Pan Zhao

Engl 106-i73

Jann 27th 2020

Autobiography (second draft)

I am a Chinese national. I was born in Shanghai, China 21 years ago. I studied in

shanghai until 9th grade and then moved to Los Angeles, California where I enrolled in high

school before moving to another shortly afterward. The first was catholic affiliated; the second

one was also Christian based. I graduated from high school. I am now seeking an opportunity to

pursue an undergrad in Sales Management at Purdue; while I would like to pursue a major in

sales management, I would not say with finality that it’s the course I will settle for. I am still

scouting. I have a couple of options that I also like. I will settle on one in due course. Aside from

being enthusiastic about academics, I also have hobbies; the things I like doing during my free

time. Oftentimes, I play basketball, work out, follow the stock market, and play video games in

my free time. I come from a loving family. My father was a college professor; he is now a

businessman. My mother was once a high school teacher. She is now a CEO in of education

outfit.

Aside from my background. I would also like to share my life experiences here in the US.

In this biography, I explore the good, the bad and the ugly in relation to the experiences I have

faced during my stay in Los Angeles. First off, I would like to indicate that my formative years

were spent in a completely different culture. So, I was socialized differently relative to most of

the people I interacted with in high school. I moved from a collectivistic cultural orientation into

a completely different setup. My upbringing impacted my level of class connectedness; I was

Carla Rosell
Pan, all work needs to be turned in as a Word document. If you turn in the final assignment as a PDF, you will be marked down.

Carla Rosell
This first paragraph does not relate to writing in any way. I would delete it because you need to repurpose the space
to discuss your development as a writer.

passive in class. I also grappled with loneliness for a considerable amount of time. Most of the

students I interacted with during my high school years were somewhat language proficient; I,

however, grappled with perceived language incompetence; my friends were outspoken; they

responded freely to questions raised by teachers.

Also, I would say that the collision between the Chinese and the American cultures

somehow impeded the extent to which I could realize socio-cultural adjustments. I, from time to

time, entertained the thoughts that my cultural predisposition was somewhat inferior. These

thoughts made me overly self-conscious and bled into my classroom participation. While this

was a challenge in my freshman and sophomore years, I was lucky enough to have good friends

by my side by the time I transitioned to junior. This company provided the needed support and

entrenched a sense of belonging in me in ways that encouraged me to interact more with others

and to learn from them as well. Looking back, I would say that I have come a long way. I

converse freely with people these days; I am more proactive now than I was when I first got to

Los Angeles. It took me a lot of reading, talking to people in attempts to get off my comfort

zone.

I was initially not good in writing the English language as opposed to the Chinese

language. Even though I had started writing the English language in China, success was more in

the United States when I moved to the United States. This is because the need for the English

language was more and I had to adjust to knowing how to write in English more fluently for me

to cope with my stay in the United States. When I lived with my host parents, they taught me a

lot on writing skills. Once I got an assignment from my high school english teacher which let me

write a six hundreds words essay. At that time, six hundreds works means I have to use at least a

Carla Rosell
Why? Is this something that impacted your writing?

Carla Rosell
This first sentence implies you feel more comfortable in writing in Chinese. You need to dedicate a couple of paragraphs to your writing in Chinese. What do you struggle with when writing in Chinese? Is there anything you’ve learned that helped you improve, or that made you feel pride in your writing?

Carla Rosell
Do you mean your writing improved as you practiced English, as your English proficiency also improved?

week to do it, it was really hard for me, then I decided to tell my host mom. At the first, she let

me use Chinese to write couple bullet points about what I am going to write about, and translate

to English. After that, she helped me to express every bullet points to sentences and paragraphs.

Then she helped me correct the grammar and spelling by each sentence. At the same time, she

taught me a lot about how to write a good essay, how to use those higher level vocabulary, and

how to be a better writer.

My woes, however, did not stop with the challenges in school; my initial weeks in the US

were also marked by dietary challenges. I harbored misgivings about food which compounded

my already unpleasant experience in the US; I would say, overall, my stay in LA and school life

at the outset was a nightmare, but a shinny star was be with me the whole time, my host mom

which I should use my whole life the appreciate to. While I did experience such a challenge at

the beginning of my sojourn here in the US, I do not experience them as much. I am more

acclimatized now and I enjoy my stay here.

Carla Rosell
Pan,
While you added in a new paragraph that directly discusses your development as a writer, your essay still needs heavy revision. The theme of your writing autobiography is your development as a writer, as opposed to your autobiography.
The new paragraph you added does a good job showing why writing in English is more challenging than writing in Chinese for you. It is your best paragraph. You should model the rest of the essay on this paragraph, as it provides the sort of detail I need to see throughout the essay. My main suggestion is thus that you revise your essay to have each paragraph revolve around the idea of writing. If your paragraph does not discuss writing, then you need to delete that paragraph and replace it with one that does discuss some aspect of your journey as a writer.
More specifically, I need to hear about your struggles and successes writing in both Chinese and English. Providing additional detail will help you better illustrate your development in both languages. I have pointed out a couple of places (see my side comments) where you should insert more details.
My other main suggestion concerns grammar and mechanics. I suggest reading your essay out loud, as this will help you identify small grammatical errors (like a verb tense error, or missing word) that you need to fix.

Carla Rosell
This final paragraph does not discuss writing. I would delete it.

Carla Rosell
How exactly? What techniques did she teach you to help you develop your ideas from bullet points to paragraphs?

Carla Rosell
What specifically did she teach you? How did she help you learn more vocabulary?

ENG 106-I Spring 2020

Writer’s Autobiography Prompt

Evaluation Breakdown: 10% of final grade

Format: All work is to be uploaded as a Word document. Your document should be double-spaced, have one-inch margins on all sides, and be done in a 12-point font.

