Writing Essay

Roen−Glau−Maid: The
McGraw−Hill Guide:
Writing for College,
Writing for Life, 2/e

II. Using What You’ve
Learned to Share
Information

4. Writing to Share
Experience

57Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

TANYA BARRIENTOS

Se Habla Español

The man on the other end of the phone line is telling me the classes I’ve called about are fi rst-
rate: native speakers in charge, no more than six stu-
dents per group.

“Conbersaychunal,” he says, allowing the fat vow-
els of his accented English to collide with the sawed-
off consonants.

I tell him that will be fi ne, that I’m familiar with
the conversational setup, and yes, I’ve studied a bit
of Spanish in the past. He asks for my name and I
supply it, rolling the double r in Barrientos like a pro.
That’s when I hear the silent snag, the momentary
hesitation I’ve come to expect at this part of the ex-
change. Should I go into it again? Should I explain,
the way I have to half a dozen others, that I am Gua-
temalan by birth but pura gringa by circumstance?
Do I add the humble little laugh I usually attach
to the end of my sentence to let him know that of
course I see the irony in the situation?

This will be the sixth time I’ve signed up to learn
the language my parents speak to each other. It will
be the sixth time I’ve bought workbooks and note-
books and textbooks listing 501 conjugated verbs in
alphabetical order, with the hope that the subjunc-
tive tense will fi nally take root in my mind.

In class, I will sit across a table from the “native
speaker,” who won’t question why the Irish-American lawyer, or the ad ex-
ecutive of Polish descent, has enrolled but, with a telling glance, will wonder
what to make of me.

Look, I’ll want to say (but never do). Forget the dark skin. Ignore the
obsidian eyes. Pretend I’m a pink-cheeked, blue-eyed blonde whose name
tag says Shannon. Because that is what a person who doesn’t innately
know the difference between corre, corra, and corrí is supposed to look
like, isn’t it? She certainly isn’t supposed to be earth-toned or be from my
kind of background. If she happens to be named García or López, it’s prob-
ably through marriage, or because an ancestor at the very root of her fam-
ily trekked across the American line three or four generations ago.

I, on the other hand, came to the United States at age three, in 1963,
with my family and stopped speaking Spanish immediately.

1
2
3
4

Tanya Maria
Barrientos has
written for the
Philadelphia
Inquirer for
more than
twenty years.
Barrientos was
born in Guate-
mala and raised
in El Paso, Texas. Her
fi rst novel, Frontera Street, was
published in 2002, and her second,
Family Resemblance, was pub-
lished in 2003. Her column “Un-
conventional Wisdom” runs every
week in the Inquirer. This essay
originally appeared in the collec-
tion Border-Line Personalities: A
New Generation of Latinas Dish
on Sex, Sass & Cultural Shifting.
We selected this reading because
we see increasingly more students
with linguistic backgrounds similar
to Barrientos’. As you read her es-
say, compare your language back-
ground to hers.

Her

M E M O I R

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 13

Roen−Glau−Maid: The
McGraw−Hill Guide:
Writing for College,
Writing for Life, 2/e
II. Using What You’ve
Learned to Share
Information
4. Writing to Share
Experience

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 |

Writing to Share Experience

s58

College-educated and seamlessly bilingual when they settled in West
Texas, my parents (a psychology professor and an artist) embraced the
notion of the American melting pot wholeheartedly. They declared that
their two children would speak nothing but inglés. They’d read in English,
write in English, and fi t into Anglo society beautifully. If they could speak
the red, white, and blue without a hint of an accent, my mother and father
believed, people would be forced to look beyond the obvious and see the
all-American kids hidden inside the ethnic wrapping.

It sounds politically incorrect now. But America was not a hyphenated
nation back then. People who called themselves Mexican-Americans or
Afro-Americans were considered dangerous radicals, while law-abiding cit-
izens were expected to drop their cultural baggage at the border and erase
any lingering ethnic traits. Role models like Vikki Carr, Linda Ronstadt, and
Raquel Welch1 had done it and become stars. So why shouldn’t we?

To be honest, for most of my childhood I liked being the brown girl
who defi ed expectations. When I was seven, my mother returned my older
brother and me to elementary school one week after the school year had
already begun. We’d been on vacation in Washington, D.C., visiting the
Smithsonian, the Capitol, and the home of Edgar Allan Poe. In the Volks-
wagen, on the way home, I’d memorized “The Raven,” and I’d recite it with
melodramatic fl air to any poor soul duped into sitting through my perfor-
mance. At the school’s offi ce, the registrar frowned when we arrived.

“You people. Your children are always behind, and you have the nerve
to bring them in late?”

“My children,” my mother answered in a clear, curt tone, “will be at
the top of their classes in two weeks.”

The registrar fi led our cards, shaking her head.
I did not live in a neighborhood with other Latinos, and the public

school I attended attracted very few. I saw the world through the clear,
cruel vision of a child. To me, speaking Spanish translated into being poor.
It meant waiting tables and cleaning hotel rooms. It meant being left off
the cheerleading squad and receiving a condescending smile from the
guidance counselor when you said you planned on becoming a lawyer or
a doctor. My best friends’ names were Heidi and Leslie and Kim. They told
me I didn’t seem “Mexican” to them, and I took it as a compliment. I en-
joyed looking into the faces of Latino store clerks and waitresses and, yes,
even our maid, and saying “yo no hablo español.” It made me feel superior.
It made me feel American. It made me feel white.

It didn’t matter that my parents spoke Spanish and were success-
ful. They came from a different country, where everyone looked alike. In
America, fi tting in with the gringos was key. I didn’t want to be a Latina

1Three popular entertainers of Hispanic orgin.

