Leo Avallone

Michel

Comm 101

17 October 2023

To what extent does an individual’s environment contribute to the method in which they

behave and interact with the people, places, and things around them? Coming into college, I

thought that I would never write a “To what extent…” paper again—as a result of the influence

that my high school had on my relationship with writing. In the case of that awful phrase, the

experience that I had all throughout being in an IB high school had done nothing short of

traumatizing me as a learner and thus making me desire anything but seeing the words again, let

alone writing them by choice for an assignment. And yet, here we both are. As much as I hated

my academic high school experience, it clearly shows the influence that that experience has had

on me and my writing. Each person has a variety of different life experiences, and each of those

experiences has a different but significant influence on the development of an individual’s

writing. As previously mentioned, an IB high school had a massive impact on my own writing,

though not all experiences have to have a negative effect on people. My parents, for example,

have had a major influence on how I write, as well as speak and generally interact with others

(and, in case it was not implied effectively, not a negative impact). My Theory of Knowledge

class in high school, while it could be miserable at times, showed me important lessons about

communication between myself and others that I would have had a much more difficult time

understanding had I not been enrolled in that class. The point is, with all factors in mind,
everything that a person goes through in their life can prove to alter their future behavior in one

way or another.

Throughout the past four years of my life, any paper containing a “to what extent…”

question or statement was automatically deemed as something to dread. One of these documents

was a 4000 word research paper that I had to complete called The Extended Essay. As the name

suggests, it was essentially an extended version of a literary analysis essay that was to be written

on the topic of the students’ choice—and this paper still stands as the longest analysis that I have

written to date. Through the writing of this paper, I learned one main lesson and can still feel the

influence of it in my writing today: to not only be able to continue to write for extended periods

of lines and pages, but to also find ways to include meaning in all of that writing. Over the

course of the month and a half that I had to complete the paper, I was constantly subjected to

figuring out new methods to continue my argument about the book whilst avoiding repeating

things that I had already mentioned or explained three, four, or five pages above. As a result, I

have learned how to expand a message through the addition of detail and emphasis in my

writing, which will prove to be useful for projects such as the thesis.

In a much more positive light, my Theory of Knowledge course during my junior and

senior years of high school also had a significant effect on my perspective of literacy. During our

class discussions covering the different areas of knowledge, one of the most emphasized ideas

throughout the year was perspective, specifically focusing on the fact that each individual can

have massively different perspectives on the same objective idea or event. In understanding the

idea of perspective, the course connected the message to language, outlining the importance of

specific language when communicating with others as a method to relay clear messages and

avoid misunderstandings due to nuances in language. As a fresh college student trying to

navigate life in a significantly more independent way for the first time, this has assisted in my

ability to keep an extremely open mind when meeting new people and finding new groups that I

can be a part of. It has helped myself as well as some of my peers in creating a mindset of

openness and understanding, all to reach our common goal of being the best version of ourselves

that we can be. And as a growing student at the time, my former TOK teachers’ feedback was

extremely helpful in the sense that my writing’s clarity and focus became much easier to follow

and actively comprehend.

From a much more familiar standpoint, my parents also had a massive influence on the

ways in which I communicate with others—though from a less professional stance. Growing up

with an immigrant mother from Vietnam, my communication developed much differently than

most other people growing up around me. And just to clarify, as I realize what that statement

implies, I am not referring to speaking a language other than English because, while my mom is

Vietnamese, I do not speak or understand the language itself. In my life, my communication

differed from others as a result of growing up with my mom’s “broken” English; or as she likes

to call it, her “shortcuts” in English. Prior to middle/high school, I had honestly never realized

that her shortcuts were even present as they are much less prevalent in spoken conversation than

in written communication (though I will confidently say that they are still present in the way she

speaks nonetheless). The introduction of a cell phone was the trigger to my realization of her

personalized version of English. In the beginning, this realization came as I was constantly being

texted by my mom as she enjoyed the fact that she could still talk to me while I was at school or

out of the house—except an overwhelming portion of her texts were nearly incoherent given all

of the shortcuts that she used. As time went on, I learned more about how her phrases translated

into full paragraph messages despite there only being 5-10 words present on the screen.
However, when I started to use my phone more often throughout the course of high school,

especially as I began texting my friends more and more often, I began to notice her shortcuts

finding their way into my own texts. I was shortening my own texts, whether or not they were to

my mom, condensing my paragraphs into mere phrases as she does with hers. This,

unfortunately, was something that I didn’t notice myself until commented on by my friends. In

the same way that my dad would say to my mom, my friends were constantly replying to my

texts with a “what? what are you talking about” type response, as they were not influenced by

my mom’s language in the same way that I was.

Overall, a person’s environment is one of the most influential factors that can go into

their personal development, especially when it comes to communication with others. Whether it's

parents, a class, or an assignment that has to be completed in a specific way, the experiences that

someone goes through can and typically does change how they go about life and view everything

around them. In my experience, each of these different experiences have contributed to the way I

write, whether it be writing a research paper for class or writing a text asking my sister to hang

out. My life experiences have proved to shine through my literacy, regardless of what type, and

aided in my interactions with others. In a way, they have each helped shape a different aspect of

myself and thus allowing me to express myself and my personality through my writing, as well

as through any form of communication with those around and involved with my life. And, now

that I’m writing it out, it becomes all the more obvious that educators aren’t lying when they say

they can tell when a student submits work that has a different style and voice… such as work

created through ChatGPT.

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