Dear Dr. Clenance,
The one thing that I learned throughout Phase 1 is that I should take my time and be patient. I have learned through my assignments the importance of culture and the differences between different people’s perspectives. My main audience for my language and Literacy essay was mainly people with immigrant parents. I think this is because when you have immigrant parents, they want you to learn about their culture from the country that they came from. I also have noticed that they have expectations that they want you to live up to. I tailored language and rhetorical choices in my essay by incorporating my experience with the Seal of Biliteracy. One of the most meaningful insights of this essay was when I failed but still rose back up and continued. A concept and term that has impacted my learning the most is the ability to persuade people to learn about different cultures. I have learned to tell stories of my experiences through my writing. This experience taught me to rise after failure and learn from this mistake to do better. The purpose of my phase 1 essay and Translation 1 is to learn to follow your dreams that you want and not somebody else’s.I would like you to know that I try my best with these kinds of essays, and I would like to do better in these kinds of classes. I have learned this from my experiences with my mom, who wants us to learn Spanish, but I’m fine speaking English. The most important thing that I have learned about Language and Literacy as a topic is that it can be used as a lesson to teach others, which could help them in the future. In conclusion, the purpose of this whole essay is to learn from past mistakes and experiences, learn more from these experiences, and continue to grow as a human being. I am now gonna try to move forward and learn from these kinds of failures, and eventually not to fail as much as I did before. This is another purpose of my Language and literacy narrative. Which is to learn that nobody is perfect and that you won’t always get it done on the first try. This is something that immigrant parents don’t seem to understand. I believe that this is because of the way that they lived during difficult times in their home countries. This was the main reason they moved to a different country to give their children a better life, while having a goal they have for us. But at the same time, while growing up, we then find out some experiences that get us hooked, and we discover our own traits and hobbies that define us. But whenever we try to explain it to our parents, they don’t support us and instead want us to do what they want. So this is why I wanted to make this narrative a connection to others with immigrant parents who have to follow their expectations.
Sincerely,
Julian Esteban Arroyave
Required Expectations
I was born in New York City, in Astoria, Queens. I was raised mainly speaking English at school, and I spoke Spanish at home. Even though I preferred to speak English, my mom wanted me to use my Spanish speaking skills to good use. I had already taken a Spanish class in ninth grade, so taking a Spanish class next semester in the spring in college would be great for my mom to be happy.
But before this, I had one specific moment from my experience with language and literacy during my senior year in high school. This was me trying to get the Seal of Biliteracy earlier this year. It was back in February 2025, at Greenburgh Academy, located in Yonkers. I just got into my last period of school, Studio Art. The art room was filled with art pieces made by other students over the last few years. There were three tables, two large and one small. The room had very large windows, and on each side there were two desks for the teachers, one for Ms. Mead and one for Ms. Peyton. At the other end of the room was a giant marker board, a large canvas with a painted tree, and multiple pictures of teachers at this high school glued onto it. Right next to it, there was an organizer with Bronze colored folders; the left were the smaller ones, and the right was for larger folders. They were organized by periods 1-8. On top of the windows were books and art pieces, and in front of the class, there was a chalkboard with artwork hung on top of it. I normally sat on the large table on the left in the middle vertical seat.
So as I sat down in my seat, Ms. Mead called me out. “Hey Julian!? So Dr. Roblez told me about this part of the Seal of Biliteracy.” The Seal of Biliteracy is an award granted by a school, district, organization, or state in the United States of America, in recognition of students who have studied and attained proficiency in two or more languages by high school graduation. If I had gotten this seal, my mom would have been proud that I was able to be fluent in her native language. “I’m gonna help you during this period. For the first part, you need to make a Google Slides about one thing according to the list on the paper Dr. Roblez gave you. It has to be in both English and Spanish and requires six or seven slides. This will take as long as you finish it, OK?” I agreed with my teacher as she sat down next to me and created the slides with my school account. Ms. Fuentes (another name the students can call her, though she prefers Ms. Mead) was also my studio Art teacher for eleventh grade. She really liked the effort I put into my projects, and so she decided to set me up for AP Art in twelfth grade. I became close with her and Miss Peyton to the point where I made them origami creations to remember me by after I graduated. Ms. Mead asked me what to make my presentation about. So I thought about it for a while, and after seeing my hobby of doing origami after doing my work in class, she asked me if it should be about that, and I said yes.
Once I got my topic, I proceeded to write about my history with origami over eight slides. I used books Ms. Mead had in her classroom for research and to look up the history of origami online. When I finished a slide, I showed it to my teacher, and if she liked it, I could go on to the next slide. She also told me to include the history of origami in my slides. I have been doing origami ever since I was a kid in the mid-2010s. I spent a few days writing and revising the slides in English. I showed my finished slideshow to Ms. Mead, and she really liked it. She now said to rewrite it again, this time in Spanish, until there were fourteen slides, the first half being in English, and the other half in Spanish. After revising them in Spanish, Ms Mead checked through my work and congratulated me for my work worthy of the Seal of Biliteracy. Once it was finalized, we both went to Dr. Roblez’s Office to show him the slides I worked on over the last few days. He also liked it and said I could move on to the next part tomorrow. After that, I returned to class and waited until dismissal, and then went home.
After doing the first part of the Seal of Bileteracy, I could move on to the second part, a digital test with four parts. Each part was focused on one component: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. To prepare for this test, though, I was told to take Duolingo lessons with my school account. After taking the test separately for 4 days each for one part, I finished it. I then waited for the next few weeks for the results to come, until one day, during my gym class, Dr. Roblez came into the gymnasium and talked to me. I asked him about the Seal of Biliteracy, and he said I was only one point away from getting it. I was pretty disappointed, but Dr. Roblez said that I was still very smart, and I accepted it. I didn’t get it because I was slightly rushing to get it over with. I learned to grow from this experience by learning to take my time and listen more carefully. After my graduation in June, my mom irritably pointed out that my two older siblings, Juan Pablo and Camila, both got the Seal of Biliteracy and that I did not. I was pretty annoyed since my mom has a habit of bringing up the past over and over again and not moving on. I believe that this can connect to larger social realities in how children/teens with immigrant parents have to live up to their parents’ expectations. who were raised in another country, so maybe I can try to learn more about Hispanic culture, my parents’ lives, and my Colombian roots.
Language and Literacy Narrative Revised Draft for Instructor’s feedback:
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