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14 Writing

Roen−Glau−Maid: The
McGraw−Hill Guide:
Writing for College,
Writing for Life, 2/e
II. Using What You’ve
Learned to Share
Information
4. Writing to Share
Experience
© The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2011

59Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

anything. I thought that if I stayed away from Spanish, the label would
stay away from me.

When I was sixteen, I told my father how much I hated being called
Mexican—not only because I wasn’t, but also because the word was hurled
as an insult. He cringed and then he made a radical plan. That summer,
instead of sending me to the dance camp in Aspen that I wanted to attend,
he pointed me toward Mexico City and the Ballet Nacional.

“I want you to see how beautiful Mexico is,” he said. “That way when
anybody calls you Mexican, you will hold your head up.”

I went, reluctantly, and found out he was right. I loved the music, the
art, the architecture. He’d planted the seed of pride, but it would take years
for me to fi gure out how to nurture it.

Back at home, my parents continued to speak only English to their
kids while speaking Spanish to each other.

My father enjoyed listening to the nightly Mexican newscast on televi-
sion, so I came to understand lots of the Spanish I heard. Not by design, but
by osmosis. So, by the time I graduated from college, I’d become an odd
Hispanic hybrid—an English-only Latina who could comprehend Spanish
spoken at any speed but was reluctant to utter a word of it. Then came the
backlash. In the two decades I’d worked hard to isolate myself from the
stereotype I’d constructed in my own head, society shifted. The nation had
changed its views on ethnic identity.

College professors had started teaching history through African-
American and Native American eyes. Children were being told to forget
about the melting pot and picture America as a multicolored quilt instead.

Hyphens suddenly had muscle, and I was left wondering where I fi t in.
The Spanish language was supposedly the glue that held the new Latino-
American community together. But in my case it was what kept me apart.
I felt awkward among groups whose conversations fl owed in and out of
Spanish. I’d be asked a question in Spanish and I’d have to answer in Eng-
lish, knowing that raised a mountain of questions. I wanted to call myself
Latina, to fi nally take pride, but it felt like a lie. So I set out to learn the
language that people assumed I already knew.

After my fi rst set of lessons, which I took in a class provided by the news-
paper where I worked in Dallas, I could function in the present tense. “Hola
Paco, ¿qué tal? ¿Qué color es tu cuaderno? El mío es azul.”2 My vocabulary
built quickly, but when I spoke my tongue felt thick inside my mouth, and if
I needed to deal with anything in the future or the past I was sunk. I sug-
gested to my parents that when I telephoned we should converse only in
Spanish, so I could practice. But that only lasted a few short weeks. Our rela-
tionship was built in English and the essence of it got lost in the translation.

2Hello Paco. What’s happening? What color is your notebook? Mine is blue.

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 15

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 | Writing to Share Experiences60

By my mid-twenties I had fi nally come around to understanding that
being a proud Latina meant showing the world how diverse the culture can
be. As a newspaper reporter, I met Cubans and Puerto Ricans and brown-
skinned New Mexicans who could trace their families all the way back to
the conquistadores. I interviewed writers and teachers and migrant work-
ers, and I convinced editors to put their stories into print. Not just for the
readers’ sake, but for my own. I wanted to know what other Latinos had to
say about their assimilation into American culture, and whether speaking
Spanish somehow defi ned them. What I learned was that they considered
Spanish their common denominator, linking them to one another as well
as to their pasts. With that in mind, I traveled to Guatemala to see the
place where I was born, and basked in the comfort of recognizing my own
features in the faces of strangers. I felt connected, but I still wondered if
without fl awless Spanish I could ever fi ll the Latino bill.

I enrolled in a three-month submersion program in Mexico and emerged
able to speak like a sixth-grader with a solid C average. I could read Gabriel
García Márquez with a Spanish-English dictionary at my elbow, and I could
follow ninety percent of the melodrama on any given telenovela.

But I still didn’t feel genuine. My childhood experiences were different
from most of the Latinos I met. I had no quinceañera, no abuelita teaching
me to cook tamales, no radio in the house playing rancheras. I had ballet
lessons, a high school trip to Europe, and a tight circle of Jewish friends. I’d
never met another Latina like me, and I began to doubt that they existed.

Since then, I’ve hired tutors and bought tapes to improve my Spanish.
Now I can recite Lorca. I can handle the past as well as the future tenses.
But the irregular verbs and the subjunctive tense continue to elude me.

My Anglo friends call me bilingual because I can help them make ho-
tel reservations over the telephone or pose a simple question to the women
taking care of their children. But true speakers discover my limitations
the moment I stumble over a diffi cult construction, and that is when I get
the look. The one that raises the wall between us. The one that makes
me think I’ll never really belong. Spanish has become a pedigree, a litmus
test showing how far from your roots you’ve strayed. Of course, the same
people who would hold my bad Spanish grammar against me wouldn’t
blink at an Anglo tripping over a Spanish phrase. In fact, they’d probably
be fl attered that the white man or woman was giving their language a
shot. They’d embrace the effort. But when I fumble, I immediately lose
the privilege of calling myself a full-fl edged Latina. Broken Spanish doesn’t
count, except to set me apart from “authentic” Latinas forever.

My bilingual friends say I make too much of it. They tell me that my
Guatemalan heritage and unmistakable Mayan features are enough to le-
gitimize my membership in the Latino-American club. After all, not all
Poles speak Polish. Not all Italians speak Italian. And as this nation grows

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16 Writing

61Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

more and more Hispanic, not all Latinos will share one language. But I
don’t believe them. I think they say those things to spare my feelings.

