Tasnim Khan, Week 3 Reading Response

1. How have anxiety and aversion been barriers to your writing in the past, and what is one way you plan to adopt Eickmeyer’s skills and strategies in writing your literacy narrative?

Anxiety and aversion have both been barriers to my writing in the past through procrastination, as mentioned in the text. The funny thing is I was just procrastinating on an assignment as I was reading Eickmeyer’s writing and I really needed his words of motivation. I definitely plan on adopting Eickmeyer’s skills and strategies in my literacy narrative. Many of the faults and habits he mentions in the article, I have done in the past and his writing honestly felt like a much needed call-out. However, I plan to implement his advice on breaking my writing down and taking notes when the intrustor explains the assignment. We talk about literacy narrative topics often in class and whenever a key detail or idea is mentioned, I will keep in mind to jot it down for helpful future references.

1. Thinking of Ku’s example literacy narrative (written while a freshman at Baruch), what are two worlds you exist between? Describe a moment where those worlds met, collided, or pulled you in different directions.

Similarily, as an Asian I have also existed in two worlds just as Ku has, except I am Bengali-American. I grew up in central Florida from elementary school up until freshman year of high school. I was the only Bengali kid in my school for about the first 7 years of schooling. Schools in central Florida consists of a majority Hispanic/Latino population. Many kids did not know where or what Bangladesh was and would automatically assume I was Indian due to similar South Asian features we share. However, within my community and family friends, I also had a big separate group of Bengali friends outside of school that were also the only Bengali kids at their school. In a way, I felt as if I had gotten the best of both worlds. Stereotypes are obviously present at all schools and kids normally feel more comfortable approaching other kids that look like them. However, being the only Bengali kid got me out of my comfort zone and more open to learning about new cultures. Once, I arranged for my in-school friends and Bengali friends to both hang out, it felt different and weird at first but it ended being a great collab and we all got along just the same. There does not have to be any evident racial divide between people just because of their cultures. Instead, it allows for individuals to learn more about their surrounding communities.