Caroline Ladd

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1102-026

February 16th, 2011

Preliminary Inquiry Question

When thinking about what my inquiry question would be, I had absolutely no

idea where to begin. My first thought was that I would write about the difference

between north and southern dialects, but when I started thinking more about that I

thought that it would be too difficult to get my thoughts across. So, my idea for my

inquiry paper as of right now is whether or not the United States should be

considered a bilingual country even though there is not an official language.

I am curious about this question because when I reflect on my everyday life, I

notice more and more often when I it would be a huge help if I was fluent or knew

the slightest bit of Spanish. The ratio of Spanish to American people in the United

States is getting smaller and smaller, and it is a fact that us American’s needs to

realize. This topic could be related to our sponsors of literacy essay because we

could add sponsors to our lives that know Spanish, and vice versa for the Spanish-

speaking people in the US.

I do not really know a lot about this topic thus far, but I am very interested in

learning more about it. One way that it has effected my life it in the fast food

industry, when trying to order food at a fast food restaurant and the worker only

speaks Spanish or very little to no English it becomes a very difficult task. I do not

think that only American’s should be required to learn some Spanish, but than
Spaniards should also be responsible for learning English. This way this

communication from both ends would be much easier.

I came to this question with much help from my mom and dad. I went home

this past weekend and went to them with my assignment and told them that I really

didn’t know where to begin. I brought up the stuttering topic to them, but they

though that my paper could easily turn more into a narrative essay instead of an

inquiry paper. They began throwing many ideas out to me, but when my dad came

up with this idea it really grabbed my attention; so I decided to look a little further

into the topic.

Some new ideas that come into my mind when thinking about my question

are what it must be like for the Spaniards in South America to deal with the

Americans that now live there. I know think that there are two sides to this issue

that need to be look at instead of just one perspective. I am now also eager to get

started on this topic and see what other people have to say about the issue.