English Composition 1

From my last account, last June my family and I moved for the 20th time in 21 years. The roasty smell of boxes, the piercing sound of tape closing them, and the feeling of uncertainty and constant hurry that one feels when one leaves a place that has become such an important part of life are not stranger to me than paying taxes or Christmas. As expected, amidst constant change and confusion things tend to get lost and damaged, every notion of belonging is shadowed by the unknown, and having a standing ground becomes a matter of survival. My standing ground were books. Wherever we went, whatever the situation may be, books kept us United as a family, and made me feel safe and strong.

The first time I realized that books held such an important part in my life was -as cliche as it may sound-, when I had to leave them behind. My mom had just lost her job, and we were about to be evicted from the apartment we were renting, so we decided to go to another city, where we could live with a relative. Since we were not going to be living in our own place, we had to leave everything behind, including the two big bookcases we had been carrying around since forever. "You can take two books," my mom said, knowing what she was taking from us. Scared and angry, my brother and I started our scavenger hunt for the best two books we could find. He picked the first two parts of The Lord of the Rings, and I took two books by my favorite author: The Life and Adventures of Lazarillo de Tormes, and The Nights of Arabia (only a couple years later did I shamefully learn who "Anonymous" really was, but that's a matter for another time). I read those books from back to back, daydreaming of adventures in Arabic courts, medieval Spain, and Middle Earth. Soon, reading at night became a family ritual that kept us from pointless arguments, and made us dream of better times.

Better times did come. My mom got a new job and one day came to tell us we would be coming back to our city. We moved back again, only to find out that all of the books we had left in storage were gone. However, mom said that was okay, we were moving close to my grandfather's house and he had lots of books we could read. Until then, my grandpa was just a far away memory, but I was very excited to see him again (and his books). The first time we visited he showed us straight to a big chest that reminded me to Emilio Salgari's Malaysian pirates. Inside, much like the golden treasures in such novels, a treasure in its own right awaited. Piles of books, old LP's, and some of the weirdest trinkets I had ever seen were surrounded by the smell of old paper kept in a dark storage. It was full of the most beautiful editions I had seen; books that I couldn't even understand. I learned to read the Bible, Songs of English Knights in Camelot, and obscure texts dealing with the strange traditions of the East, all mixed with newly found Ecuadorean classics that gave me a sense of individuality and belonging to my own country.

All in all, books where a refuge for me to escape the comings and goings of life, allowed me to get my own identity, and reconnect with my family. Today, I'm in a whole different country, and all of my old books had to stay away. However, new ones are coming everyday, helping me get a grasp of the world around me, giving me confidence for any changes that may come tomorrow.

 

Sebastian Gomez-Duranona 

 

The assignment given by the teacher was to write a position paper illustrating our stance in a controversial issue. In order to pick a topic we brainstormed in class a list of controversial subjects that we could write and discussed the different ways in which we could approach some of them. The topic that caught my interest the most was the topic of freedom of speech, specifically in matters of hate speech and whether it should be regulated. Upon research of free speech issues both in a local and national level I reached to the conclusion that speech should not be regulated by government, especially when the reason for regulation is a subjective matter such as hate speech. 

To write my position paper I first brainstormed for a thesis statement that could capture my stance. While doing so, I came up with a series of reasons of which I picked what seemed to me to be the most solid ones, and the ones that I could defend without having to use outside sources. I wrote my first draft using these reasons and presented it to one of my classmates. She pointed out that my introduction needed a citation and that some parts of the essay would be better if I organized my paragraphs better. I did the revisions and deleted the quote that needed citation. After rearranging the introduction I felt like my paper was ready for submission. 

I think that the most effective strategies I used were my reasons. I feel that I explained myself very well and succeeded at conveying what I wanted to convey to the reader. 

However, I recognize it was kind of difficult to come up with supporting arguments without having to use external examples. I did a lot of research, but at the time of using it in my paper I wasn’t sure whether I should include certain things without citation. In the end I gave my own explanations and the conclusions I had reached from the things I read being very careful not to use any of the ideas of people I read. I think that this uncertainty made some of my arguments weaker and I wish I had raised this questions to a tutor before the death line. 

The purpose of my paper was to argue that hate speech is not a valid argument to restrict freedom of speech.