Multimodal Language and Literacy Narrative Cover letter

Writing about myself has always been a difficult conundrum for me to do. I don’t know where to start, I don’t know what to talk about and especially I don’t know if what I will talk about will be interesting for the reader. Piece by piece as we worked towards the major assignments, the minor ones helped me to decide on what to write. I was inspired by Safwat Saleem and his overcoming of shyness. Reading my classmate’s works helped clear a path to a topic. Finally, in-class teachings about audience and purpose helped shape my paper as I was reviewing it.  

As I started writing my paper I was reminded of the video by Safwat Saleem and how he overcame being shy due to being an immigrant and having an accent. I too had an accent and had to struggle to be as social as I am now. I too had my story and wanted to share in my way how I  transitioned from shy to social. To do so, I reached out to an old friend that has known me since high school where I remember my change started. After a few minutes of catching up, he started to tell me his point of view of how he noticed that I had become social. To him, I was never really a  shy person since we bonded so fast and always had things to speak about. Anime, comic books,  movies, or even just life he and I were comfortable talking about anything. He mentioned that he truly noticed the change when we went to an after-school event and though he knew me to stay seated and chat with him by the time he had arrived I was talking to different groups of people quite comfortably. 

Throughout the writing process of this paper we, as a class, went through other works and also our own as peer review and I started to see similarities in all of us. Challenged or not we all have a story to tell on how language and literature have affected us. I also learned that there are 

different forms of languages, not just the spoken word but also actions. As I read the works of other students I noticed not all of them spoke about books they read or struggling with a language but rather actions people took around them. This taught me to try to open up my mind to different aspects of the questions posed to me and how complex the question can truly be. 

We have learned different terms in class such as rhetoric, rhetorical situation, context,  exigence however as I wrote I tried to remember about purpose and audience. Keeping in mind the purpose and audience of the paper I was able to focus and go more in-depth on what I was writing about. I didn’t simply graze the topic of dnd I explained and explored my past journey in the game through writing. Doing so I believe helps the reader understand my argument better. 

“Engage in the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes” is the first thing to come to mind when talking about course learning outcomes. I never enjoyed peer reviews because  I could never give a proper diagnosis of a classmate’s work however this time was different. Since the topic was simple and relatable I was able to give pointers to better people’s paper and when it came time for them to tell me how to make mine better I was able to understand and quickly adapt their advice to my writing. Usually, I simply write and review on my own but I guess it takes a  class to write a good paper.

The tale from shy to social

A few years ago, I was rather shy and I wasn’t talkative to the point where people believed I was antisocial. In truth, I just was not sure what to talk to people about and found it difficult to maintain a conversation. If you find yourself not being a conversationalist due to shyness or having a lack of topics to talk about. I recommend trying to play Dungeons & Dragons, D&D for short. Though it seems unconventional, playing D&D with my friends allowed me to express myself in creative ways and gave me the confidence to be the person I am now. D&D is a tabletop role-playing game where people use their imagination to play in a typical fantasy setting and go on adventures all the while using dice to dictate whether they succeed or fail in the action their characters perform. The game’s main narrative is told and led by a dungeon master, DM for short, and can be played with any number of people for however long the campaign may be.

I was apprehensive at first since the idea of creating a world and a story using only words and no real preparation seemed like a task too hard for me at the time. Luckily for me, I wasn’t the only one being introduced to the game, at a table of five only one of us had experience playing the game. We began by creating our characters, which took us an unbelievably long amount of time. With the uncreative name of “Gir Ody,” I planned to avoid reading the spell section of the guidebook that my party members were reading and rereading as they were increasingly more and more confused. Casting modifiers, spell DC and a few other terms could be seen in the spell section and I had no idea what any of that meant. By the end of the first day, I had decided to be a half-orc barbarian that wielded a greataxe, my role was simple: attack and keep attacking until the enemy was defeated.

Character sheets were handed to us to keep a record of our stats, health, and any general information on our characters. Thus, my adventures in the land of Sword Coast had started. We would gather and play every week and soon I had realized that I started to break out of my shell while playing. The party found themselves in a tavern all having received a letter of invitation to do a job with a hefty reward. The client was framed for murder and had hired us to solve the crime, this is where the role-playing difficulty rose for me. Now that the stage was set it was the players’ job to go around town and ask questions. Getting into character and finding good questions to ask proved itself to be a  challenge and I found myself remaining silent or going along with the ideas of the other players.  Over time I began to be more assertive and take charge during the game, suggesting different ideas or asking questions to advance the plot, leading me to have better communication skills not only in the game but also in real life.

A year into playing the DM that had been working hard with their story wanted to take a break and be a player character for once since they never had the chance to do so. Having a good grasp of the game and having gained the courage I volunteered to take over as DM with my world. Starting from keeping quiet to making suggestions I was now able to make my narrative and be the primary voice at the table. Not only did I have more knowledge in the game but so did all the party members, so starting over with a new campaign wasn’t as hard as the first time. The guidebook offers modules, premade adventures, for DMs as a guide or help when making new campaigns but I decided to start from scratch and create my world. Waking up in a laboratory tube this new party found themselves in a lab with a woman wearing a lab coat calling the party by numbers rather than their names. They had been reborn to do the bidding of a scientist’s plot for revenge and thus started my story named Dragon’s Wrath.

Playing D&D changed my life for the better, I was always the silent kid that kept to himself but now I have grown to be more talkative and outgoing. Although the game is depicted to be played by nerds and socially awkward people, I was able to find a new community of people. Personally, when I play games it is a way for me to escape reality, however, with D&D I was able to escape with people. Though I have not personally tried it one of my friends decided to go to a game store and play with strangers. Much like any other activity, there is a following and community of people that love playing the game and welcome new players with open arms. More and more communities are formed every day, many years ago anime and comic books were thought to be viewed by nerds. Now with Marvel movies and the demon slayer anime becoming popular the social bubble of these groups has burst into the public as more and more fans are made. I advise you to go out there and try out many activities, being able to express yourself in different, spontaneous, and creative ways are all skills that you may learn while playing and can be used in your everyday life. There are many ways to develop social skills and I am glad I found it while playing a game with friends.