...In "The Achievement of Desire," an autobiographical essay, Richard Rodriguez reflects on his life as a young boy as he suffered to balance life in the academic world and the life of a working class family. Through out his essay, he identifies as a “scholarship boy”, someone who pushes his family and friends away all for the sake of “knowledge”, a definition he found in a book he came across called The Uses of Literacy by Richard Hoggart. Rodriguez explains that in order for him to achieve success, it was necessary to disconnect himself from the life he knew before education. Even though leaving home and branching out towards new ways of thinking are considered key elements in education, it does not necessarily mean that we have to alienate ourselves in the process to become successful. Rodriguez is present in three different forms in his essay, the child, the graduate student who first comes across The Uses of Literacy, and the adult who has “completed his path” in education. The first section in his essay focuses on his life and the difficulties he faced growing up in a bilingual environment. We notice how he associates academic success with alienation from a very young age; as he mentions in his essay “He takes his first step toward academic success, away from his family” (Rodriguez, pg. 4). Rodriguez also focuses on his parents a lot and elaborates how they helped shape the person he is today, and not strictly in a positive way. In the begging of his essay, Rodriguez mentions...
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...Literacy Narrative Introduction In the essay “Achievement of Desire” Rodriguez is known as “the scholarship boy.” He was the top of his class, because he was always reading books rather than spending time with his family and friends. He would isolate himself from them, as he thought education was the most important thing in his life and in order to gain that education, reading and doing well in school came first. Although when he was younger he did not like reading, “reading was, at best, only a chore”, he later realized “books are going to make me educated” (347-348). At home education was not the greatest, his parents had little education and he was so embarrassed of it. In the third grade he would come home from school and he would ask his parents for help but they would not understand. He stated “I was oddly annoyed when I was unable to get parental help with a homework assignment” (339). At some point everyone needs to get help at home with homework and if you aren’t able to like, Rodriguez, it would be very frustrating. The major problem that Rodriguez had was he wanted to advance himself so much that he separated himself from his home life, which caused him to lose sight of himself. When he was still living at home and going to school he would hardly have real conversations with his parents. His head was always in a book reading, to find ways to better his knowledge. After leaving home and attending college for a few months, he came back home and noticed that he and...
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...The Achievement of Desire RICHARD RODRIGUEZ Hunger of Memory, the autobiography of Richard Rodriguez and the source of the following selection, set off a storm of controversy in the Chicano community when it appeared in 1981. Some hailed it as an uncompromising portrayal of the difficulties of growing up between two cultures; others condemned it because it seemed to blame Mexican Americans for the difficulties they encountered assimilating into mainstream American society. Rodriguez was born in 1944 into an immigrant family outside San Francisco. Though he was unable to speak English when he entered school, his educational career can only be described as brilliant: undergraduate work at Stanford University, graduate study at Berkeley and Columbia, a Fulbright fellowship to study English literature in London, a subsequent grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. In this selection, Rodriguez analyzes the motives that led him to abandon his study of Renaissance literature and return to live with his parents. He is currently an associate editor with the Pacific News Service in San Francisco, an essayist for the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, and a contributing editor for Harper's magazine and for the Opinion section of the Los Angeles Times. His other books include Mexico's Children (1991) and Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father (1993), which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction. I stand in the ghetto classroom - "the guest speaker"...
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...Birkit Hailu English 116 Fall 2014 Graham Bowman 09/04/2004 “Learning to Read and Write” In “Learning to Read and Write” Frederick Douglass talked about how he started to read as a young salve boy when he lived at Master Hugh’s family with the help of his mistress. His mistress stopped teaching him to command her husband’s direction. Frederick Douglass didn’t stop there; he has to find a way to get his freedom by using his smart idea on his neighbor’s white children. After he learned how to read he taught himself how to write by going to lumber yard and copies the letters on by one, and using the same method from the white children, and his master’s son. Frederick Douglass felt safe and welcomed at the Master Hugh’s family. When his mistress started to teach him, which probably made him feel equal, for whatever reason she turns her back on him. I am assuming her husband’s feared for his life, and family, because teaching a slave wasn’t allowed at that time. From what I understood the young slave boy never felt slave physically at first, because his mistress was very king. When she changed and become against him he was devastated, and felt mentally slave “She at first lacked the depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness.”Pp.1 it is very sad what it did to him. It looks like the anger pushed him forward to do better; even though he had closely watched never gave up to read. I am impressed how he found a smart way from the neighborhood white...
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...In “The Achievement of Desire,” author Richard Rodriguez warns that “he has used education to remake himself”, but in doing so isolated himself from his past, and those he cared about. Rodriguez wrote this essay in the context of how we teach (are we just memorizing without understanding ), and that with age he’s able to see the importance and pitfalls of education. He wants to warn his audience those much like his younger self first and second generation immigrants, but also those well educated or in college who are still making the same mistakes he once did. Rodriguez’s purpose is to persuade the audience that education is not a ladder to forever climb, that education is not just memorizing facts, but about bettering ourselves and learning to think critically, or we may end up like a “scholarship boy”...
