FIRST LANGUAGE ENGLISH

Coursework portfolio
Hermida Adrogué, María Milagros
AR512
0067

Assignment 1 – Informative, analytical and/or argumentative

Self-defense should be allowed

Insecurity, nowadays, is a common topic of conversation among Argentine citizens.

People are always afraid and careful in every move they make. Daily, people are
murdered in the streets just because they refuse to be robbed. What is more,
sometimes law is very unfair. Although law allows self-defense to a charge in a criminal
case, it may imprison an innocent person and set the guilty one free.
Many times I’ve asked myself what I would do if I was robbed. Thank God I’ve never
experienced a moment like this and I hope I do not in my whole life, but it is certainly a
debate.
What is a person being attacked supposed to do? I would say that he/she should
defend him/herself. But what is passing through his mind at that exact moment? By
trying to take care of his possessions the victim is risking his own life. Supposedly law
protects the right of individuals over their private property, as well as their physical and
moral integrity if they become victims of an attack. If the attacked person counted with
a weapon to keep himself safe, would he be sure that if he killed the thief law would be
on his side?
From my point of view, self-defense is about the protection of yourself and your
property, and you are supposed to take care of that. Is a criminal who invades a private
property to steal from it supposed to be treated well? I think that self-defense should be
allowed but with reasonable limits. No one would choose to fight potentially violent
criminals, they would rather wait for the police to be able to respond swiftly to a crime in
progress, but the police may take a while to arrive. So, the person might be forced to
react, and do something before. Furthermore, if thieves know that they will be punished
for committing a crime, they will think it twice before doing anything, law is discouraging
crime. Law shows what it is correct and what is not, so this law is supporting those who
live properly without bothering others.
On the other hand, sometimes people think that victims value property over a person’s
life, and that this also moves away from the basic sense of proportion. Not only this, but
they say, what if the householder attacked an innocent person by mistake because he
thought that was a burglar? From my point of view, what should an innocent person be
doing in private property? They are not supposed to be there, so it is not common that
people attacked the wrong person by accident.
To conclude, I think that laws should be well-known by every citizen, so that thieves are
conscious of what they are doing. In this way, they would know what they can expect
from victims. Everybody should defend him/herself and be sure that law will protect
him/her. The world would be a much more peaceful place if this law was respected.

This is a rather messy essay. It is not quite clear in the end whether the
candidate is for or against self-defense, despite the title. Vocabulary and
structures are quite clear, but ideas are not well organized for a better
understanding. 22 out of 40 point should be OK.

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FIRST LANGUAGE ENGLISH
Coursework portfolio
Hermida Adrogué, María Milagros
AR512
0067

Assignment 2 – Imaginative, descriptive and/or narrative

Lost without you

I’m lost
Don’t know what to do
Too confused to think
Wish I could sleep

Full of questions
too lost,
too resigned,

My mind is just blank…

No ideas coming back

Wish to have a solution…

Somehow I don’t,
Somehow I’m lost.

Wish you would come back…

Somehow you won’t
Somehow I’m lost.

Dreaming awake,
Wish someone
Wouldn’t bring me back to earth.

Making an effort…
Wish this would end.
My mind is just blank,
No ideas coming back.

The end

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FIRST LANGUAGE ENGLISH
Coursework portfolio
Hermida Adrogué, María Milagros
AR512
0067

Thoughts of a desperate Mother

In the year 1994, Argentina suffered and Islamic attempt to the building of the AMIA
(Association Mutual Israelite Argentine) in Buenos Aires, where 85 people died and
more that 200 people were injured. This had a big impact on our society, because
many innocent people that were just working lost their lives there.
I was only 5 years old when this happened, but I remember my mother desperately
calling her aunt because she lived only 2 blocks away from the devastated place.
Imagining the whole situation among the debris, I tried to reflect a victim’s mother
feelings in the poem written above. A person who feels totally lost, and does not know
how to go on, wants to keep the hope of finding her daughter. That’s why I looked up
for a photo that could reflect this tense situation. When I look at the picture I feel a hole
inside. And that’s what I am trying to reflect in the poem, to understand and assist
everyone who has lost someone there. Someone who wonders why didn’t her little girl
go to buy something at that moment, and save her life…
We can see that she’d already assumed what had happened when she says:
“Wish to have a solution…
Somehow I don’t”

But, although she knows that she can’t turn time back, she wants to know why, she
wants someone to explain to her and give her a solution, even though she knows she
can’t have her daughter back, so there is no solution. The same occurs when we read:
“Wish you would come back…
Somehow she won’t”

The mother imagines what would be like if that had never happened. How old would
her daughter be nowadays, would she still be working there? And many questions that
will never be answered. And although she knows that she is dreaming, that it is not
true, she prefers to keep on living in a dream where she can be happy, either than
living true life where she’s without her daughter:
“Dreaming awake,
Wish someone
Wouldn’t bring me back to earth.”

