The POOR EXAMPLE (Weak Model) below technically meets the requirements of the assignment, and it may even be grammatically correct, but it does not provide as much insight about who I am as the second, better example.
BioPage
My name is Michael Nagro. I was born on February 4th, 1967. My dad’s name is also Michael, and my mom’s name is Gail. I have a brother two-and-a-half years younger than me. I grew up mostly in Corrales, New Mexico. I went to Cibola High School. I was in the marching band, the symphonic band, and the jazz band. I played baseball, I was a catcher. (67) I like classical, jazz, rock, and heavy metal. I had a rock band when I got out of high school, and even though we were pretty good, we didn’t make it professionally. I have been a studio musician. And I’m also a certified audio engineer. I can run professional live sound systems, and I’ve worked in recording studios. I also like musicals, and I got to see Spamalot and Wicked in London this last summer. I also like to see plays. My favorite books are fantasy and science-fiction. I worked in restaurants for 16 years before I got tired of it and decided to go to college. (175). My parents got divorced when I was thirteen, and my dad disappeared and didn’t pay any child support until the Child Support Enforcement Bureau found him and started taking his paychecks, but that took a long time, and when I was 16, I started working full-time as a dishwasher and a cook to help my mom pay the bills, and so I could buy a bass guitar and an electronic keyboard (247). The very end. (250).
My BETTER EXAMPLE (strong model) certainly doesn’t measure up to “Theme for English B,” but it does express a greater sense of who I am, what has shaped me, and some of my aspirations and views. The example below has sincerity whereas the first example shows I’m mostly interested in getting the points for doing the assignment.
To Be More Than What We Are
I was born in Buffalo, New York, but I hardly remember living there at all.
Just memory flashes – snow, lots of snow, church,
a dog that ran away, my dad yelling “Caeser! Caeeeeesaaaar!
Old people – (everybody is old when you’re 4)
grandparents, aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles – Nagros and Lazzaronis.
Food – sausages (“Don’t ask what’s in the sausage!”), gelato, cannelloni and cannolis
We moved to Longhorn Ranch, New Mexico, drilled a well, bought a house on wheels,
and became what some people call “po’ white trash.”
My little brother and I played cowboy everyday. We killed lots of robbers, and when we were robbers we killed rangers.
We went to school with kids that called us names in a language we didn’t understand.
My mom waited tables at the truck stop and almost went crazy.
My dad got paid in meat, but didn’t bring home any bacon.
He started leaving us then
but still came home every night.
I wanted to become a superhero, or a pilot – to fly away; I read a lot of comic books.
We moved again, and again, and again, until finally we landed in Corrales, New Mexico, near Albuquerque.
I still had a horse. I played little league. My dad argued balls and strikes with the umpires and the other dads.
I loved to read fantasy and science-fiction. Almost anything actually.
My dad got a job with the railroad and finished disappearing.
My mom taught me what love really looks like (it wasn’t arguing balls and strikes),
and a lot of the time it looks like hard work, commitment, and sacrifice.
She worked two jobs and kept us in school.
I played games and learned to play many musical instruments. I marched in the band.
I played classical, jazz, and rock. I wrote poetry. I saw KISS, and Chick Corea, and the symphony.
I flipped burgers and omelets.
Eventually, I became “the man” and had to fire people for being the kind of slacker I once was.
I married a woman I’d known since almost forever. She’s extraordinarily smart. We have a wonderful daughter, Miranda.
She and some of my high school teachers and my love for communicating with others inspired me to become a teacher.
Now I ponder the big ideas and the essential questions to try and understand life, people, the world I live in.
I vacillate between incredible joy and terrible wonder.
I wonder how when my brother had to kill other humans in the name of our nation,
a part of him got killed too
even though he came home whole,
on the outside.
I wonder how his newborn daughter might help resurrect that dead part.
I hear people putting others down for their beliefs, religious and political, their clothes, their misfortune
and their fortune, their heritage, the color of their skin, or eyes, or their hairstyle.
It’s hard to believe this is the 21st century, it still looks like the 20th, and the 19th,
and all the others in so many ways. Why should I have thought we could change?
Perhaps because we have changed in so many good ways.
But we can’t be done changing.
Maybe that’s why I want to teach people to communicate – to foster mutual respect and understanding,
so other people’s sisters and brothers don’t have to kill or be killed,
so more people can have a chance at success.
so I can feel like I’ve done something to help us change for the better
because so many people helped me change for the better.
We can be more than what we are.
-Nagro (2005)