WRT-105

  There’s a moment in David Blaine’s TED Talk— “How I Held My Breath Underwater for 17 Minutes” —where he talks about the feeling of pushing against the limits of human capacity. He trains his body to resist what feels like drowning. He talks about resisting panic, about being still, about staying silent when every instinct is screaming for air. That moment stayed with me—not just because of the physical intensity, but because it reminded me of what it feels like to stay quiet in spaces where your voice feels out of place. Sometimes, being silent isn’t a performance. It’s a survival skill. This unit’s texts have helped me see that literacy and voice aren’t just about writing essays or reading books—they’re about breathing. They’re about who gets to speak, who gets to breathe freely, and who has to train themselves to hold their voice in for the sake of safety or acceptance. I’ve been there. Switching between the way I talk at home and the way I talk in school, learning to write in ...

June Jordan's essay, "Nobody Means More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan," had an impact on me that few works of writing have ever had. It is not simply an essay about writing or grammar—it's a call directly to the way we think about language, race, and respect. Jordan writes from the position of a teacher and as a Black woman grieving the loss of one of her students, Willie Jordan, who was killed by the police. She talks about how Black English—the language that most of her students use at home and in the community—is always labeled as "improper" or "wrong" by society and schools. But Jordan reverses it. She thinks Black English isn't a mistake; it's a great, living, valuable language. And by denigrating it, schools are denigrating the value and voice of Black children. This essay made me think a lot about the manner in which language comes into my life. Whether at school, in the locker room, or as I text my friends, I c...

 Reading Lisa Bickmore’s “Genre in the Wild” changed how I see the routines in my own life. She says genres aren't just “types of writing”—they’re patterns of communication shaped by the situations we’re in. Think about it like this: if you play football or go to church, you’re already swimming in rhetorical ecosystems without realizing it. Take this one line: “Genres are not standalone entities but are shaped by recurring situations and contexts.” I didn’t expect this sentence to connect so clearly to my everyday life, but it really does. Let’s break it down. Pre-game speeches The coach’s pep talk is a genre. You know the rhythm: motivational quote, some stats, the phrase “play with heart.” Prayer requests In church, there's a specific tone and order for asking prayers. It’s not random—it’s patterned and learned. Locker room talk vs. press interviews Same player, totally different genres. What’s appropriate in one setting wouldn’t fly in the other. ...

  I  just  watched David Blaine ' s TED Talk,  " How I Held My Breath for 17 Minutes ,"  and  I'll be honest with you , I didn ' t expect it to  move  me the way it did. Blaine is known for  performing   some   wild  stunts— frozen  in ice blocks,  buried alive—but this talk was  not that . It wasn ' t  a   boast . It was about what it really takes to do something that seems impossible.  17 minutes of  holding your breath ?  Sounds  divine . But Blaine  deconstructs  it :  months of training,  reading , and  enduring   failure. He talks openly  of  the pain,  terror , and  obsession that drove him. He didn ' t  employ   gimmicks . He learned  to  control   slowing down  his heart rate,  oxygenating  his body, and most importantly— staying  calm in a situation  when  most  oth...