Audience: Your audience for this paper will be the members of this class. This paper should be in the first person and can be less formal than the remaining essays.

Assignment

The focus of this assignment is your development as a writer—in both your native and second or foreign language(s). Consider your entire life, including pre-school years, and do not limit yourself to school experiences. Some areas of your experience you might want to consider include: people who have influenced your writing, your memories of successes and failures in writing, your feelings about writing (whether it is easy or difficult for you and why), and your strengths and weaknesses in writing. You do not need to write about all of or only these areas nor follow this order in your paper. The purpose of thinking about these topics is to help you recover and arrange relevant memories. Please note that although the assignment asks you to focus on your writing history, you might have to include certain experiences that do not explicitly relate to writing but provide a context for those experiences.

Memoirs are usually not argumentative and do not require a thesis/argument or research (although you may structure your autobiography around an argument if you wish). Memoirs are often structured around an encounter with an obstacle or complication and the lessons learned from that confrontation/encounter. Including details is vital.

Contents

In your Writer’s Autobiography, which should run about 800-1000 words, you will need

· A title

· An introduction that contextualizes your narrative

· A body which details your experience as a writer—you may want to do this in chronological order, and

· A conclusion which brings a sense of closure to your account

Suggestion for Drafting Your Autobiography

· Give yourself at least two to three uninterrupted hours to develop your draft

· Start by making some notes regarding what you would like to include in your narrative

· Consider writing the body of your paper first and then developing your introduction and conclusion

· Give your draft a title after you have completed it

Academic Integrity and Plagiarism
: Academic integrity is one of the highest values that Purdue University holds. Individuals are encouraged to alert university officials to potential breeches of this value by either emailing

integrity@purdue.edu

or by calling 765-494-8778. While information may be submitted anonymously, the more information that is submitted provides the greatest opportunity for the university to investigate the concern.

When writers use material from other sources, they must acknowledge this source. Not doing so is called plagiarism, which means using without credit the ideas or expression of another. You are therefore cautioned (1) against using, word for word, without acknowledgment, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, etc. from the printed or manuscript material of others; (2) against using with only slight changes the materials of another; (3) against using the general plan, the main headings, or a rewritten form of someone else’s material. These cautions apply to the work of other students as well as to the published work of professional writers. Penalties for plagiarism vary from failure of the plagiarized assignment to expulsion from the university, and may include failure for the course and notification of the Dean of Students’ Office.

You should become familiar with the following websites related to Purdue’s rules and regulations. Purdue University’s Student Conduct Code at

www.purdue.edu/studentregulations/student_conduct/index.html

Purdue University’s student regulations at

www.purdue.edu/studentregulations/student_conduct/regulations.html

The section on plagiarism is under Student Conduct, B, 2, a.

If you still have questions about what is and is not plagiarism, do not hesitate to ask me in class, in my office, during conferences, or via e-mail.

Purdue Honor Pledge: “As a Boilermaker pursuing academic excellence, I pledge to be honest and true in all that I do. Accountable together—we are Purdue.”

If you have questions about fair use or documentation, please do not hesitate to consult me.

Grading Rubric for Writer’s Autobiography

· Content 40

· Organization 30

· Vocabulary 10

· Grammar 10

· Conventions 10

Total 100

· Content: quantity, quality and interest of the material (relevance, creativity, appropriateness, originality, etc.)

· Organization: paragraph development, introduction and conclusion, development within the body of the essay, etc.

· Vocabulary: quality, accuracy, and range of word choices

· Grammar: correctness of the grammar (sentence level: verb tense, subject verb agreement, etc.)

· Conventions: punctuation, overall look, delivery, and professionalism of the paper (layout, fonts, etc.)

A – Essay meets and exceeds expectations: demonstrates reflection and analysis throughout its content; offers significance and contains key people and events; logical progression of paragraphs tells a good story, so that the literacy narrative is coherent, clear and easy to follow; provides both sharpness of detail and thoughtfulness with an awareness of the rhetorical situation. The essay is written in the correct format, is proofread and relatively free of errors, and meets the word requirement.

B – Essay meets nearly all expectations: demonstrates reflection and analysis throughout its content; offers significance and contains key people and events; logical progression of paragraphs tells a good story, so that the literacy narrative is coherent, clear and easy to follow; provides both sharpness of detail and thoughtfulness with an awareness of the rhetorical situation; but the story could use more detail, and may not logically flow (coherence between events is not clear), or the significance may not be clear to the audience. The essay is written in the correct format, is proofread with limited errors or typos, and meets the word requirement.

C – Essay meets a majority of expectations: shows some degree of reflection and analysis and offers a moment of significance, but ultimately may not fully describe the story in vivid detail. The literacy narrative may provide more summary than detail, may lack key people or events or lack significance (the ‘so what?’). The literacy narrative may not adequately address genre conventions; demonstrates some organizational concerns that negatively influence its flow and accessibility. The essay is written in the correct format, but may have a considerable number of typos, suggesting a failure to proofread, but meets the word requirement.

D – Essay barely meets expectations: fails to establish a good story with logical flow; it may summarize or provide events without a clear connection and does not provide sufficient detail; may not have clear significance, or it is not clear to the audience. The literacy narrative may not meet the following criteria: genre conventions, vivid details and a key person, or key moments; demonstrates some organizational concerns that negatively influence its flow and accessibility; has a large number of typos, errors, and/or incoherent sentences that impact clarity and suggest a failure to proofread; does not meet the word requirement.

F – Essay does not meet expectations: does not present reflection and analysis OR does not demonstrate a basic understanding of how to relate a story with a significant moment.

* Grades additionally include plus or minus scores (ex: A-, B+, et cetera demonstrating degree to which students met or did not meet expectations/requirements described in each respective grading bracket).