Literacy Narrative
Throughout my life I have had a love hate relationship with literacy. I love to read and write about things that I’m interested in and hate things that are boring to me. I’m not much for reading and writing on my own, but in school I like to get my assignments done as fast as I can. School has been the main literacy sponsor in my life.
The first thing about learning to write, was when I was three years old my mom taught me how to hold a pencil and start doodling. Learning actual letters was when I went into kindergarten and D-One (a class right after kindergarten getting kids ready for first grade.) In kindergarten I learned the alphabet and started to read. I learned a lot more about reading and writing in D-One and first grade.
It was second grade when I found my first favorite book. The book was a short book about the Titanic. I read that book over and over. I took the book home and read it to my mom a couple times too. When I was in second grade I remember doing a lot of spelling test too. I cheated on a test and I got caught. The teacher said she would not tell my mom if I re-took the test and got a good grade. (I got 100% and my mom did not find out until last year when I told her about it.) That taught me to never cheat again. In second grade I wrote a story about my dog that had passed away. The story was about how much I loved him and how much I missed him.
Fourth grade I found another favorite book. It was called “Glue Fingers.” The book is about football. This book made me want to play and write about sports. I did a story in fifth grade with three of my classmates about being pro football players. It was a project that we all did for fun. The story was about the three of us playing for the Dallas Cowboys. (I’m pretty sure the Cowboys had won the Super Bowl that year.)
When I made it to the sixth grade we had kindergarten reading buddies. That was a lot of fun for me. I liked reading with the younger students and helping them to read. I think that reading with the little buddies helped influence me to want to be a teacher. I had so much fun helping teach the kindergarteners how to read.
When I went into seventh grade that’s when I remember writing more project papers. I had to write a paper about the Civil War. I did a lot of research and wrote a two page report about the benefits of the North winning the war.
It was eighth grade when I took my first computer class. I did a power point report on Kobe Bryant. (He was a rookie that year.) I really liked to read Sports Illustrated and read about sports in general. The computer changed a lot of things. I could go online and read about different sports icons and I could do research and write at the same time. I did not have a computer at home but I would spend a lot of time at school writing reports or whatever I could on the computer. If a paper could be turned in with either typing or by hand, I would rather type it. I thought that the computer made it look so much better.
I remember my ninth grade English teacher like it was yesterday. His name was Mr. Holley, he was a mean man unless you showed him respect and that you were really there to learn. Mr. Holley always called everybody by their last name, and if you did not do what he said, you would have to come after school and sit in his class. He assigned the book “The Giver” for the class to read. The book was a great. I had a hard time putting it down. I read this book until I feel asleep at night, and it was the first thing I would think about when I woke up. This book made me want to read more. I thanked Mr. Holley and I actually liked the guy by the time I went into the tenth grade.
I moved on to High School and going into the tenth grade one of my classmate died in a car accident. I wrote a long poem for her and her family. I’m not sure where the poem is now but her family thanked me and said they loved the poem. This helped me express how I was feeling and made me feel better knowing the family liked the poem too. I did not write many poems, but for this occasion words just came to me and I wrote them down.
It was eleventh grade when I read “Of Mice and Men.” The book was long and I remember reading it over Christmas break. That was the last thing I wanted to do while on a break from school. I had to do writings after every chapter. The book was boring to me and I did not want to read much more after that book. Eleventh grade I got to use my last two hours of the school day to be a teacher’s aid for a third grade class. I got to help third graders read and write. (Another great experience that made me want to be a teacher.) When I went into twelfth grade I had to go to school for a half day and worked the rest of the day. I don’t recall any English classes or any big reading or writing assignments.
It wasn’t until I went to college nine years after high school that I did anymore real writing. I worked for a lot of different jobs and didn’t do any type of writing. Just last semester I started my college career and I wrote speeches for speech class. I had a fun time giving speeches. That class was nerve racking. One of my classes I had for my teaching major I wrote multiple papers for different teachers I went and observed in elementary, middle, and high school. I also had to write about my experiences working in after school intramural programs with elementary children.
But my best writing had to be for my Life Span of Human Development class. I wrote four different papers and the one that will always stick out in my mind, is the paper I wrote about my experiences with death. This paper let me get out everything that I have been feeling about all the people I have lost in my life and how each death had a different impact on my life. I also got to write my own obituary, and where I wanted to be laid to rest. That was definitely a life changing experience putting a date on the day you die. My first semester of college and I was already writing about when I was going to die.
As I am writing this paper I can tell the most common writing I have done is for school assignments. When I write, I like to sit down at a table in silence and just write. I like to write on paper before I type it into the computer. I put pencil to paper and think about what I want to write and do it. I believe I write the way I do now because of all the book reports and other class assignments I’ve done throughout school. I do not like writing a little bit here and a little bit there, I like to just get it all done at once. That is how I like to write. I don’t really like to read unless it is something interesting to me. I have to do a lot of reading for school and I really think that it is good for me. My experiences have shaped me into the person I am today, that includes all the reading and writing I have done in and out of school.
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