This English class has helped me immensely in my writing. Before the class I had seen the writing I did for myself and the writing I did in school as two completely different things. I was diagnosed with dyslexia early on in my life. It wasn’t a surprise to my family, dyslexia like other learning disabilities has a genetic component. I had great tutors starting very young. They did their best to help me overcome all the challenges that came with being dyslexic. Despite all their efforts I resented English. Not stories or the language but the class. The act of engage with English as anything other than the medium of stories became anathema to me. I saw English as unreliable. Asking for evidence and quotes to prove points, claiming that all interpolations are equally valid, then the next claiming that the one being taught is better, more established than the rest.  

Within the first paper about literary narrative I really felt myself improving in two ways. The first was in composing as a process. I knew the story I wanted to tell and felt inspired to dig deeper into it. I drew out emotions and expanded thought processes to better help the reader understand what was going on. It only really clicked, however once I changed the perspective from third to second person. This shift really allowed me to improve in the first and fifth learning objectives. By focusing on “adapting” my writing to a new “audience” I felt that I was able to “Experience writing as a creative way of thinking”. Moments that I went over in half a sentence were expanded. The shift from the first time I wrote it to the last was night and day. This was compounded after receiving feedback from my peers. They really allowed me to tighten up my work.  

I had some experience with creative writing in the past, enjoying it on a deeper level with the increased insight that English gave me wasn’t too much of a surprise. The amount of joy I felt when writing the research paper really surprised me. I never thought I would enjoy collecting evidence and writing summaries. I’d writing many English papers in my life, and I feared this one would be like all the rest. Noelle’s description of the paper changed my mind. She emphasized that I was to use all these different sources to support my own view instead of just restating or emphasizing one part of the source. What I wrote shouldn’t be something that could just be gleamed from watch or reading the sources directly, after all if it could be gleamed without my writing then why should they read it instead of just the sources themselves. This new goal for the paper really helped me grasp the second, third, and fourth course goals. Ironically my progress was made in reverse order. Starting with the fourth. By focusing on multiple sources, I didn’t need to find one source that proved everything I wanted to say. I was able to “synthesizing the arguments of others”, by taking each piece of my argument and split it up, finding the perfect quote for each piece. This flowed into the third goal. With the burden on each source reduced I no longer needed to find a half dozen quotes from one source. Instead, I was able to focus on only one or two. This really allowed me to “analyze texts critically”. Searching through each source to find the perfect quote, not just something that kinda matched what I was looking for. With higher quality quotes it was much easier to find “awareness of how intersectional identity, social conventions, and rhetorical situations shape writing”. In my first and second essay I struggled to relate my writing to a larger context. It felt like an afterthought that never fully connected to my points. With a better thesis and stronger quotes attaching it to the larger context was much easier.  

In conclusion, I felt myself grow not only as a writer but as a reader as well.  

 

 

Living In an increasingly digital world community has gone by the wayside. Despite all the claims social media made about bringing us all together. It could not be farther from the truth. Anacdote from how friends people had. With corporate greed digital spaces have wormed closer and closer into our lives. Under the guise of frictionlessness they have taken more and more physical and social activities and turned them digital. This can be seen with ever generation. This lac of community and the change from physical to digital has changed the way people socialized. Eroding peoples social skills and bring a rise so anxiety. More than most I find myself to be a hermit. Living my life with 3 close friends, and spending the majority of my time reading books and spending time in contemplative silence. However, I do not find myself completely isolated. This miricale is due to a singular activivity. Dungeons and Dragons, (DnD). Dungeons and Dragons is a TTRPG, table top role playing game, where 3-8 players come together to create a story and adventure. One player takes on the role of DM, Dungeon Master, they are in charge of setting, ploy, antagonize, and side character. DM’s will often take on the roll of write and actor the portray the world that the game inhabits. While the DM will have to switch between various characters the rest of the players will take on the roles of the protaganists. Creating a character with backstories and goals. Despite playing in the world a make believe DnD, does two things to crub the action. The first are a long list of rules to demonstrate each characters capability, for example how quick each character cane more, whether or not they can fly or turn invisible. The last thing the game does is introduce chance. This last twist is what maeks Dungeons and Dragons truly unique. By adding in chance stories can be turned on their head and long shots made realities. While not many people actually play the game, it has been on the corner of the culture zitguist for as long as it has been around. In the 80’s* it was the focus of the ssatanic panic. Hearing of the basic description, fighting demons and slaying draongs to pull gold from the ground and enrich themselves, members of the extremeist right turned their headlights towards this harmless hobby. To create outrage they claimed this hobby would bring people to the darkness, ,that it would encourage people to pray to the devil and lurn them from the light fo there god. This is how quitea few people first heard of the hobby. However, DnD did not languish in negative association forever. In the last decade the game has had a huge resurgence. Many people were reintroduced to Dungeon’s and Dragons in the show Stranger Things. It has also been watched on websites like Twitch and Youtube, where amatures and professionals post videos of them playing the game online for views enjoyment. There is even an animated show on Amazon Prime called Critical Role that follows the tale of an actual game of Dungeons and Dragons. All these shows have brought DnD into the limelight, bring more and more people to the hobby. In this paper I will demonstrate how the game of Dungeons and Dragons is not only a fun game but also a great way to rebuild community and social skills. 

