Blog Post #8 - Aria by Richard Rodriguez (Reflection)
Aria by Richard Rodriguez is about his personal experience of growing up speaking Spanish in an English-speaking school. He says that when he was young, speaking Spanish was something special to him and his family. He described it as “private individuality” and gave them a sense of separateness when in public. Having to learn English for school was hard, but by the end of the reading, he says it gave him a sense of success. He felt confident in his public identity, even if it meant forgetting or leaving behind part of his private identity. In Teaching Bilinguals episodes, the teachers advocate for their bilingual students. They encourage students to use the language they know to express themselves in class. I noticed that there was a big contrast between Teaching Bilinguals and Aria . Rodriguez talked about his experience when teachers denied him the opportunity to speak in Spanish. In the videos the teachers are doing the opposite, they are encouraging students to become biling
