Abstract

I am thinking that a thesis for this paper would focus on the language barriers that one my face which leads to motivate one to either go back to school or to further their education past the normal requirement. I will be focusing on two litterary pieces, Mike Rose "Crossing Boundaries" and Min Zhan-Lu "From Silence to Words: Writing As Struggle" to help prove my argument. Mike Rose, talks about adults who are returning to school after being out in the society. These adults have realized that life without literacy is hard and that they can acheive much more with a better education. His students are extemely motivated and are willing to come back to school to learn the basics of the American language. Min Zahn-Lu talks about her own struggles with language and how by knowing two languages between two spilt cultures is difficult and confusing. She descirbes being consistently frustrated while trying to decide which language she should be using at what time. Both authors are discussing barriers but Rose is referring to the lack of knowledge towards literacy among adults and Lu is discussing how too much language can be just as confusing.