In Social Media Addiction and Poor Mental Health: Examining the Mediating Roles of Internet Addiction and Phubbing, Naif Ergün, Zafer Ozkan, and Mark D. Griffiths, professors of psychology and gaming examine the relationship between social media and poor mental health. This study was published in 2025. The research paper was written to explore the relationship between social media addiction, internet addiction, phubbing and various mental health issues: depression, anxiety and stress. Proven through a data centered viewpoint the professors conducted a study of 603 young adults to prove causation between these issues.   

It wasn’t to long ago that smart phones were new. The first real smart phone, the iphone, was only released a little over a decade ago, 2007. Yet the modern world feels impossible without them. What was once a luxury item only for the few has turned into a commonality. “The use of social media (SM), the internet, and smartphones have markedly increased in the past decade” (Ergün p 2). The use of the internet and the immediate access to it that smart phones allow have complete revolutionized the world that we will in. It is no wonder that they have become more and more common. However, this increased use and commonality has not come freely, it has an insidious cost. 

Smart phones have completely changed the way that we interact with each other and our sense of community. As we use smart phones more we come up with new ways to use them. Most often this is in the form of new apps but it also comes in the form of new behaviors. One such behavior is phubbing. “Phubbing is a relatively new phenomenon that researchers have been investigating since 2013.” (Ergün p 4). A combination of “phone” and “snubbing”. Phubbing is the act of looking at your phone instead of the people around you. This can often be seen at resonant or other social situations where people are looking at their phones instead of communicating with their group.  

The inclusion of social media and the digital creep that permeates are lives leaves us worse in its passing. Spending time on social media harms us, makes us feel worse about ourselves and destroys the communities we have. In their study Ergün found “that social media addiction was associated with poor mental health through two variables. Internet addiction and phubbing fully explained the association between social media addiction and stress” (Ergün p 13). Community is a natural state for us. The fantasy that digital community and connection can replace something real is just that a fantasy. Yet, everything digital is just so much more convent that we hold on to it, even if we know it hurts us. The solutions to this problem isn’t going to come from some new app or a new device. It going to be something physical, something like Dungeons and Dragons.  

In the video Escaping Prison with Dungeons & Dragons by Vice. Journalists follows the journey of two prisoners playing Dungeons and Dragons in and out of jail. Vice, a magazine focusing on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news stories, published this video in 2018. The video pushes the viewers to reimaging the role that games can play in our lives. Focusing on the story of two recently released convicts who tell their story of how games, including dungeons and dragons, helped them through their time incarcerated. Highlighting the differences in how people play inside and outside of jail to demonstrate what games offer doesn’t change drastically no matter one’s circumstance.  Joe Lasley, Department of Leadership and Organizational Studies, University of Southern, Maine Antonio Ruiz-Ezquerro, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University, and Amanda Giampetro, Department of Leadership and Organizational Studies, University of Southern Maine, wrote the paper Dungeons & Dragons: Unveiling the Narrative Power of a Popular Culture Phenomenon From Satanic Panic to Leadership Renaissance. Originally published in 2025 the paper focuses on the inherent ability Dungeons and Dragons has to teach its players, social and leadership skills. Published in the journal New Directions for Student Leadership, this paper takes an educational tone, breaking down every part of the game and how it shapes the enviroment and players into better situations for and into better leaders. 