There must be other Latinas like me. But I haven’t met any. Or, I should
say, I haven’t met any who have fessed up. Maybe they are secretly strug-
gling to fi t in, the same way I am. Maybe they are hiring tutors and listen-
ing to tapes behind the locked doors of their living rooms, just like me. I
wish we all had the courage to come out of our hiding places and claim our
rightful spot in the broad Latino spectrum. Without being called hopeless
gringas. Without having to offer apologies or show remorse.

If it will help, I will go fi rst.
Aquí estoy.3

Spanish-challenged and pura Latina.

3I am here.

QUESTIONS FOR WRITING AND DISCUSSION: LEARNING OUTCOMES

Rhetorical Knowledge: The Writer’s
Situation and Rhetoric

1. Audience: For whom do you suppose Barri-
entos is writing about these experiences?

2. Purpose: What do you see as Barrientos’s
purpose in writing this essay?

3. Voice and tone: Barrientos has specifi c atti-
tudes toward her subject matter. What parts
of her essay can you cite to show what her at-
titudes are?

4. Responsibility: How reliable does Barrientos
seem in the way that she presents factual in-
formation? What specifi c details in her essay
seem most credible? Why?

5. Context, format, and genre: Although Bar-
rientos presents her experiences as true, she
still relates them almost in the form of a story.
How effective is this strategy for writing about
such experiences? How does Barrientos use
dialogue in her autobiographical narrative to
represent the views of participants?

Critical Thinking: The Writer’s Ideas
and Your Personal Response

6. Barrientos says that her parents “declared that
their two children will speak nothing but in-

glés.” What were their motives for saying that?
What do you think about that declaration?

7. In many ways, this essay is about how Bar-
rientos is trying to fi t into American culture
and society. Where have you tried to fi t in,
and what have your struggles been?

Composing Processes and Knowledge
of Conventions: The Writer’s Strategies

8. Barrientos tells of her experiences in the fi rst
person. How would it alter the effectiveness
and interest of this essay if it had been writ-
ten in the third person? Why?

9. Barrientos now and then writes in Spanish.
How do the Spanish sentences affect her essay?

Inquiry and Research: Ideas
for Further Exploration

10. Interview several family members about their
language background and experiences. In a
brief paper, explain how their experiences
compare to those related by Barrientos.

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 17

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 | Writing to Share Experiences62

SUKI KIM

Facing Poverty with
a Rich Girl’s Habits

Queens in the early 80’s struck me as the Wild West. Our fi rst home there was the upstairs
of a two-family brownstone in Woodside. It was a
crammed, ugly place, I thought, because in South
Korea I had been raised in a hilltop mansion with
an orchard and a pond and peacocks until I en-
tered the seventh grade, when my millionaire
father lost everything overnight. Gone in an in-
stant was my small world, made possible by my
father’s shipping company, mining business and
hotels. Because bankruptcy was punishable by a
jail term, we fl ed, penniless, to America.

The ugly house was owned by a Korean fam-
ily that ran a dry cleaner in Harlem. Their sons,
Andy and Billy, became my fi rst playmates in
America, though playmate was a loose term,
largely because they spoke English and I didn’t.

The fi rst English word I learned at the junior high near Queens Boulevard
was F.O.B., short for “fresh off the boat.” It was a mystery why some kids
called me that when I’d actually fl own Korean Air to Kennedy Airport.

At 13, I took public transportation to school for the fi rst time instead
of being driven by a chauffeur. I had never done homework without a gov-
erness helping me. I also noticed that things became seriously messy if no
maids were around. Each week, I found it humiliating to wheel our dirty
clothes to a bleak place called Laundromat.

One new fact that took more time to absorb was that I was now Asian,
a term that I had heard mentioned only in a social studies class. In Korea,
yellow was the color of the forsythia that bloomed every spring along the
fence that separated our estate from the houses down the hill. I certainly
never thought of my skin as being the same shade.

Unlike students in Korean schools, who were taught to bow to teach-
ers at every turn, no one batted an eye when a teacher entered a class-
room. Once I saw a teacher struggle to pronounce foreign-sounding names
from the attendance list while a boy in the front row French-kissed a girl
wearing skintight turquoise Jordache jeans. In Korea, we wore slippers to
keep the school fl oor clean, but here the walls were covered with graffi ti,
and some mornings, policemen guarded the gate and checked bags.

Suki Kim is the au-
thor of the novel
The Interpreter.
She was born
in South Korea
in 1970 and
came to the

United States
in 1983. She lives

in the East Village
in New York City. We

included Kim’s essay in this text-
book because it is a compelling
story, and like Barrientos (page
57), Kim discusses how language
affects and determines how she
might “fi t in.”

Suk
th
T
S
i
i
c

U
in 1

in the
in New Yo

M E M O I R

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18 Writing

63Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

My consolation was the English as a Second Language class where I
could speak Korean with others like me. Yet it did not take me long to
realize that the other students and I had little in common. The wealthier
Korean immigrants had settled in Westchester or Manhattan, where their
children attended private schools. In Queens, most of my E.S.L. classmates
came from poor families who had escaped Korea’s rigid class hierarchy,
one dictated by education level, family background and fi nancial status.

Immigration is meant to be the great equalizer, yet it is not easy to erad-
icate the class divisions of the old country. What I recall, at 13, is an acute
awareness of the distance between me and my fellow F.O.B.’s, and another,
more palpable one between those of us in E.S.L. and the occasional Eng-
lish-speaking Korean-American kids, who avoided us as though we brought
them certain undefi ned shame. It was not until years later that I learned
that we were, in fact, separated from them by generations.

