Analysis Of From Silence To Words: Writing As Struggle

Every student learns different ways to analyze and write literature based off what their teachers have imposed on them. In the passage, “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle” by Min-Zhan Lu the author informs the reader about her childhood growing up in China during the revolution. She expresses the multitude of problems that come up while she tries to balance learning English at home and Chinese in the classroom. Growing up with these two different lives, the author dignifies that learning two different methods of interpreting literature left her with conflicting perspectives. At school it was frowned upon to speak English, but at home her parents had the opposite attitude and prioritized the learning of English. Although the author’s childhood was in China, this story can very heavily relate to lives of America students. Based off the teacher a child has, they learn to interpret, write, and speak differently. …show more content…
Whether one teacher loves topic sentences, or one teacher adores thesis statements, the bottom line for students is to get a passing grade. With this in mind each student blindly learns and conforms to the style of writing their teacher promotes. For instance, in the passage the author would read novels by Charles Dickens and many other American authors at home. When she was assigned an essay on an article she had read for school, she subconsciously wrote the essay to reflect the internal conflict of the article. This was unacceptable for the school she went to, because this took place during the Chinese revolution, the essay had to display the “Revolutionary Spirit”. This incident shows that each school has their standards and beliefs as to what a correct essay should