Dungeons and Dragons is a game that connects people. Building bonds through communal story telling and shared experience. It can connect us when we are feeling alone. Allow us to face the things that we aren’t ready to face in our reality. It can provide just the right amount of distance. A Goldie locks zone, still close enough to feel the connect yet far enough that people aren’t stop by fear of vulnerability. “The game acts as a container for emotions, using the narrative to help players make sense of and manage their feelings. Dis-placement (transferring emotions onto characters or situations within the game) and immersion (deep engagement with the game setting) are techniques used to help players navigate and process these emotions.” (Lasley  p 3).  Dungeons and Dragons can put you into situations that you aren’t ready for in reality. Allows you to embody characters and try on different aspects, like different genders. Putting you in experiences outside your comfort zone to allow you to grow as a person. This vulnerability has fantastic benifits not only for your personal development but socially as well. Yet the vener of fantasy allows people to jump in without fear, even in places much more dangerous than a schoolyard. “When you’re gaming you’re definitely looking for a way to express yourself you know and you’re looking for a way to succeed” (Vice 9:23 – 9:42). Dungeons and dragons can be played by anyone anywhere. The only requirement is having the people willing to play. It is the perfect vehicle to help teens suffering from anxiety and depression. The theme of Dungeons and Dragons allows people to connect to the fantasy. With the modern infatuation with superheroes its easier than ever to convince someone to embody one for a few hours. Yet the whole time they believe they are just playing a game their social skills and sense of community are growing.  

Once people start playing Dungeons and Dragons it’s almost impossible not to develop socially. At its least introspective a game of Dungeons and Dragons still takes roughly 4 hours. Spending that much time with people builds community and social skills whether you want to or not and that’s just the beginning of what you can do. If you have the intention, the sky is the limit for your development. “It is the way that role-playing in D&D mimics the process of personal development in day-to-day life that lends itself to leadership development. More importantly, the act of role-playing in and of itself is a therapeutic tool for human development, and the relatedness of role-playing with a group can function as a developmental environment” (Lasley  p 2). Its a perfect environment to try on different acts, to put yourself into the shoes of others and inhabit them. To feel what it would be like to be another version of yourself, would you be happier? To gain a piece of insight by experiencing the world through someone else’s background and goals. It can expand your empathy in ways you can’t Imagin. “Bringing people together is what DnD is about it’s about culture it’s about camaraderie it’s about banding together to get the goal accomplished it’s not how you play the game it’s why you play the game” (Vice 0:19 – 0:37). This is the real meat of the issue. The world can feel so lonely. That connecting with others feels almost unique. To make something that is not solely yours but owned collectively. Dungeons and Dragons is unlike everything else, and all of its strengths are the very things people are missing.  

In conclusion, everyday the world seems to be a darker place. This effect is exacerbated in the youth, who sometimes affectionately call themselves doomers. One of the countless variables that has lead to this is social media. It been proven time and time again how dangerous it is. Yet the strangle hold it has on all of us is still ever-present. My hope is that I have shown you that Dungeons and Dragons could be a helpful tool to help mend the main wounds we have. From the mental illnesses on the rise, to the loss of community we all feel.   

Reference Page 

[1] Ergün N, et al. “Social Media Addiction and Poor Mental Health: Examining the Mediating Roles of Internet Addiction and Phubbing.” Psychological Reports, vol. 128, no. 2, Apr. 2025, pp. 723–43. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941231166609. 

[2] VICE. (2018, January 17). Escaping Prison with Dungeons & Dragons. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kDseTCNGyA 

[3] Lasley, J., Ruiz-Ezquerro, A. and Giampetro, A. (2025), Dungeons & Dragons: Unveiling the Narrative Power of a Popular Culture Phenomenon From Satanic Panic to Leadership Renaissance. New Dir Stud Lead., 2025: 53-60. https://doi-org.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/10.1002/yd.20657 

Linguists have been attempting to quantify language since their conception. The how’s and why’s of it. Philosophers have their own take, separating all languages into two types: Natural and Formal. Formal languages are those that we made with purpose, for example math. We’ve made up the symbols and the grammar from scratch in order to describe the world around us. Formal languages are exact, whereas natural languages are much more context based. Natual languages describe what we speak every day. They are living and breathing things, constantly changing to better facilitate communication between people. A good example of this would be the word bald. Its meaning is clear, yet the limitations of natural language can easily be seen. If you asked 100 people is Larry David bald you? You would get a wide variety of answers. If you were to try and take the word bald and formalize it you would immediately start to find yourself in trouble. What percentage of hair should be missing before you call someone bald? Does the placement of the hair that remains matter? And 100 other questions would arise. This difference between natural and formal languages has a profound impact on how we think. I’ve always found formal languages easier than natural ones. For one I just have a math brain. For the other I am dyslexic, meaning natural languages have always stumped me one way or another. I was even given an exemption from leaning any other natural language as part of my high school education. While I did enjoy getting an extra free period instead of Spanish. Hearing that apparently my brain physiology caused me such a problem with Spanish I couldn’t be expected to perform in the class was disheartening. In a spoken word poem, “My Spanish” Melissa Lozada-Oliva uses personal anecdotes and metaphors to demonstrate that the struggles of natural languages are further exacerbated when looking at people’s ancestral language and how it shatters against the expectations they place on it. 

