I really enjoy writing "A Bite of Mexican Flavor" because I actually describe the values that helped me preserve my Mexican culture away from my home country. With this paper, I try to inform the reader that these values are really strong within Mexicans. The three main values I explained with great detailed are the strong family values, the longlife friendships and the traditions we as Mexicans have.
All of the outcomes were met with this paper, but I would like to explain more deeply about how outcomes one and three were fulfilled when writing the paper:
Outcome #1: Develop a strong, thoughtful and convincing argument which explores a line of inquiry.
Outcome #3: The usage of rhetorical strategies by developing a correct style, tone and conventions for a specific audience.
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Outcome #1
"A bite of Mexican flavor" has a complex argument that is developed in stages to prove the difficulties of adapting to a new culture and the importance of such an experience. The thesis of the paper, which is the importance of Mexican culture in my life and the impact that having this culture made in me when moving to the united states is explained through careful steps, leading the reader through a personal experience in my life then talking about interesting bits of Mexican culture to finally merge these passages together into a restatement of the thesis. I am able to prove the ideas proposed in the paper when I claim that "Even though I live far from my home country, my family, friends and traditions are the aspects that I always have present in my life". The use of a personal experience makes the argument of the paper appealing and persuasive and using this as a stepping stone to a transition into an explanation of "el dia de los muertos" creates an even stronger point while keeping an effective transition line and an effective line of inquiry. Using the previous steps I managed to write a complex and persuasive essay in an academic manner of writing.
Outcome #3
It was very important to have a clear idea of who the audience of this paper was when writing it. Mexican culture is a key point in this paper, and assuming that the reader knows about it would create a weak paper when proving the thesis of the paper. I was trying to reach an audience that knew little or nothing about Mexican culture, which forced me to explain in great detail the example of Mexican culture that I stated to prove a point of difference between Mexican and American culture; I did this with the "dia de los muertos" example. I went into great detail in explaining why and how we celebrate this Mexican tradition. I wrote:
"These ofrendas have flowers, food such as bread, candies, tamales and mole (a typical dish) and at the top the picture of the family member that recently died"
It is very important to notice that the words that are not familiar to a person that knows little about Mexican culture are explained. An example of this is how the word "Mole" is defined for the reader.
The paper is written in a tone that is appealing to a general audience but with a style that is appealing to an academic audience or university students, since the paper talks about high school situation in past tense and reminisces on the importance of this past experiences. Audience awareness and successful tone and style use allowed me to demonstrate that I am proficient in using writing strategies for different rhetorical situations.
