1.2: Sample Reading Response Journal- an Undocumented Teacher's Story

What is a reading response journal?

A reading response journal, which some instructors might call a "dialectic journal" or "reflective reading journal," is a common assignment given in ESL and English courses. Typically an instructor will ask you to choose a few parts of the assigned reading that particularly stand out to you, record each part as a quotation, and then respond to each quotation with a few sentences of reflection, connection, or analysis. Your instructor may expect an informal journal that is mostly about your own reactions and experiences, or they may ask for more formal text analysis, or both. See 1.9: Choosing Quotes and Analyzing a Text for strategies and examples.

Your job in a journal is to uncover the parts of the text that are significant to you, and build meaning from the text and your own experience. In the example below, the reader responds to specific parts of the author's story, which begins with a description of working in residential construction with his father, like in Figure 1.2.1.

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): "New Home Construction" by Great Valley Center is marked with CC BY 2.0.

Sample reading

In the following example, an instructor has asked students to read the excerpt below and to complete a reading response journal. As you read the text, notice which parts stand out to you. Which quotes would you choose? What would you have to say about them?

Read this!

Reading from a theater project website: "Shoebox Stories UndocuAmerica Series: Stories From Our Undocumented Neighbors"

Motus Theater

You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.
—John Steinbeck

Shoebox Stories UndocuAmerica Series Excerpt: “Deport Me”

Alejandro Fuentes-Mena is a Motus Theater UndocuAmerica monologist. He was born in Valparaiso, Chile, immigrated to the United States at the age of four, and grew up in San Diego, California. He received a BA in psychology from Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. Through Teach for America, Alejandro became one of the first two DACAmented teachers in the entire nation. He recently completed his seventh year of teaching in northeast Denver and will be moving on to get his master’s degree in educational leadership in hopes of creating an arts integrated school, to be named the Radical Arts Academy of Denver (RAAD).

I was just a kid when I realized what being undocumented meant. At age eight, I started going to work with my dad so I could help him rebuild the entire outside of other people’s homes, all the while not having a real home of our own. I would help my dad research what to charge and work out all the math. For example, I would discover that for one given job, contractors would charge $20,000. But my dad had been screwed over so many times that he would only charge $15,000. Clients would see his strength in Spanish, his lack of English, and his lack of documentation, and they would give him about $10,000. And that is who my father believed he was: half the man I thought he was, half the value of any other.

I witnessed as my mother would leave for an entire weekend—seventy-two hours— to take care of someone else’s family. She was lured with the promise of being paid over $300 for the weekend, but she would come back with only $100 in her pocket. One hundred dollars that she saw as a blessing. One hundred dollars that I saw as an attack on our family.

All those rich families saw little value in everything my mom did. They would take her away, only to use her and spit her out. The money they paid was barely enough to put food on the table. It didn’t cover the worry my mom had because she couldn’t be home to take care of us when we were sick, help us with homework, comfort us when we returned to an empty house. One hundred dollars for a whole weekend away from her family—like she was worthless. But don’t you understand? She was priceless to me!

Well, spending my weekends without my mom as she cared for other people’s children, and spending those weekends working for my dad for free so he wouldn’t lose money for the privilege of building a home for someone else’s family, and witnessing this over and over and over again, I began to think that I wasn’t worth much either. Despite the fact that I had been recognized at school as “Gifted and Talented.” Despite the fact that I was a math whiz; that I had learned English—a completely unknown language—in less than a year; and that I was an engaged student. Despite the fact that I was the precocious worship leader at my church. I let those weekends of feeling worthless affect me.

I began making jokes rather than making plans for my future. Playing games rather than paying attention. Chasing girls rather than chasing my dreams. And, like all self-fulfilling prophecies, I got to the point where my grades reflected what society said my parents and I were worth: half-priced human beings.

But luckily, I had a teacher named Ms. Kovacic who worked hard to remind me of my value and helped convince me that what this society was telling me and my family was wrong. With her support, and that of many others, I got myself out of that pit of self-deprecation—past the insecurities, past the hate, past the negativity, past that half version of me—and into a good college and into a position where I am now an educator who teaches math. And like my mentors, I teach young children their value, because all children are valuable, just as you and I are valuable.

As a teacher, I can’t help myself. Let me take you to school for a few moments. Hope you're good with that? Let’s start off with a little math lesson. My father is one man, one of the hardest workers I know. My mother is one woman, one of the strongest and most compassionate individuals in my life. My sister is one daughter, a brat, but a lovable one, and an American citizen. I’m one son, half of this country and half of Chile. And we are four whole, beautiful gifts, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Not the half-priced individuals that society has attempted to make us.

Moving to applied math and economics: If this country continues to deport the undocumented community, it is missing out on courageous, strong, intelligent, family-loving, hard-working people of great value. And that is not only our loss; it is your loss to miss out on us, not to mention the billions in taxes we bring in every year, which is billions more than large corporations are paying.

Lastly, moving beyond math to ethics: Paying an undocumented person half the value for their life’s work; extracting all you can get to build your homes and take care of your families, and then deporting them, as if they had not brought value, is not just mathematically flawed; it is also an American math story problem gone wrong. It is criminal to treat us as subservient and less desirable.