Melissa Lozada-Oliva is a Poet. Her spoken word poem “My Spanish” was first released in 2015, at the Women of the World Poetry Slam, but has since been rereleased several times since. Melissa spends her time writing novels and teaching at the Center for Fiction and the Red Hook Public Library. She received her degree at Simmons University. Her work has been published in NPR, VOGUE, REMEZCLA, PAPER, The Guardian, BreakBeat Poets, Kenyon Review, Vulture, Bustle, Glamour Magazine, The Huffington Post, Muzzle Magazine, The Adroit Journal, and BBC Mundo. “My Spanish” is a poem made to describe the struggle at the heart of being the child of Immigrants. It seeks to describe the pain and weight Spanish has taken on as a plant disconnected from its native soil. Preformed in front of an audience of woman this piece aims to speak a story often left untold. She communicates all of this using metaphor, personification, and an emotional tone.  

People spend their lives trying to categorize language. Trying to nail down its ephemeral nature. To claim what each word comes from, what each word means, what order they should go in. Yet it is often the case that people are just trying to justify the language that they know. For example, how the use of literally now means both literally and figuratively. Something that angered many and galvanized others. A natural language is nothing so easy to pin down as a dictionary. Snap shots of it can only be right at a specific time at a specific place. “My Spanish is my Spanish is my third birthday party half of it is memory the other half is that photograph on the fridge is what my family has told me” (0:15 – 0:23). Melissa demonstrates this with an apt metaphor. Describing the disconnect to the Spanish her family has and the Spanish that can be shown and described by others. Further defined not just by herself or the evidence that she has but her own language is defined not by fact but by her family.  

 It is no surprise that mastery over a skill as illusive and important as language is desired. Spanish language precedency is a skill most aspire to. In many standard educational systems in America, proficiency with a second language, most often Spanish, is required to graduate. That high aspiration is reduced to only one thing. “Spanish is on my resume as a skill” (0:47 – 0:50). A single line on a resume meant to get past a gate for employment. A skill so great that it allows you to communicate with 600 million people reduced to the same thing as profient in excel. The connection to your culture, something that has both connected you to one community while alienating you to another, reduced to a single line.  

Natural languages are removed from formal ones for the specific reason that they cannot be contained and cannot be regulated. The same word can mean many things to many different people. The goal of a language and the goal of its users are the same, to find words that allow people to communicate vastly complex ideas with simple sounds. “My Spanish reaches for words at the top of a Shelf with no stepping stool” (0:55 – 0:57). It is not uncommon for people to search for words. Melissa uses the metaphor of reaching for something just beyond your grasp. A feeling similar to knowing the word on the tip of your tongue but not quite knowing it. Adding to this metaphor she adds the lack of stepping stool to the scene. This addition reflex the lack of a proper tool for her to stand on. Demonstrating the disconnection between herself and the language she loves. Without the natural connection a native would have to their language the strength people want to have with a second language will always fall short.  

Languages change with time. It is this single aspect that defines natural languages against others. To keep up with the ever-changing tide of a language is a task with no end. The young create new words or change the meaning of old ones. Techology assigns new means to words. As time changes the frequence of each word changes as the necessity of communication changes. All these factures into what’s known as linguistic drift. “my Spanish wonders if it has an expiration date” (1:06 – 1:09), Melissa demonstrates the fear of linguistic drift within her poem. It’s something that everybody comes to terms with at one point in their lives. That the language they use in one situation isn’t the right one to use in another. However, this fear of linguistic drift is doubled for people who are separated from the home of their language. With every day the language that is used by those back home changes from the snapshot that you had the day you left. Even the snapshot will degrade as you slip in words from other languages or the words you use in your new home differ from the ones you used before.  

In conclusion, natural languages rule our lives. They grow and change, shifting to suit the needs of the present. Yet keeping up with your own native language can be hard enough. Even when you study for years people rarely ever reach the causal mastery of native speakers. This effect is compounded by those who grew up speaking one language in the world and another at home. As it is often for the children of immigrants, they grow up speaking to languages, in the case of Melissa, Spanish, the language of her parents, and English, the language of America. We spoke about linguist drift, which would slowly change the language you speak from the language that your parents do and how both would slowly losses connection to its ancestral language.  

