Cover Letter

When I started writing this profile about Stanley, I was very unsure about how it would turn out. I had never written a profile before, and the writing process was a new and challenging experience for me. I am, however, proud that I was able to complete this profile and have it structured in a way that I feel would help people understand who Stanley is as a person. Specifically, I am proud of how I connected parts of Stanley’s background, ideas, beliefs, and perspective to his narrative. At first, when I did the profile, it seemed like all I was doing was trying to get the reader to get to know Stanley a little better, but in reality, there was more to it than just introducing and describing who Stanley is. As you continue to read through my profile, you get to see that I used the information I gathered from my interview to slowly piece together Stanley’s narrative and help the reader understand how his experiences have helped him become the person he is today. In my profile, I gave the reader a chance to understand some of Stanley’s perspectives on certain topics (such as his perspective on our current society) while also highlighting how Stanley’s experiences helped him gain such perspectives. I then proceeded to point out how his narrative reflected the aspects of Stanley that I mentioned when I was first introducing him to the reader, which I felt was the hard part for me to do. That is why I am proud of how I structured my profile, because I feel like it did more than just describe who Stanley was. I feel like the way I structured the profile helped the reader feel more connected to Stanley and his experiences, which was ultimately my goal for the audience.

                Speaking about the audience, I decided when I started writing this profile that the audience would be my classmates in English 110. I decided that they would be my intended audience because I wanted Stanley to be better understood by my classmates. When I met Stanley through our interview, he admitted to me that he was somewhat of a closed person who hadn’t put himself out there as much as he thought he should have. Since I saw that Stanley was trying to change that, I decided that I could be of some help and try to help our classmates better know who he is through this profile, so that he could reach his goal of becoming more open and experiencing life to the fullest. I wanted my classmates to know that Stanley is a pretty interesting person who has relatable experiences and is worth meeting if they ever have time to do so.

                To construct this profile about Stanley, I used some repetition to help the reader see the aspects of Stanley I felt were relatable (such as repeating his enjoyment of technology and his value of hard work). I also used repetition to emphasize the lessons I felt were important for the reader to understand. For example, the idea that hard work is important came up a good number of times throughout the profile. This lesson came up repeatedly throughout the profile because I wanted to be sure that the reader understood this message clearly since, in my eyes, it really is a lesson that can help people go a long way (which also allows me to connect with the lessons Stanley brought up in his narrative). I wanted the audience to see how hard work helped a person like Stanley become a good person and how that if people apply hard work towards things that they care about and matter, they will eventually become appreciative of the hard times they have gone through and grow to become better people that will help our society move forward to a better future. I also used vague language and hypophora (asking a question and then immediately answering it) in the beginning of my profile to get the reader interested in who I was talking about. These two rhetorical strategies (repetition and hypophora) helped me both get the reader hooked onto who I was talking about and become aware of lessons I felt were important for the audience to know about.

                Through this assignment, I was able to accomplish course learning outcome # three (develop strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing) because since this assignment completely pushed me out of my comfort zone, it forced me to approach this assignment using multiple different perspectives. I had to interview someone and occasionally reach out to them outside of class time to help me structure my profile, which helped me develop some strategies to better collaborate with someone. I also had to take a step back and read my profile from multiple different perspectives to see if my ideas were clear enough for readers with different backgrounds and experiences to understand. I also had to do some revisions to my profile, so I had to use different strategies to write up multiple sentences and pick out which one would best deliver the message I wanted to deliver. Even the drafting process was different for me because writing a profile is something I never experienced before, so I had to use different styles of writing and planning to create my draft for the peer profile. This peer profile also helped me better understand language politics because it taught me how to use my voice in a different way to try and make people understand and empathize with those who may not always have the loudest voice. This peer profile taught me that I could help people feel noticed and help them spread the lessons they have learned through their experiences, which shows how writing and language could help empower people and make them feel more connected to our society instead of feeling isolated or ignored.