We who sat huddled in that E.S.L. class grew up to represent the so-
called 1.5 generation. Many of us came to America in our teens, already
rooted in Korean ways and language. We often clashed with the fi rst gen-
eration, whose minimal command of English traps them in a time-warped
immigrant ghetto, but we identifi ed even less with the second generation,
who, with their Asian-American angst and anchorman English, struck us
as even more foreign than the rest of America.

Even today, we, the 1.5 generation, can just about maneuver our an-
chor. We hip-hop to Usher with as much enthusiasm as we have for belting
out Korean pop songs at a karaoke. We celebrate the lunar Korean thanks-
giving as well as the American one, although our choice of food would
most likely be the moon-shaped rice cake instead of turkey. We appreciate
eggs Benedict for brunch, but on hung-over mornings, we cannot do with-
out a bowl of thick ox-bone soup and a plate of fresh kimchi. We are 100
percent American on paper but not quite in our soul.

In Queens of the early 80’s, I did not yet understand the layers of divi-
sion that existed within an immigrant group. I preferred my Hello Kitty
backpack to the ones with pictures of the Menudo boys, and I cried for
weeks because my parents would not let me get my ears pierced. I watched
reruns of “Three’s Company” in an attempt to learn English, thinking the
whole time that John Ritter was running a fi rm called Three’s. I stayed up
until dawn to make sense of “Great Expectations,” fl ipping through the dic-
tionary for the defi nition of words like “Pip.”

More brutal than learning English was facing poverty with a rich girl’s
habits and memory. In my neighborhood, a girl who grew up with a gov-
erness and a chauffeur belonged to a fairy tale. This was no Paris Hilton’s
“Simple Life,” but the beginning of my sobering, often-terrifying, never
simple American journey. I soon discovered that I had no choice but to ad-

6
7
8
9
10
11

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 19

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 | Writing to Share Experiences64

just. I had watched my glamorous mother, not long ago a society lady who
lunched, taking on a job as a fi sh fi lleter at a market.

Before the year was over, my parents moved us out of the neighborhood in
search of better jobs, housing and education. As for the family who owned the
house in Woodside, I did not see any of them again until the fall of 2001, when
Billy walked into the Family Assistance Center at Pier 94, where I was volun-
teering as an interpreter. He was looking for his brother, Andy, who had been
working on the 93rd fl oor when the fi rst plane crashed into the north tower.

From The New York Times, November 21, 2004 © The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission
and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retrans-
mission of the Material without express written permission is prohibited. www.nytimes.com.

12
QUESTIONS FOR WRITING AND DISCUSSION: LEARNING OUTCOMES
Rhetorical Knowledge: The Writer’s
Situation and Rhetoric

1. Audience: Who is the primary audience for
this autobiographical essay? What makes you
think that?

2. Purpose: Why has Kim chosen to write about
this particular set of experiences?

3. Voice and tone: What is Kim’s attitude to-
ward her readers? What is her attitude toward
her subject? What cues in her writing make
you think this?

4. Responsibility: What evidence can you fi nd
in this essay to suggest that Kim has responsi-
bly portrayed her family to readers?

5. Context, format, and genre: Kim’s autobio-
graphical essay did not include photos other
than the one that appears at the beginning
of the essay. If she were to make this essay
available in an online environment, where
she could easily include photos, what pho-
tos would you most like her to add? To what
extent does Kim’s essay follow the chrono-
logical organizational pattern typical of auto-
biographical essays?

Critical Thinking: The Writer’s Ideas
and Your Personal Response

6. What is your response to Kim’s mentioning
in the fi rst paragraph that “bankruptcy was
punishable by a jail term” in South Korea?

7. At the end of paragraph 2, Kim notes that she
did not understand why other children called
her “fresh off the boat” because she had fl own
to Kennedy Airport. What does this observa-
tion say about her use of the English language
when she fi rst arrived in the United States?

Composing Processes and Knowledge
of Conventions: The Writer’s Strategies

8. In autobiographical essays, one convention is to
use past-tense verbs to narrate past events. How
well does Kim follow this convention? Point to
several examples to support your judgment.

9. Only once in this autobiographical essay does
Kim quote other people—”fresh off the boat”
in paragraph 2. She does not include any dia-
logue in the essay. Where might she have in-
cluded dialogue?

Inquiry and Research: Ideas
for Further Exploration

10. In paragraphs 8 and 9, Kim refers to the “1.5
generation.” The 1.5 generation includes
people who emigrate from another country
before or during adolescence. Such immi-
grants bring with them some cultural fea-
tures from their home countries, but they
are young enough to adapt relatively easily
to the new culture. Conduct a Web search to
read more about the term “1.5 generation.”
How does it differ from “fi rst-generation”
and “second-generation” immigrants?

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20 Writing

65Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

As illustrated by “Ways of Writing to Share Experiences” (page 52), expe-
riences can be shared through many genres. The “Genres Up Close” feature
explores doing so through a literacy narrative.

GENRES Up Close Writing a Literacy Narrative
The literacy narrative has been a popular genre for decades, but it has become increas-
ingly so in recent years. Readers are curious about how others, especially famous writ-
ers, have developed their writing and reading skills. When reporters and talk-show
hosts interview well-known writers, they frequently ask about the writers’ experiences
with reading and writing, particularly early in life.

When writers craft literacy narratives, they often do the following:

Narrate their experiences with using language—reading and writing •
in particular situations. As you craft a literacy narrative, think about those
moments when you were most aware that you were using language as a reader and/
or writer.

Critically refl ect on their experiences with using language.• As you craft
a literacy narrative, think about the effects of particular experiences with reading
and writing. For example, if your fi rst-grade teacher congratulated you for reading
a book when you when you were six years old, how did that positive reinforcement
affect your reading after that moment?