You feel the excitement overwhelming your body, a need for release, something to ground you. You clench your toes into the soft carpet of your elementary homeroom. Refocusing yourself back on the page. The knight moves closer to the castle. You know he’ll kill the dragon and save the princess you just know it. Flipping to the next page, you continue to read of his struggles of how hot the fire is, how the knight’s swords just won’t quite cut through the “scales” whatever that is you guess that it’s the hard outer part of dragons as they are notoriously hard to cut. As the story is about to reach its zenith, you are interrupted. 

“Hey Duncan.” 

Prying your eyes away from the book, you turn towards your friend. He has a huge smile on his face, a pep in his step, and a book in his hands. 

“You should read this one once you’re done with your book. It’s really really really great.” 

You don’t know how it could be better than your current book, but the more, the merrier. With a hint of anxiety, you ask the question that really matters. 

“Is it fantasy?” 

“Yah” 

Oh, fantastic. You’d never really gotten the hang of nonfiction books. Your teacher and parents tell you they have important things to say, but they’re just not as cool. 

“But, umm, it’s reading level z.” 

“Oh” 

All that excitement that was flooding your body twists ugly. Turing into a storm of anxiety. All the haste with which you were turning the pages of the book switches to trepidation as you flip to the front of the book. There at the top right of the little booklet the letter B stands. It feels almost accusatory. The second letter of the alphabet. The second lowest reading level you can have in the class. You sneak a quick peek at the shelf holding all the books. Almost all the books in Z are gone and a few in Y. 

“Thanks, I’ll read it soon.” 

You’d worked so hard. All those times you were taken out of English class to take a “Special” class. All those afternoons you spent with the tutor instead of out wish your friends. Yet here you are still at the second lowest, the second worst. Whatever excitement for the story, no the frustration in your hand crumbled. You didn’t need to know what the knight did, whether the dragon died, or the princess was saved. After all, you’d probably just mess up which words were which and end up confused. 

Meekly standing up, you put the book back into its slot on the shelf, pushing it a bit harder than you strictly needed to. Seeking some escape from the shame and sadness assaulting your mind, you look around the classroom. Your eyes catch a worksheet sitting half out of your bag, a piece of math homework you hadn’t done yet. 

Its presence brings a spark of confidence into the maelstrom of shame you put yourself in. Working on it brings a smile to your face. Your memories of math are the opposite of your memories of English. Instead of encouragement, it’s confidence; instead of pity, there’s pride. 

That spark grew into a small fire, just enough to keep you warm for the rest of the day. 

As you get ready for bed that night, your father enters the room. 

“Read for your bedtime story.” 

Curling up under your blankets, you scruch over to give him room. 

“Right then, last we left off, Frodo had just escaped the nasgool with Arvwin …” 

The fire of confidence in your mind vanished, but that was okay because all the shame and sadness of the day vanished with it. In your mind, there is nothing but the story. 

My journey with reading and writing has been tumultuous. I was born dyslexic, and it held me back in so many ways. My childhood was full of extra lessons, extra attention, and extra tutors, culminating in me going to a school for children with learning disabilities—all to get me to a reading level that everybody else was born with. 

This left me with many insecurities about reading and writing, which I didn’t really recover from for a long time. I’ve always loved stories but was unwilling to reach them through the medium of English. This aversion to English pushed me into my love of video games and television. 

It was only in college that I started to discover my love for reading. My first experience at college was a dark time. Full of thoughts similar to those of when I was a child. I was struggling in class and hiding in my dorm rooms, searching for anything to shield me from negativity. I found solace in stories. In escapism. When I ran out of video games, I turned to movies. When I ran out of film, I ran towards the television. When I ran out of books, I finally returned to books. I read through all the fantasy books I could before finding my home. Web novels. They’re not the most polished or the most unique. But there are a lot of them. 

I’m not the only one to feel stupid in school. It’s a universal experience. The first time you realize the world isn’t yours to grab. The first time you understand that you might not be smart enough, charming enough, or athletic enough to get what you want. Then we do the same thing we all do when we get hurt: build up walls. For me, it was to run away from anything related to English, which stopped me from finding my greatest refuge for over a decade. I’ve seen this countless times, with people saying they’re just not math people or that they should just sit on the sidelines in the gym. I can’t help but wonder how many people have been kept away from what they could grow to love because of the walls we put up as children. We put up walls because our education system is more interested in pushing people through an assembly line than nurturing the future. 

Escaping through stories has been a core part of my life for as long as I can remember. Despite this, reading has most certainly not been. Throughout my entire childhood and into my 20s, I resented having to read. Now, though, I can’t think of a more joyous thing. I love reading with all my heart and can’t wait to learn more about it. 

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