Blog# 1: Rodriguez

Identifying myself as a “scholar girl,” could relate to Rodriguez in so many ways. Rodriguez mentions on

page 432, “Richard Hoggart's The Uses of Literacy, I found, in his description of the scholarship boy, myself.

For the first time I realized that there were other students like me, an d so I was able to frame the meaning of my

academic success, consequent price-the loss,” showing the connections from the reader to the writer. Where I

see myself as a reader connecting to the writer, which is Rodriguez; the reason I connect with Rodriguez, as a

young Latina and first one of my family, to reach the higher education level. I had to face a lot of challenges and

difficulties. Rodriguez explains on page 430, his experience in the beginning of his story, “ She keeps nodding and

nodding at all that I say; she even takes notes. And each time I ask a question, she jerks up and down in her

desk like a marionette, while her hand waves over the bowed heads of her classmates,” shows out of the whole

class, only one student was connecting to the teacher, well in the story Rodriguez was a guest speaker, in the

class. Rodriguez tried his best to get the rest of the class attention, but there was no reaction of the students with

the guest speaker. Being a first scholar of my family puts you in a tense situation, especially when your own family

don't understand you half the time and they feel you think you know everything and to good to be around theme,

because you know more things then theme. I don't try to make no one feel less of theme self, just want to help

others succeed as well as I do. On page 433, “somehow they learn to live in the two very different worlds of

their day,” students learn how to adapt to the two different world and live it that way throughout their education

development. Rodriguez mentions as well on page 434, “it was the nun's encouragement that mattered most to

me. (She understood exactly what- my parents never seemed to appraise so well- all my achievements

entailed.),” showing the connection between the student and teacher. It's a good thing when a educator builds a

strong relationship with a student. Returning back to memory land, I didn't really like the way the teachers taught

me in high school, due to the fact I felt at a certain point that the teachers were teaching just for the money and

not paying attention if the student is learning or not. Graduated and went on to college as a normal average

student. College is where I actually learned and put what I learned to a use. Learned how to be a literate person

and not just to read and write, but how to hold a personal conversation with text and write what I think not what

the professor thinks. I have to admit being the only scholar in my family and given the opportunity to make

something out of myself, but also to explore my own thoughts and put it to use as a professional, college has

opened up doors for me and helped me understand somethings I didn't understand in high school.