Think about how they developed agency as readers and writers.• That
is, what has reading and writing allowed them to do in life? As you craft a lit-
eracy narrative, think about the ways that reading and writing have helped you
to achieve certain goals. Think about how reading and writing have helped you to
make a difference in the world.

Defi ne “literacy” broadly.• As you consider your literacy experiences, be in-
clusive. In addition to reading and writing with words, how have you developed
other similar or related skills? For example, what are your experiences with visual
images? What are your experiences with information literacy (fi nding, evaluating,
and using information)?

To explain how they became literate people, writers may use dialogue to tell part of
their literacy narratives. Another common practice in literacy narratives is to describe
the emotions that the writer felt at a particular moment. Sharing these emotions can
help readers understand the impact of the event. Of course, strong positive emotions
can motivate people to keep doing something. In the selection by Russell Baker, “On
Becoming a Writer,” notice how Baker uses both of these conventions to convey how he
developed his lifelong commitment to writing.

GENRES UP CLOSE

Refl ection (p. 11)

Rhetorical Analysis
(p. 21)

Audience Profi le (p. 36)

Literacy Narrative (p. 65)

Profi le (p. 110)

Annotated Bibliography/
Review of Literature
(p. 152)

Visual Analysis (p. 198)

Editorial (p. 239)

Review (p. 281)

Poster (p. 329)

Proposal (p. 378)

Book Review (p. 419)

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 21

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 | Writing to Share Experiences66

RUSSELL BAKER

On Becoming a Writer

The only thing that truly interested me was writing, and I knew that sixteen-year-olds did
not come out of high school and become writers.
I thought of writing as something to be done only
by the rich. It was so obviously not real work, not
a job at which you could earn a living. Still, I had
begun to think of myself as a writer. It was the
only thing for which I seemed to have the small-
est talent, and, silly though it sounded when I
told people I’d like to be a writer, it gave me a way
of thinking about myself which satisfi ed my need
to have an identity.

The notion of becoming a writer had fl ickered
off and on in my head since the Belleville days,
but it wasn’t until my third year in high school
that the possibility took hold. Until then I’d been
bored by everything associated with English
courses. I found English grammar dull and baf-
fl ing. I hated the assignments to turn out “com-
positions,” and went at them like heavy labor,
turning out leaden, lackluster paragraphs that
were agonies for teachers to read and for me to
write. The classics thrust on me to read seemed
as deadening as chloroform.

When our class was assigned to Mr. Fleagle
for third-year English I anticipated another grim
year in that dreariest of subjects. Mr. Fleagle was
notorious among City students for dullness and
inability to inspire. He was said to be stuffy, dull,
and hopelessly out of date. To me he looked to be

sixty or seventy and prim to a fault. He wore primly severe eyeglasses,
his wavy hair was primly cut and primly combed. He wore prim vested
suits with neckties blocked primly against the collar buttons of his primly
starched white shirts. He had a primly pointed jaw, a primly straight nose,
and a prim manner of speaking that was so correct, so gentlemanly, that
he seemed a comic antique.

I anticipated a listless, unfruitful year with Mr. Fleagle and for a long
time was not disappointed. We read Macbeth. Mr. Fleagle loved Macbeth and

1
2
3
4

Born in Virginia
in 1925, Russell
Baker began
his profes-
sional writing
career with
the Baltimore

Sun in 1947,
after attend-

ing Johns Hopkins
University. In 1973 he

won a Pulitzer for commentary for
his nationally syndicated column,
“Observer,” which he wrote for
the New York Times from 1962
to 1998. Baker is the author of a
Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir
Growing Up (1982) and Looking
Back: Heroes, Rascals, and Other
Icons of the American Imagination
(2002) and has edited numerous
books. Baker’s writing regularly
appears in the New York Times
Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and
McCalls. The following selection
is excerpted from Growing Up.
Russell Baker’s literacy narrative
focuses on his dream of becoming
a writer. As you read his piece,
think about your own dreams.
How can college help you achieve
those dreams?

Bor
in
B
h
s
c
t

Su
afte

ing Jo
University

L I T E R A C Y N A R R A T I V E

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22 Writing

67Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

wanted us to love it too, but he lacked the gift of infecting others with his
own passion. He tried to convey the murderous ferocity of Lady Macbeth
one day by reading aloud the passage that concludes

. . . I have given suck, and know
How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me.
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums. . . .

The idea of prim Mr. Fleagle plucking his nipple from boneless gums was
too much for the class. We burst into gasps of irrepressible snickering. Mr.
Fleagle stopped.

“There is nothing funny, boys, about giving suck to a babe. It is the—
the very essence of motherhood, don’t you see.”

He constantly sprinkled his sentences with “don’t you see.” It wasn’t
a question but an exclamation of mild surprise at our ignorance. “Your
pronoun needs an antecedent, don’t you see,” he would say, very primly.
“The purpose of the Porter’s scene, boys, is to provide comic relief from the
horror, don’t you see.”

Late in the year we tackled the informal essay. “The essay, don’t you
see, is the . . .” My mind went numb. Of all forms of writing, none seemed so
boring as the essay. Naturally we would have to write informal essays. Mr.
Fleagle distributed a homework sheet offering us a choice of topics. None
was quite so simple-minded as “What I Did on My Summer Vacation,” but
most seemed to be almost as dull. I took the list home and dawdled until
the night before the essay was due. Sprawled on the sofa, I fi nally faced up
to the grim task, took the list out of my notebook, and scanned it. The topic
on which my eye stopped was “The Art of Eating Spaghetti.”