Peer Profile Writing

                Recently, I sat down with a classmate and tried to get to know him better. The young man I met was quite a nice guy, and he used a clear and respectful tone with me as we talked about certain topics for our ELA class. From what I could gather, the young man was down-to-earth, and he was a thoughtful person. He was interesting to listen to and often spoke about things that allowed me to relate to him. Now, you may be wondering, who am I talking about? Well, let me tell you. The person I am referring to above is a classmate named Stanley Zhu.

                Stanley Zhu is a CCNY student who is taking Freshman Composition English, and he recently wrote a narrative about some experiences he had with language. I was one of the students that was able to read his work and after getting to learn more about him, I began to see how some parts of his narrative reflected the type of person he is today.

                Many of you may not know Stanley, so I will help give some insight into who he is from the information I got before I start discussing his narrative.

                Stanley is a person who respects and values family. When we discussed family, Stanley told me “I value my family a lot because I have created many memories with them, and they helped me develop into the person I am today”. As a family person myself, this felt very relatable, and it just goes to show how Stanley is an appreciative and good-natured person.

                Stanley is also a realistic person because, from a young age, he understood that a single person cannot change the world, so he does not try to put all the pressure of trying to fix the world on himself. Stanley is also someone who is appreciative of what he has and some of the experiences he has gone through because when we discussed his view on our current society, he told me, “our society is not perfect, there are a lot of issues today that we still have to tackle and take care of, but to say that our society (specifically American society) failed us is also not true because we have it better than many other countries. I am fortunate to be here in America because I have a decent lifestyle and things that other places in the world might not have”. The way that Stanley answered this question shows maturity and appreciation because he knows, just like many of us do, that things could be worse and admitting that we are just very lucky that we got the better end of the stick, even if things do seem bad in our society, shows that Stanley is not close minded or does not value what he already has in life. 

                I also learned that Stanley enjoys reading, especially fiction books, because of how imaginative the stories are. He enjoys taking a dive into a good book and getting lost in it because 1) he enjoys it but also because 2)reading a good book helps him endure the harsh realities of our world. Even more so, Stanley is also quite interested in the growth of technology because he feels that “the growth of technology could help humans create a more effective and just society for all of us to live in”, which I find very interesting because it shows that he has some optimism, something our world does not seem to have enough of nowadays.

                Stanley is also a conscious person who understands who he is, what he likes, and what he needs to work on to better himself. I was able to see this because Stanley was pretty quick in responding about the things he likes (such as math and electronics like computers) and was also well aware that he hasn’t put himself out there as much as he should’ve, so Stanley understands that he needs to work on that to allow himself to get a better life experience.

                Stanley also values hard work a lot, and this was evident in both his narrative and when we talked about who he looks up to. When I asked Stanley, “Who do you look up to? (Can be a real person or a fictional character)”. Stanley’s response was an interesting one. He said, “ I don’t really look up to anyone in particular, but I do have a lot of respect and admire people who work hard, are determined, and are persistent”. I found this interesting because when we talked about the most frustrating part in his journey of learning English, he mentioned that he was mostly self-taught due to his parents not knowing English well, which made me understand why he looked up to hard workers because he himself is a hard worker who is persistent and determined to achieve his goals.

                It is no wonder that Stanley pursues a career in Electrical Engineering. Knowing that he is a hard worker who is interested in electronics and math, it would seem quite fitting that Stanley chose a career path in the engineering field. Especially since Stanley can think realistically and understands his limitations, it seems very logical that he would try to become an electrical engineer (which is a challenging task).

                Now that we know Stanley a little better, we can start talking about Stanley’s narrative. In Stanley’s Narrative, we had three different stories to read about, each with their own lessons. First, we have the story about Stanley copying down texts during his free time because of his parents. The second story was about Stanley talking with his parents about what activity he should do, and his third story was about him learning Chinese and keeping in touch with traditions as he continued his English learning journey. 