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...might not only be the need for recognition and accomplishment, but also for the need of a higher salary. If opportunity for advancement is a desire for a high salary, doesn’t it imply that money is a motivator? Further questioning and studies in that area could be interesting. So, is the desire for advancement a motivator or a hygiene factor? Hertzberg would mark it into hygiene, however opportunity for advancement may also translate into a desire for a bigger salary. To put it into layman's term: “It’s okay if my salary is small now, because if I advance on the social ladder, it will get bigger!” So even though employees are ready to sacrifice their desire for money at the present time, it doesn’t mean they do not aspire for it. Herzberg’s studies are valid, but other opinions must be taken into consideration. The most recurrent factor in our answers is the opportunity for advancement. Regardless of the interviewee’s field of work, this category was present. We can safely say that it is strong motivator. Since only two people did not mention money as one of the primary factors in choosing one’s job, we began to think that there was a possibility that the opportunity for advancement might not only be the need for recognition and accomplishment, but also for the need of a higher salary. If opportunity for advancement is a desire for a high salary,...
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...Achievement Motivation Kathryn Harwick Saint Leo University Psych of Motivation and Emotion PSY-432-DL01 Professor Litman July 20, 2015 Abstract Those who have high levels of achievement motivation desire success and will do anything to achieve the overpowering sensation of external rewards. Research has been completed throughout the years in order to determine what causes human motivation and what effects it can have on the human body. Throughout these studies, confirmation has indicated that challenging tasks and activities increase effort and provide individuals the encouragement to excel and develop. David McClelland’s achievement motivation theory has proven that this form of motivation is indeed key to determining the influence on academic performance, as well as being an important psychological indicator for one’s success and failure in life. Achievement Motivation How each of us develop the will and desire to succeed in certain tasks and activities, or how we concern ourselves with the possibility of failure are both issues surrounding practical and theoretical significance. Motivation is generally defined as the driving force behind all of our actions. It refers to the dynamics of our behavior, while influencing our needs and desires. There are different types of motivation that range from intrinsic, extrinsic, psychological, and achievement motivation. Achievement motivation is one’s need to succeed while attaining their ambitions and aspirations...
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...Defining Success Success is many things to many people. Worldbook defines success as a favorable result or wished for ending through the achievement of goals. That is, if one attains a desired goal through achievement, he would be considered a success. However, a successful character, cannot be produced from one successful feat. The true indicator of success is not what is accomplished, but what is felt. In order to be successful, one must be happy. For example, if a person looks back on his career and feels satisfied and happy with his status, he would be considered a success. However, if he looks back and realizes he could've attained much more and feels disappointed, he would not be successful. Success is directly proportionate to happiness. Without it, there cannot be success. Success can also be reached by achievement of goals. In order to accomplish a goal, one must accomplish smaller goals that lead up to the main achievement. For instance, if a football team achieved its aim to win their district and the state championship, they would be successful. On the other hand, if the team set out to have a winning record, and failed, the season would not be considered successful. Success, no matter how big or small the goals are, can only be grasped through the attaining of those goals. Success must also be sought after. For anyone to have success, they must fight and strive for it. If a secretary of a large corporation worked her way up the ladder through hard work...
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...2012 Motivational Similarities and Differences 1. Motivational Similarities and Differences Human behavior is something that has become the focus of research all over the world. Everyone who is anyone wants to know what causes us as human beings “to do what we do, and to act the way we act.” Some say that “motivation is also a desire operating on the will and causing it to act.” (Merriam-Webster Dictionary, 2010, p.810). It is also considered to be “the primary driver of our behavior.” In times past “motivated behavior has also been studied as a rational attempt to achieve a specific articulated (or accessible) end or purpose, rather than as an attempt to fulfill an underlying emotionally-charged desire.” (Thrash & Elliot, 2001). “Most researchers believe that motivational theories explain the three interrelated aspects of human behavior which is the choice of a particular action, persistence with it and the effort expended on it, leaving it up to motivational psychologists to attest to these findings.” And to us motivation explains the why of our actions, and addresses the innermost parts of us which are our desires, or those buttons that are sometimes pushed that gives us that driving force to tackle things head on or maybe even act out of character. Our motivations say to us that we can make it especially when others tell us that we won’t, which makes us try even harder. They either can cause us to act positively or negatively by believing we are much better...
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...thnkTHINK & GROW RICH The Way To Personal Achievement NAPOLEON HILL Main Theme All achievement, including every fortune ever built, have their beginning in an idea. The wealth comes from turning the idea from something we can see in our minds eye alone into something that serves other people, and for which they are willing to pay. This is done through auto-suggestion, organized planning, master-mind association and an inner harmony between the thoughts of your mind and the actions and achievements of your life. You literally become and achieve what you think about all day long. To control your life, control your thoughts. 1. Thoughts Are Things Whatever the mind can conceive and believe man is capable of bringing into reality. 9. Decision Successful people have the habit of reaching decisions quickly and changing them slowly if ever. Successful people have conquered procrastination. 2. Desire There are no limitations except those we set ourselves. Both poverty and riches are the direct results of our thoughts. 10. Organized Planning Everything created begins in the form of desires which are taken into the workshop of the imagination for proper organization and planning. 3. Faith Ideas are being transformed into huge fortunes all around us. Using the medium of faith, you can join that group of people with great achievements. 11. Power Of The Master Mind You automatically take on the habits and power of the people you associate with. Control this by forming...