This title produced an extraordinary sequence of mental images. Surg-
ing up out of the depths of memory came a vivid recollection of a night in
Belleville when all of us were seated around the supper table—Uncle Allen,
my mother, Uncle Charlie, Doris, Uncle Hal—and Aunt Pat served spaghetti
for supper. Spaghetti was an exotic treat in those days. Neither Doris nor
I had ever eaten spaghetti, and none of the adults had enough experience
to be good at it. All the good humor of Uncle Allen’s house reawoke in my
mind as I recalled the laughing arguments we had that night about the so-
cially respectable method for moving spaghetti from plate to mouth.

Suddenly I wanted to write about that, about the warmth and good feel-
ing of it, but I wanted to put it down simply for my own joy, not for Mr.
Fleagle. It was a moment I wanted to recapture and hold for myself. I wanted
to relive the pleasure of an evening at New Street. To write it as I wanted,
however, would violate all the rules of formal composition I’d learned in
school, and Mr. Fleagle would surely give it a failing grade. Never mind. I

5
6
7
8
9

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 23

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 | Writing to Share Experiences68

would write something else for Mr. Fleagle after I had written this thing for
myself.

When I fi nished it the night was half gone and there was no time
left to compose a proper, respectable essay for Mr. Fleagle. There was no
choice next morning but to turn in my private reminiscence of Belleville.
Two days passed before Mr. Fleagle returned the graded papers, and he re-
turned everyone’s but mine. I was bracing myself for a command to report
to Mr. Fleagle immediately after school for discipline when I saw him lift
my paper from his desk and rap for the class’s attention.

“Now, boys,” he said, “I want to read you an essay. This is titled ‘The
Art of Eating Spaghetti’.”

And he started to read. My words! He was reading my words out loud to
the entire class. What’s more, the entire class was listening. Listening at-
tentively. Then somebody laughed, then the entire class was laughing, and
not in contempt and ridicule, but with openhearted enjoyment. Even Mr.
Fleagle stopped two or three times to repress a small prim smile.

I did my best to avoid showing pleasure, but what I was feeling was
pure ecstasy at this startling demonstration that my words had the power
to make people laugh. In the eleventh grade, at the eleventh hour as it
were, I had discovered a calling. It was the happiest moment of my entire
school career. When Mr. Fleagle fi nished he put the fi nal seal on my happi-
ness by saying, “Now that, boys, is an essay, don’t you see. It’s—don’t you
see—it’s of the very essence of the essay, don’t you see. Congratulations,
Mr. Baker.”

For the fi rst time, light shone on a possibility. It wasn’t a very hearten-
ing possibility, to be sure. Writing couldn’t lead to a job after high school,
and it was hardly honest work, but Mr. Fleagle had opened a door for me.
After that I ranked Mr. Fleagle among the fi nest teachers in the school.

10
11
12
13
14

Because this piece
of dialogue includes
the title of his es-
say, Baker uses both
double and single
quotation marks.

By sharing his emo-
tions, Baker helps
readers understand
the impact the event
had on him. With the
clause “I had discov-
ered a calling,” he
indicates the forma-
tion of a lifelong com-
mitment to writing.

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24 Writing

69Reading, Inquiry, and Research ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information

QUESTIONS FOR WRITING AND DISCUSSION: LEARNING OUTCOMES
Rhetorical Knowledge: The Writer’s
Situation and Rhetoric

1. Audience: Who is Baker’s primary audience
for this piece of writing? What makes you
think that?

2. Purpose: What is Baker’s purpose in telling
this story about becoming a writer?

3. Voice and tone: What is Baker’s attitude to-
ward his topic and his audience? How do you
know that.

4. Responsibility: What has Baker done in this
essay to be a responsible writer?

5. Context, format, and genre: Even though
this piece is excerpted from Baker’s book-
length memoir, Growing Up, what makes it work
as a stand-alone essay? How has Baker used
dialogue in this autobiographical narrative?

Critical Thinking: The Writer’s Ideas
and Your Personal Response

6. How do Baker’s experiences in high school
English compare with your experiences?

7. How does Baker help readers understand what
it means to become a writer?

Composing Processes and Knowledge
of Conventions: The Writer’s Strategies

8. Why do you think Baker uses dialogue in de-
scribing Mr. Fleagle’s class rather than simply
summarizing or paraphrasing what Fleagle
said?

9. Baker is well known for his use of precise lan-
guage, carefully selecting just the right words
to express what he means. Where is that care
most evident in this essay?

Inquiry and Research: Ideas
for Further Exploration

10. In Growing Up, Baker narrates many other
stories from his life. In your school library,
or online, read more stories about Baker’s
life. Find one that you consider to be espe-
cially compelling. What are the qualities or
features of that story that you can use in
your writing?

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 25

A Writer Shares Her Experiences ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information 83

chosen to write a letter to a prospective employer, you should also follow the
conventions of a business letter.

A Writer Shares Her Experiences:
Jessica Hemauer’s Final Draft

The fi nal draft of Jessica Hemauer’s essay “Farm Girl” follows. As you read He-
mauer’s essay, think about what makes it an effective example of writing about
experiences. Following the essay, you’ll fi nd some specifi c questions to consider.

JESSICA HEMAUER

Farm Girl

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! It’s 5:00 a.m. My eyes are heavy with sleep and struggle to open. I think to myself, “A typical ten-year-old child does
not have to wake up at fi ve in the morning to do chores!”

I hit the snooze button, hoping desperately that the cows will, for
once, feed and milk themselves. Seconds away from falling back into a
deep sleep, I hear my father’s heavy footsteps outside my bedroom door.
They stop and my door opens with a creak. “Jessica, are you awake yet?”
my father asks. Without a word, knowing from past experience that an
argument won’t get me anywhere, I stagger out of my warm twin bed,
trudging dejectedly past the fi gure at the narrow doorway. I continue
down the hall toward the small bathroom to fi nd my sisters, Angie and
Melissa, and my brother, Nick, already awake.