                When Stanley talked about copying down texts during his free time, it was clear from the dialogue that Stanley was frustrated because this task was not something he enjoyed doing. It was tedious work, and he much preferred to relax during his weekends over doing extra work, as any reasonable human would feel. The beauty of this part of the text, however, was the imagery that Stanley brought to make the story clear for the reader to visualize. Imagery was one of the things that Stanley was great at doing in his narrative and I don’t doubt that reading all those fiction books and having to take part in copying them down (which can be hard work) allowed Stanley to develop his imagery skills to help the reader feel connected to his story. Later on in the story, Stanley goes on to say that although he disliked this task for a while, he was appreciative of this experience because it helped him to gain skills that put him in a position that would allow him to help others, which shows why he also appreciates and values hard work. 

                When Stanley then moved on to his story about deciding what activity to do outside of school, we got to see how Stanley started to develop independence by being allowed to make his own choices and speak up for what he wants. This part of the text used personal experience and dialogue to make it clear that Stanley advocated for himself when it was required, which helps show why Stanley today seems to be quite conscious of who he is, his likes (such as technology and math), and what he needs to work on. This part of the text also shows Stanley’s appreciation for his own experiences because in his narrative he states that he remembers his friends telling him how they were forced to take art or music classes while he remembers having more lenient parents who let him have a voice in what he was going to do. 

                Stanley then goes on to tell his story about his role in his family (as the oldest brother) and his experience learning Chinese and its culture while also learning English and copying down English texts. Stanley is the oldest of his siblings, and in his narrative, he states that he tries to be a good role model for his siblings, showing how much Stanley actually values family and how he wants to set a good example for his younger family members just as his older family members (mom and dad) did for him. Stanley also had the challenge of trying to learn both Chinese and English at the same time while also keeping in touch with his Chinese culture, which, when you think about it, is a lot of hard work. When Stanley mentions his personal experiences with learning Chinese, he does so in a direct way that allows the reader to get the message he was trying to tell; learning two languages at once while trying to preserve your culture and while also copying down books in your free time was hard. Stanley didn’t try to sugarcoat this fact or anything, and he delivered this part with a serious tone, demonstrating that Stanley viewed these tasks as important for him to accomplish. Due to his hard work, Stanley was able to make good progress in his Chinese and his English, which allowed him to communicate better with his family and become more connected with his culture, and he was able to continue copying down texts in his free time. Now, Stanley is able to use his bilingual abilities to help his family with translation or to help people who seem like they may need it. All of this shows how much hard work Stanley had to go through to become the person he is today, which helps anyone see why Stanley tends to respect others who are also hard workers. 

                Stanley ended off with a reflection about how his different experiences helped him become the person he is today. Stanley was quite straightforward with his reflection and I feel it helped the reader better understand his interpretation of his experiences, which, in turn, allowed the reader to compare their own interpretations of his stories with his (Stanley’s) and start getting exposed to different perspectives about the same thing (which is what happens in the real world, many people have different perspectives, and interpretations about the same thing).

                Stanley’s use of ethos in the stories about him copying down texts and learning Chinese while also learning English was also interesting because it showed the reader that Stanley experienced himself the hardship of trying to improve a language, which makes his experiences a prime example (and a credible source) of how hard work and persistence can allow a person to overcome their obstacle and improve their language. Although many may not be able to relate specifically to having to copy down texts during their free time, Stanley was able to use this experience to show how the things we often dread at the moment can help us later on in life if we continue to work hard (since copying down texts did help Stanley, in the long run, improve his English and to take notes efficiently and quickly), which is a lesson that many people have already learned and can relate too. Also, since Stanley worked hard to learn Chinese, he was able to help a person out with his bilingual skills and give a woman the right directions to go to Flushing, which gave him a sense of resourcefulness and made him feel helpful, allowing him to see once again how hard work can help him in the long run (since Stanley is a nice guy who is often willing to help others, his hard work in learning Chinese helped him help others). This form of ethos only strengthened Stanley’s closing statement in his narrative because it allowed the reader to see that Stanley is not just some random guy who repeats that hard work bears fruit; no far from it, the narrative shows us that Stanley can be trusted when he says that hard work is valuable because in a way Stanley is a primary source of the effects of hard work, making him credible and more appreciative of the experiences he has gone through.