O’Donnell 1

James O’Donnell

Heather Vazquez

Composition 1

4 october 2023

Experiences Make My Writing Mine

When I was young I enjoyed learning new words, in part to fuel some form of superiority

complex, but also because I just felt invigorated when I used words you would seldom hear. As a

result, my language became jumbled and I constantly had to explain what I was saying leading to

where I am now. My current language -both written and spoken- is an odd jumble of references

and phrases from media with slight traces of when I was basically a walking thesaurus. My

jumbled writing isn’t the result of the culture around me but instead of my experiences and

interests in this world. Examining my life I think I can trace the biggest changes in my literacy to

my 5th grade teacher Mr. Ogle and the internet.

I, like virtually every human to ever live, did not enjoy school very much, not because the

work was difficult -in fact, I enjoy challenges- but because I felt bored and as a result would

never put in effort for classes I didn’t care about. 5th grade would be one of the only years of my

life where I honestly tried in an English class. To understand why the class had such a profound

effect on me I feel that I need to explain a few things about how my elementary school

functioned. Starting the year I entered 5th grade the school instituted a new policy where each

student would have 2 main teachers one to teach math and science and the other to teach English

and history. Mr. Ogle was my English/History teacher and was known even outside of the school

for his unique way of teaching, in fact, I'm confident that there has been at least one news article

about him. I won't pretend to know exactly what a standard 5th-grade class was like. Still, I

doubt that they involved reading a classical novel like “Huckleberry Finn" every week to write a
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5 paragraph essay about or a year-long role-play session of American history. The books did

succeed in expanding my vocabulary and with the sheer magnitude of essays I wrote and/or

graded that year I think that my style of writing is still heavily based on that class. However, the

reason why these classes had such a lasting impact was not because of how it was taught but

instead who taught it. Mr. Ogle is one of the only teachers I've ever had to call me out when I

didn’t put in the effort. He would pull me aside when he noticed I only skimmed a book or if my

writing was worse than it normally was. If Literary sponsors are defined as “ Any agents, local or

distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate,

suppress, or withhold literacy”(Brandt 247). then I would say Mr. Ogle was the sponsor that

enabled the expansion of my literacy the most.

Then came middle school where I found the second major literary sponsor in my life The

internet. Since I am an introverted person by nature and none of my classes had any memorable

effect on me at this point the biggest sponsor in my life was in fact the internet. During this time

I got into a webcomic called “Homestuck” which is not only one of the longest English works

ever made -when measured by word count- but also what pulled me into the rabbit hole of the

internet. From this point on I began to consume memes and comics at a rapid rate adding

references to them in my sentences at random. While everyone else around me was gaining an

understanding of other dialects and languages I was attempting to consume every meme that

existed and include it in my speech. And although this is by no means conventional I feel it is an

example of Code Meshing as described in “Should Writers Use They Own English?” by Ashanti

Young Vershawn. Young states that “The Internet, among other mass media, as well as the

language habits of America’s ever-growing diverse ethnic populations be affecting how

everybody talk and write now, too.”(333) Like Young said the Internet is an example of code
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meshing and probably the most prominent one in today's society. I would argue that including

words and phrases from internet culture daily such as acronyms and memes is an example of

code meshing.

Soon after middle school ended I began to try and learn Japanese over the summer which

led to an example of code meshing more reminiscent of what is commonly thought of. With the

rise of Japanese media in the West and my endeavors to consume all forms of media, it was

inevitable that the 2 would collide. As a result, I began to include the more well-known Japanese

words while hanging out with friends i.e.; “nani?” which means “what?” or “baka” meaning

“stupid”. I mostly started including them as a joke but I believe that it is still an example of code

meshing as when talking to certain people I will sometimes include random Japanese phrases

(“owari da” “bakana” etc.) out of habit. I think that this is an example of code meshing in a more

traditional sense since it blends international languages. and Young describes code meshing as

"Code meshing what we all do whenever we communicate — writin, speakin, whateva.Code

meshing blend dialects, international languages, local idioms, chat-room lingo, and the rhetorical

styles of various ethnic and cultural groups in both formal and informal speech acts." (331).

Young's description of code meshing proposes that blending international languages is a form of

code meshing and even though the words are most commonly just used as jokes if they are used

in mundane conversation I believe that this is an example of code meshing.

Once high school started back up I had stopped trying to learn the language and

completely forgot most of the grammar and how to write. I only retained a pretty strong

vocabulary which is enough to randomly add words to sentences while hanging out or

understand movie scenes when subtitles don't load. My life continued much the same as it did in

middle school until sophomore year when COVID-19 hit. During 2020 I rarely contacted any
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friends and before I knew it I had lost all of my connections leading to the majority of my

exposure to language being from YouTube, while I had a pretty good understanding of what

people around me were saying before COVID-19 after I returned to school I barely understood

anything people were saying it didn't help that since the high school was open to a larger area

more people spoke with different rhetorics. My junior and senior years were spent without

attempting to rebuild any former connections or build new ones so I rarely understood what

people around me were saying (unless it was “proper” English) and would just smile and nod. I

had to use Urban Dictionary constantly to understand what people were saying (it took me 2

weeks to decide to try and figure out what Rizz meant).

Nearing the end of high school another major literary sponsor that I had was the

requirements for the Bright Futures scholarship more specifically the required SAT score. The

required SAT score did not teach, enable, or even force me to expand my literacy however it was

a strong incentive, and as Brandt stated “sponsors nevertheless set the terms for access to literacy

and wield powerful incentives for compliance and loyalty.”(Brandt 249) showing that even just

the desire for a scholarship can function as a literary sponsor. My desire to guarantee 1330 or

higher on the SAT did encourage me to relearn “proper” English and grammar which then in turn

mixed with my style of writing causing me to add large amounts of punctuation and appositives

as is no doubt visible in the above paragraphs. As I stated at the beginning my current literacy is

a jumbled mess of references and tidbits that I have gained throughout my life not tied to a

particular culture but to my experiences and interests.

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Brandt, Deborah. “Sponsors of Literacy.” Writing about Writing, 4th ed., edited by

Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs, Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2020, pp. 245-265.

Young, Vershawn, Ashanti. “Should Writers Use They Own English?” Writing About

Writing, 5th ed., Writing about Writing, edited by Elizabeth Wardle, Doug Downs,

Bedford/ St. Martins, 2022, pp (323-334)

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Writing contract questions:

1. What is important to you in your writing?

Ensuring that my thoughts and emotions get across.

2. What are your writing strengths?

I would like to think that I have a pretty extensive vocabulary and a decent knowledge of

literary devices.

3. What writing strategies, skills, and techniques do you hope to learn?

Figuring out proper word choice and punctuation.

4. What kinds of writing strategies do you expect to do in your major/minor degree and

future profession?

Mostly simple and direct writing with basic proofreading. Computer science is

not necessarily known for extensive or creative writing. Writing in my future profession

will likely be made up of emails to coworkers and comments in code.

5. What would you like me to focus on as I comment on your writing?

I think what I could benefit from most is comments on word choice since I often

accidentally shift the tone of my writing multiple times throughout.

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6. Can you think of any additional question(s) that you would like me to ask you or

information that would be useful for me to know as I respond to your writing?

I can't think of anything important.

7. Is this your own writing and have you cited any sources that you quoted or paraphrased?

yes.

8. Is there anything that you struggled with in particular with this assignment?

I struggled to come up with how to respond as I felt I did not have a very good story

about my own literacy.

9. Is there anything you'd like me to know as I read your project?

I didn't get my hands on a physical copy of writing about writing before this so 2 of the 4

cited page numbers are not accurate however they should be roughly correct.