We all proceed with our usual morning routine, which consists of
washing our faces, brushing our teeth, and taking turns on the white
porcelain throne. In the lower level of the old farmhouse, our outside
clothes await. My mother makes it a rule to keep them there so that they
won’t stink up the rest of the house. As soon as we open the door to the
basement, we can smell the putrid aroma of cows that has seeped from
our clothing into the damp cool air. We take our turns going down the
steep, narrow steps, using the walls on either side for extra guidance. As
we dress, not a single word is spoken because we all feel the same way,
“I hate this!” However, most of the time our choice of vocabulary is much
more creative.

Nick opens the basement door leading outside to the barn. There
is a brisk and bitter wind accompanied by icy snowfl akes that feel like
needles digging into our faces. We don’t turn back. We desperately want

1
2
3
4

One of Hemauer’s
peer readers wrote
the following
comment:

I like how the real
details (like all of
the smells) help me
“be there” with
you.

Notice the sensory
details in this
paragraph.

M E M O I R

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 39

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 | Writing to Share Experiences84

to, but we know my father is patiently waiting for us to help him milk
and feed the cows before school starts at 8:30 a.m. We lift our scarves and
pull down our hats so only our squinted eyes show. We lower our bodies
to dodge the fi erce winds and trudge a half mile to the red barn, which is
somehow standing sturdily in the dreadful blizzard.

When we fi nally reach the barn, Nick, leading the pack, grabs the
handle of the heavy wooden door and props it open for my sisters and me
to pass through. Nick goes immediately to help my father herd the cows
and get them into their proper stalls to be milked. Meanwhile, my sisters
and I go to the milk house to sanitize the milking machines, prepare all
the milking equipment, and set up a station with towels and charts of the
cows that are being medicated.

While Melissa and my father milk the one hundred cows, Nick and
Angie feed them, and I feed the newborn calves. Because I am the young-
est in the family, this is my favorite chore because I rarely have the chance
to look after someone or feel like I am taking care of him or her. I have al-
ways had older siblings who look after me, watching every step I take, mak-
ing sure that I don’t get into trouble. We all work together—that’s critical.
When I feed the calves, I am fi nally the one in charge. It is a nice feeling,
being on the opposite end of the spectrum. They are my responsibility. Lit-
tle do I realize it, but this is the beginning of a lifetime of responsibilities.

After the calves are fed, other chores have to be done. Cleaning out
various huts and pens and laying down fresh straw are a part of our daily
duties. This is the worst of the jobs I have to do. It is so dusty that I can
hardly breathe at times, but we all know it has to be done so there is no
sense complaining. My brother, sisters, and I work together to get the
chores done as quickly as possible. Typically, we fi nish with the chores and
return to the house around 7:30 in the morning.

We make our way back to the farmhouse, drape our clothes on a fold-
ing chair next to the washing machine in the basement, and crawl up the
stairs. The delicious smell of smoked bacon and cheese omelets grows
more intense with each step. Our stomachs aching with hunger, we take
turns in the shower, cleaning ourselves as fast as possible in order to get to
the breakfast table. My father eats quickly and is back outside on the farm
by the time my sisters or I run by the kitchen, grabbing a glass of fresh
squeezed orange juice and a piece of toast as we yell frantically at the bus,
“Wait!” It seems our daily lives operate in shifts, not like a real family.

When I fi nally arrive at school, I have already been up for four hours
doing chores on the farm in the bitter cold. The other kids in my private
grade school have just rolled out of their beds inside their subdivision
homes an hour before the bell rang. The school day always goes by fast.
While my other classmates are thinking about what television show they

5
6
7
8
9

Again, note the
sensory details in
Hemauer’s paper: the
smells, being hungry,
fresh OJ, and so on.

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40 Writing

A Writer Shares Her Experiences ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information 85

are going to watch after school, I am thinking about the chores that await
me once I get off the yellow school bus.

School has always been my social life. I want to join teams or different
clubs, but I always have to consider how my chores on the farm will get
done, which makes it diffi cult for me to get involved. If I join a team that
practices after school, I can’t participate. If I join a club that meets before
school, I can’t attend the meetings. Being a farm girl means that I can’t be
like the other kids in my class. Not being able to participate in school ac-
tivities like my friends makes me feel left out and depressed. The topic of
conversation at the lunch table never involves me.

“Hey, Carrie, how was basketball practice last night?” Susan asks as
she pulls out a chair from the lunch table and sets her plastic tray down
next to the tall, broad, blond-haired girl.

“It was terrible! Coach was in such a bad mood!” Carrie shoves a hand-
ful of French fries into her mouth, spilling catsup down the front of her
white tee shirt without noticing. “He made us run sprints for every shot we
missed. And Kelly was missing all her shots last night. I’m so sore today.”

Carrie starts rubbing her legs when she notices the streak of catsup
on her shirt. She begins to wipe it off with one of her napkins, with little
success.

“Hey, Carrie, how was the student council meeting this morning? Did
you decide if we’re going to have a formal dance this winter?”

“Yeah, we’re having it on the Saturday before Christmas. Are you go-
ing to come?”

I sit listening in silence. The twenty-minute lunch period always feels
like eternity. While everyone around me continues talking and laughing, I
sit there next to them silently eating my French fries, listening carefully,
trying to laugh at the right times.