Finally, the woman, as she knows that nothing will ever be as before again, prays for
violence to finish. Although she knows she can’t have her girl back, she prays for every
mother’s daughter, for them not to suffer as much as she has:

“Making an effort…
Wish this would end”

To conclude, I have tried to write a very effective poem, to reflect the feelings of people
involved in this attempt. By reading this poem, I attempt to make a person who did not
know anything about this tragedy, understand perfectly what occurred.

This poem is quite effective in describing both, the devastating picture as well as
the devastating moments lived that day in Argentina, which is clearly portrayed

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FIRST LANGUAGE ENGLISH
Coursework portfolio
Hermida Adrogué, María Milagros
AR512
0067

in the explanation written by this candidate. I allot this 28 points.

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Assignment 3 – Reading and writing

Refugee mother and child by Chinua Achebe

No Madonna and Child could touch

That picture of a mother's tenderness
For a son she soon would have to forget.

The air was heavy with odours

Of diarrhoea of unwashed children
With washed-out ribs and dried-up
Bottoms struggling in laboured
Steps behind blown empty bellies. Most
Mothers there had long ceased
To care but not this one; she held
A ghost smile between her teeth
And in her eyes the ghost of a mother's
Pride as she combed the rust-coloured
Hair left on his skull and then -
Singing in her eyes - began carefully
To part it...In another life this
Must have been a little daily
Act of no consequence before his
Breakfast and school; now she
Did it like putting flowers
On a tiny grave.

A discussion over the poem

There has always been poverty in the world. Maybe, a wealthy person does not
value what he has, while a poor person is grateful when he has a little money to
feed his family.
Just by reading the title “Refugee mother and Child” we have an idea of what
this poem will deal with: refugees. The poet conveys the way of life of refugee
children, their mothers, and their emotions. How they deal daily with death, and
they have to simply accept it. The tone is pessimistic, hopeless and gloomy,
since it makes us realize what is happening in the poor countries in the world.
The sad truth is presented harshly, though we may not want to accept it and we
try to act indifferently to it many times.
Achebe portrays how an African mother suffers because she knows her son is
dying and she can do nothing to stop it,
” […] a mother's tenderness
for a son she soon would have to forget.”

It compares the situation of Africa, where there is too much poverty, and people
die of hunger, with a common life in any common country, where children have
an education, and can have a meal everyday,
” […] In another life this
must have been a little daily
 act of no consequence before his
breakfast and school; now she
did it like putting flowers
on a tiny grave.”

This is a very shocking stanza because we get to know that this occurs
everyday, lots of children die daily, and apparently, there isn’t much we can do
about it..
The author was born in Ogidi, Nigeria, so he perfectly understands the whole
situation, and from my point of view, in this poem he wants to make everybody
aware of his people’s suffering in his country, and make us value and thank
every little belonging that we have. The mother in the composition knows that
she can not do anything, but she still keeps taking care of his son until his last
minute. Achebe relates perfectly this image with the idea of Mary and her child,
Jesus. The ideal image of motherhood,
”No Madonna and Child could touch
that picture […] “

I agree with the author, because many times we forget to thank everything we
have, everything our parents do for us, but when I read this poem, and I see
pictures of kids who don’t even have something to eat, it makes me thank every
little part of my life.
I also think that what the poet intends to do by writing this poem was to help his
country. All around the world, people know about the poverty that Africa suffers,
and as this poem is so shocking, it makes us want to help. Nowadays, there are
many organisations that help, and take food for children and their mothers, so
Chinua Achebe may have completed his desire.
To conclude, I believe this is a very impressive and shocking poem, since it is
very realistic, and tells the bare truth. Also the fact that, as the author is African,
he perfectly understands his people’s situation, and can describe it better than
anyone else.

This candidate has analysed and evaluated the ideas expressed in the poem quite at
length. She has also included her own, relating them to the text. So, I allot this
reading 9 points out of 10.
Draft

I'm lost
I don't know what to do
Too lazy to think
Wish I could sleep
I'm full of ideas
somehow I'm lost,
somehow I’m bored,

my mind is just blank...

no ideas coming back

This was my first piece. I wrote this because I didn’t know what to
write, so I just started writing how I felt, and that is what now, with
some modifications, turned to be Assignment 2.