I am living in this country undocumented, teaching your children, supporting them, engaging their minds in math and in their dreams. I’m 100% here and 100% committed to this country in which I was raised, this country that constantly seeks to spit me out. Lose me and you lose my value-—not just the money I pay in taxes and the money I pay into social security that I will never benefit from, but you also lose my ability to inspire, connect, and engage. You lose my ability to bring an impact, and you lose the knowledge I bring to my students, who are your children. This country would be foolish to lose me.

Deport me. But in the end, it’s your loss.

This autobiographical story was written by Alejandro Fuentes-Mena in collaboration with Tania Chairez and Kirsten Wilson as part of a Motus Monologue Workshop.

 

Sample reading response journal

Table 1.2.1 shows a sample reading response journal based on the above reading.

Table 1.2.1: Sample Reading Response Journal

Entry number	Quotation	Response
Entry 1	Fuentes-Mena recalls, "At age eight, I started going to work with my dad so I could help him rebuild the entire outside of other people’s homes, all the while not having a real home of our own" (par 1).	Here the author paints a vivid image by contrasting his father's work on other people's homes with their own family's lack of "a real home of our own." When he first uses the word "home," he is talking literally about the actual house at the construction site, the wood and siding and shingles, but the effect is symbolic; it shows the stark contrast between the feeling of belonging that the people inside those houses had with his family's position on the outside of society. His family also lived inside a building, but their circumstances were not as safe and solid as the lives of his father's customers. The author's choice to start his piece with this description immediately builds empathy with the reader. We have not all been in the same situation, but we have all been eight years old and can remember the feeling of watching the adults and trying to figure out how things work. Fuentes-Mena shows us the contradiction through his eyes as a child looking in from the outside.
Entry 2	Fuentes-Mena explains that as a result of witnessing how his parents were exploited each weekend, he did not feel valued, "[d]espite the fact that I had been recognized at school as 'Gifted and Talented.' Despite the fact that I was a math whiz; that I had learned English—a completely unknown language—in less than a year; and that I was an engaged student. Despite the fact that I was the precocious worship leader at my church" (par 4).	After seeing how his father and mother each worked all weekend for low pay, Fuentes-Mena internalized the feeling that he was not worthy. He contrasts this feeling with the reality of his achievements at school and church. The way he writes this list of things that should make him feel valuable, with three sentences all beginning with "Despite the fact . . .," emphasizes how strong the feeling of worthlessness was. The feeling could not be banished by the pride he should have felt from being good at math, learning English quickly, or excelling at school and church. The impact of his parents' status was more powerful than all these talents and successes. The author's skillful use of repetition underlines this contradiction. Each use of "despite the fact" shows us yet another reason he should not have felt worthless, but he still did. It's terrible that he felt shame for reasons that were totally out of his control.
Entry 3	Describing his adolescent frustration, Fuentes-Mena writes, "I began making jokes rather than making plans for my future. Playing games rather than paying attention. Chasing girls rather than chasing my dreams. And, like all self-fulfilling prophecies, I got to the point where my grades reflected what society said my parents and I were worth: half-priced human beings."	In this passage, Fuentes-Mena uses repetition, parallel structure, and rhyme to show the contrast between what he thinks a young person should be encouraged to do and the way he responded to his environment. He repeats words to heighten the comparison when he describes "making jokes" and "making plans", "playing games" and "paying attention", and "chasing girls" and "chasing [his] dreams." This creates a strong rhythm that grabs our attention, almost like rap music, and it keeps our focus on how his life was being wasted on unimportant things instead of focusing on his future. Furthermore, Fuentes-Mena uses different sentence lengths to highlight the effects of this on himself. He starts the paragraph with several short sentences, which make the reader focus on this contrast. Then, he ends the paragraph with one longer sentence: "And, like all self-fulfilling prophecies, I got to the point where my grades reflected what society said my parents and I were worth: half-priced human beings." This long sentence stands out after so many short sentences, and draws our attention the final words of the paragraph, "half-priced human beings." These words are shocking because humans should not be any price; they are all valuable.
Entry 4	Fuentes-Mena reports that he "had a teacher named Ms. Kovacic who worked hard to remind [him] of [his] value and helped convince [him] that what this society was telling [him] and [his] family was wrong. With her support, and that of many others, [he] got [himself] out of that pit of self-deprecation . . . and into a good college."	This quotation demonstrates how an individual teacher can make a big difference in someone's life. This grabbed my attention because I also have a teacher who changed my life. For me, it was Professor Lee, the first openly gay teacher I had. I grew up in a small town and it was impossible to imagine a gay teacher there. In fact, a teacher at my high school was fired because people thought she might be gay. When I started college, Professor Lee was my English teacher during my first semester. He was a challenging teacher and I learned a lot from him. The thing that changed my life was that he showed me that it was possible for someone like me to be themself and also have a professional job and be respected. I felt that I could have a future. As Fuentes-Mena said, he "remind[ed] me of my value and helped convince me that what this society was telling me . . . was wrong."

---

Work Cited

Motus Theater, “Shoebox Stories UndocuAmerica Series: Stories From Our Undocumented Neighbors.” Art and Community, by Wisdom Amouzou, et al, Tilt West, 2020. .

Licenses and Attributions

CC Licensed Content: Original

Authored by Gabriel Winer, Berkeley City College and Elizabeth Wadell, Laney College. License: CC BY NC.

CC Licensed Content: Previously Published

Motus Theater, “Shoebox Stories UndocuAmerica Series: Stories From Our Undocumented Neighbors.” Art and Community, by Wisdom Amouzou, et al, Tilt West, 2020. is licensed under CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0