In eighth grade I really want to play basketball, and after begging and
pleading with my parents, they fi nally say I can join the team as long as I
continue to help with chores in the morning before school and after prac-
tice. I quickly agree. I become the basketball team’s starting point guard.
I am thrilled to be on a team, and I fi nally feel like I am starting to have a
life like the other kids. Now I am included in the conversations at lunch,
and I feel like a part of the group. I never tell anyone that I have to go home
after practice and work on the farm, or that I wake up every morning at
fi ve to help with chores. None of my friends, teachers, or coaches know.
I don’t think they would care and I don’t want them to know that I am
different.

In high school I become more involved with the school. Coincidently,
my father’s farm continues to grow. We are now up to two hundred cows,
and my dad still wants to expand the farm. During my freshman year I

10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18

One peer reviewer
made this suggestion:

I’d like to hear more
about school and
the people there.

Note the details and
specifi c examples that
Hemauer provides to
really show what she
means (rather than
just telling).

Hemauer uses dia-
logue to engage her
readers in the human
interaction of her
experience. Dialogue
is an effective tool for
making the experi-
ence more concrete.

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 41

PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information ■ 4 | Writing to Share Experiences86

continue to work on the farm before and after school, making sure that
I can still play on the basketball team. A few times a teacher catches me
with my eyes closed during class. One time my teacher, Ms. Cain, comes
over to my wooden desk, where my head is resting on top of a math text-
book. She taps her knuckles on the hollow wood and says, “Jessica, are you
okay? Do you need to go to the health room?” Raising my head, embar-
rassed that she caught me sleeping, I say quickly, “No, Ms. Cain, I’m fi ne.
I’m sorry for being rude and causing a disruption. I promise to be more
attentive.”

Shortly after freshman year, my father arranges a meeting with my
entire family. He explains that he wants our farm to continue to grow, and
this means that he needs more help on the farm than his children can
provide. In fact, he says that he would rather not have us work on the farm
anymore, unless we want to. He would rather have us be more involved in
school and go on to college. After this meeting, I feel happy and relieved,
and I can tell my father is relieved too. He knows that my siblings and I
have sacrifi ced our school activities and social lives to help with the family
business, and I know that this is his way of saying thank you.

From this moment on, I become more involved with my school. I join
the homecoming club, audition for musicals and plays, serve as the presi-
dent of the student council as well as president of my class. I also become
more social with my friends. I even take on a waitressing job at a resort in
a neighboring town. During all these activities, I always notice that I stick
out from the group. In school people come up to me and ask how I manage
my time so well, without getting stressed out. When I’m with a group of
my friends, I always seem to be more mature than they are, leading the
group while others try to follow in my footsteps. When it comes to my job,
I am always on time, never calling in sick and never complaining about a
task I have been asked to do.

One night after work, I sit down in front of the full-length mirror in
my bedroom and start thinking about the past years. I had believed that
joining various clubs and social activities would make me fi t in with my
peers. But in fact, it has not. I still stick out. And the more I think about it,
the more I realize why. My life growing up has been much different from
the lives of my peers. From an early age, I had to learn how to manage my
time so that I could do my chores and attend school. When I started to play
basketball, I had to manage my time even more carefully. I have always
had a challenging amount of responsibility, and I have learned to complete
tasks in a timely fashion. The work that I had to do on the farm was far
from glamorous. I have done some of the worst jobs conceivable, so I have
a higher tolerance for work than most people. Though I hated it growing
up, working on the farm has taught me many lessons about life, and it has
shaped me into the individual I am today.

19
20
21

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42 Writing

A Writer Shares Her Experiences ■ PART 2 | Using What You Have Learned to Share Information 87

Each day of my life there are times when I refl ect back to working on
the farm. And every day people notice that I am different from the rest of
my peers. At school, teachers and organization leaders are impressed by
my time management skills and the amount of responsibility I take on.
At work, my boss continues to ask me where he can fi nd some more hard
working people. I simply tell him, “Try hiring some farm girls. I hear they
turn out pretty good.”

22
QUESTIONS FOR WRITING AND DISCUSSION: LEARNING OUTCOMES
Rhetorical Knowledge: The Writer’s
Situation and Rhetoric

1. Purpose: Why did Hemauer write this essay?
How might different audiences see different
purposes?

2. Audience: Who do you see as Hemauer’s
audience? What can you point to in the text
that supports your claim?

3. Voice and tone: How does Hemauer estab-
lish her ethos—her credibility—in this essay?

4. Responsibility: What is Hemauer’s responsibil-
ity to her readers? To the members of her fam-
ily? How does she fulfi ll those responsibilities?

5. Context, format, and genre: Hemauer has
written a personal essay. When writing in this
genre, writers try to relate their own personal
experiences to much broader, more general
human experiences. How has Hemauer used
her personal remembrances of growing up on
a dairy farm to help her readers, whose own
lives may have been very different from that
of a midwestern farm girl, relate to the essay?

Critical Thinking: The Writer’s Ideas
and Your Personal Response

6. Even though you may have had a much dif-
ferent childhood from Hemauer’s, can you

relate to some of her experiences? What does
she do to develop interest in the subject of
her essay?

7. What do you see as the signifi cance of He-
mauer’s story?

Composing Processes and Knowledge
of Conventions: The Writer’s Strategies

8. How do descriptive and narrative details
function in the essay? Point to several places
where Hemauer “shows” instead of “tells.”

9. How does Hemauer use dialogue in the essay?
What other methods does she use to show
readers what her life as a farm girl was like?

Inquiry and Research: Ideas
for Further Exploration

10. Search the Web to fi nd other narratives—
even blog entries—in which college students
refl ect on their life and work experiences.
How do they compare to Hemauer’s narra-
tive about her farm-life experience?

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The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, Writing for Life, Second Edition 43

Writing to Share Experience

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