard Rodriguez, Godine, 1982, pp. 41-73  

McCarthy, Lucille. “A Stranger in A Strange Land: A College Student Writing Across the

Curriculum.”, 1987, pp. 233-265