Austin Beeler

My Literary Experience Account Reading and writing are such a standard part of our day that we often forget the exact path our learning of these two skills took. For myself, I barely remember the days of my parents tucking me into bed at night as they read a book to me. I believe from those formative days a love of books and knowledge in general began to take hold. While I may no longer be as curious as my childish self once was, I have yet to lose the sense of wonder that comes along with digesting a new novel. My very first step into the world of literature was Dr. Seuss books. The exact name of my first is lost to me through the passage of time, but I am still most fond of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. From there, I jumped about between random generic books, until my parents discovered a publisher, whose name the passage of time has also taken from my memory, that had a very intriguing style of books. They were ordinary books by all means, but the publisher would rate the reading difficulty of each on a scale of one through five, with one being the most simple and five being the most advanced. This brought my reading experiences and growth into perspective. For the first time, there was a qualitative description of the difficulty of the book in my hands, and watching myself advance up this difficulty scale exhilarated me. I yearned to be
Consider your views of writing. Where do those views come from? Comment [2]: Consider what you have read and how it has informed your view of writing. Do you think that the text you have read have impacted what you think good writing is or what a writer should be or do? Comment [1]: I like that you used the opening paragraph as a means of setting the tone for the piece and easing the reader into the conversation of literacy. I also like that you see literacy skill development taking place beyond the school environment. That said, Im curious to hear more about the sponsors that have shaped your beliefs such as people, texts, and your community.

able to fluently flip through the pages of a book ranked with a number five difficulty. As a result, reading became an integral part of my childhood years. Comparatively, my early experiences learning to write are dull, with just the usual writing one would expect of a young student learning how. I will say that my method of holding a pencil is rather unique, leading to my handwriting being absolutely atrocious. However, despite this, I found myself drawn to writing, as ironic a phrasing as that may be, for my artistic skills never quite developed the same way. I discovered writing to be a way I could truly sieve the
Comment [4]: Throughout the this piece you have used transitional phrases very effectively to show the movement of your ideas. Comment [3]: I like the movement of this paragraph and how you go from conveying specific experiences to explaining how those experiences impacted your views.

Austin Beeler

thoughts going through my head and formulate them to the best of my ability, as opposed to the difficulty of doing the same on the spot when speaking is involved. It became a form expression for me, and one I utilized quite often by writing short stories and poems. However, I was young then, and they never really made much sense. As the years went on, the quality improved, but the quantity decreased drastically. By the time I advanced to high school, I had stopped entirely. Though I have been taking a stab at doing writing of a more comedic nature lately, and it has been fairly enjoyable. The one problem with writing that Ive always had, however, is that I find myself becoming exceedingly distracted the longer it becomes. With books, this was never the case. When reading a book, I would picture the world and the people being described within. This simple imagination enthralled me so often and so deeply, that I sometimes find myself being unable to put down a book until I simply pass out from exhaustion. Very few things can keep me as focused or as interested, and even fewer can do both as easily as reading. The one exception, as everything has at least one, is that of Shakespeare. While his stories are amazingly conceived, the language of his time has become impenetrable to myself, at least when I was first introduced to his work in school. I remember attempting to decipher the seemingly gargled words for the first time, sometime during my middle school career, and being completely taken aback when being informed of the true definitions of words that I had attempted to resolve using context clues. That was probably my first struggle where the world of literacy is involved. Another notable struggle, also during middle school, was when we were assigned to read Mary Shelleys Frankenstein. From the start of the assignment, things went smoothly, as I could actually understand the words in front of me and the story was intriguing and engaging. Yet for some reason, as we neared the last quarter of the book, I completely lost all interest. I had no
Comment [8]: Notice how your narrative is jumping around chronologically. While I have no problem with narrative nonchronological structure, be aware of how this can complicate the readers ability to see your development over time. Comment [9]: That book does slow down quite a bit later on. Comment [6]: Notice how you are making general statements about writing rather than pointing your reader to specific experiences that have shaped your views of writing. Consider how using little narratives could have enhanced our understanding of what your beliefs are and where you acquired them. Anthony Borrero Comment [7]: How much do you plan before your write? The issue may be that you are losing sight of the purpose of the writing you are doing, and accordingly, lose interest in the piece. My advice is always to figure out what your purpose for writing an essay is. Once you do this, identify what you need to talk about to achieve this purpose. That said, remember that a lot of writing is simply about discovery. Half the time we dont get to our good ideas until we drill through twenty bad ones. Comment [5]: I would love to hear more about your engagement with these genres. What sort of demands does each genre place on your as a writer? How have these genres impacted how you view writing and what you believe about writing?

Austin Beeler

desire to continue reading, and ended up not even finishing it. I only learned of the resolution during our class discussions, which was good enough for me. The entire ordeal was so foreign to me, but I had no way of understanding exactly what caused it. Fortunately, it did not change my love of reading in the slightest, so I dismissed it as an anomaly and simply moved on. This has been a brief history of my past experiences with writing and reading, covering the parts I consider to be most important. I am sure there are other minor events that popped up here and there, but the memory of them is lost to me. Hopefully this has given some insight into my opinion of the two most important skills necessary in this world, but if not, it can probably be inferred somewhere among the lines.
Comment [10]: Austin, I enjoyed reading your literacy experience account. In terms of the content, I think you did a great job of introducing me to some of the experiences and views that have defined your current way of thinking about literacy. I particularly liked your emphasis on specific components of literacy, such as language you have encountered in texts, your process of engaging with writing, and your acquisition of various skills. That said, at times, I was hoping to see a broader range for the narrative that went beyond school as the central focus. In the future, I would recommend devoting more time cultivating little narratives and explaining how your experiences have impacted you. If you explain the significance of your experiences, your readers will have a stronger understanding of why these experiences are important and what ideas are influencing you. In addition to this, I would also work on extending the range of your narrative so that your history is not defined by school experiences alone. Finally, I would really dive into the sponsors that have impacted you and explore how they have shaped what you think good writing is. This was a great start for exploring your literacy history. Keep up the work, and I am confident that you can learn a whole lot more about yourself as a writer. I look forward to hearing more about your literacy experiences soon. Mr. B