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...McClelland (1917-98) proposed that every individual have specific needs that can be classed into need for achievement (nAch), need for affiliation (nAff), and need for power (nPow). Regardless of gender, culture or age, human beings have three motivating drivers that will affect their behavior. People with a high need for achievement seek to excel, to accomplish in relation to a set of standards, to struggle to achieve success. High nAch individuals prefer work that has a moderate probability of success, ideally a 50% chance. There is a strong need for feedback as to monitor the progress of their achievements. They prefer either to work alone or with other high achievers. High achievers are not interested in rewards or money unless these rewards reflect a measurement of their success. Their desire is to do a task better than it has been done before. The individuals with high achievement needs are highly motivated by competing and challenging work. They also look for promotional opportunities in job. Second, the individuals who are motivated by affiliation have an urge for a friendly and supportive environment. They prefer to spend time creating and maintaining social relationships, enjoy being a part of groups, and have a desire to feel loved and accepted. Individuals with high nAff strive for friendships, prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones, and desire relationships involving a high degree of mutual understanding. Individuals having high affiliation needs...
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...Accomplishing Desires leads to Happiness In this paper I will argue that the desire satisfaction theory is the correct view on what a good life is and it is also a correct approach to measure what makes you happy. According to the desire satisfaction theory, your life goes well for you if you achieve your desires. It also states that something is good for you if it only helps you achieve those desires and nothing else. In order to prove my thesis, I will discuss an important episode in my life that will certainly aid my argument. Next, I will explain why this particular theory is attractive, followed by a possible objection that considers the desire satisfaction theory to be incorrect and counter the objection. To start, about a year ago in my freshman year in college, I was enrolled in English 101. We had a very important essay due soon and it had to be over six pages. I had very little time and did not know what to do. I also wanted to make a good grade to start out strong in the class. However, since it was one of the first essays in the semester, the professor did not require us to use safe assign, which basically checks papers for plagiarism. I really thought about going online a copying someone else’s work. Then of course I knew that eventually the papers would have to be submitted electronically because we had to make a portfolio for the final in that class. Eventually I decided to write the essay myself and put my best effort into it. In the end, I made an A on that...
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...COMPARISON OF CONTENT THEORIES OF MOTIVATION Maslow Self-Actualization – Highest need level. – Involves an individual's desire to realize full potential. – Can be satisfied without this level. ERG Growth – Desire for continued personal growth and development Herzberg Motivation Factors – Improving factors leads to satisfaction, effort, and performance. – Related to job content; what employees actually do. – Factors: (1) achievement (2) recognition (3) work itself (4) responsibility (5) advancement (6) growth McClelland Need for Achievement – a drive to pursue and attain goals – accomplishment is important for its own sake Esteem Self-esteem – Need for personal sense of accomplishment, mastery. Social-esteem – Need for respect, recognition, attention, and appreciation of others Need for Competence – a desire to do quality work – want to develop skills Relatedness – Desire to satisfy interpersonal relationships Need for Power – desire to influence others – desire recognition of others Social – Need for love, affection, sense of belonging in one's relationship – Dealings with friends, family, and colleagues falls in here. Safety and Security Relationships – need for security in relationships Physical – need for security, protection from future threats, and stability. Existence – Desire for physiological and material well-being Physiological – Basic needs: food, water, etc. Hygiene Factors – Improving factors prevents dissatisfaction. – Related...
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...Churchill). I believe this statement by Winston Churchill adequately describes the art to great success and high quality achievements. Personal responsibility is greatly intertwined with college success. The path to college success starts and ends with holding oneself responsible and accountable. Knowing one's strengths and weakness can assist one in navigating down that path of college success, leading to the achievement of the set out goals. It has been about ten years since I have been in college. Although I could look at this long drought as a disadvantage, after much thoughtfulness I have realized that in these last ten years I have gained much personal experience and a plethora of skills and attitudes that will only aid me in achieving the victory I not only desire but demand of myself. Personal responsibility means that I am solely responsible for establishing my own goals, pinpointing my strengths and weaknesses and holding myself accountable to a set standard and process that will ultimately accomplish those goals. Personal responsibility begins with a set of goals. It is vital that a person has vision and clarity within that vision. One should know clearly what they desire for their future and understand the options in achieving their goals. Establishing both short term and long term goals are essential in achieving success in college. According to the desires I have for my future I've established some short and long term goals. Maintaining a 4.0 GPA throughout my education...
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