Daniel Holland 24 September 2013 ENG1103 Wray Narrative Draft Assignment My Lifes Journey of Literacy All writing comes

with a beginning. Every individual who begins a written work starts with a prior influence; something meaningful or inspiring. Some people are fortunate enough to have the influence of a parent or supportive mentor giving them guidance and teaching them the earliest forms of literacy and writing. But there are also those who are less fortunate. Literacy experts such as Malcolm X and Helen Keller were consistently surrounded by doubt and told that they would never become successful. Through trials and tribulation they pushed through that doubt and found light in the notion that they could learn to read and write. Though stories of trials inspire me, I, however, am not one of those people. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a household where reading and writing at an early age was not only required, but also taught in a way where I enjoyed learning. Not only enjoyed, but wanted to know more. The most impressionable times of a persons life begins in their early childhood, as I have recognized in myself. My inspirations began during Preschool and Kindergarten. Unlike the society we live in now, where children learn how to play games on an iPhone often before they learn how to read and write, growing up for me meant playing outside all day and then coming in for dinner and a bedtime story. This was what we labeled as fun. My mother was always the best when reading bedtime stories to my brother and me. I remember how she used different voices for each character in the book which taught us how to interpret who was speaking and how to determine the personalities of each character. This encouraged my participation in storytelling early in my education. The experience I most remember was in Kindergarten. Mrs. Doane was the name of my teacher during that time. Each day someone was chosen to take Mr. Teddy Bear, our class stuffed animal, home. I remember being seated on the carpet at the end of our school day and she would read aloud who the previous person was to write in the book about their day home with Mr. Teddy Bear. As I sat in my spot, normally in the middle not usually listening, I anxiously waited and hoped that I would be chosen to take the teddy bear home. The day finally came when I was chosen to take Mr. Teddy Bear home, and the best part was that I got to keep him for the whole weekend! I was ecstatic about the situation and couldnt wait to take him home. If I remember correctly, I didnt end up doing too much with Mr. Teddy Bear because he wasnt a very good play partner. Being the age I was I didnt have a problem being creative and writing something in the book anyways. Like every good writer, and every mischievous child, I was already learning how to embellish the truth. I remember writing in the book about how Mr. Teddy Bear and I played outside and went on a little adventure. Along with our writing, we also had to include an illustration. As a kindergartener, I instantly hit the crayons. I drew square pants and a t-shirt on a stick figures body. In this picture I proceeded to draw the sun out with sunglasses on, and Mr. Teddy Bear and myself having a wonderful time playing

outside. I thought I was an artist in the making, and so did Mrs. Doane as she said to everyone in my class. Thus, began my world of writing. As the years went by, I began to further expand my reading comprehension and writing. School became more and more difficult. It forced the people of my age to become more familiar with vocabulary and books that took a substantial amount of time to read. This marked the beginning of my love/hate relationship with reading. It all began with summer book assignments. We were told that we had to read books during our summer time and then come to school prepared to take on an assignment about the book we had read. During the early years of summer reading, we were given more of a choice. We were allowed to pick which books we wanted to read. I was always interested in mystery novels or works that involved some sort of suspense. As much as I hate summer reading, I knew that is was beneficial before coming back to school from break. It enabled me to re-associate myself with learning so that I would not feel completely clueless when summer was over. I was never interested in books like Harry Potter, not only because of their length but because I could watch it all when the movies came out. I regret to say this, but I have never had too much of an appreciation for literature. I have a hard time sitting myself down and reading a book during my spare time. I envy those who read books often because I know that they are taking advantage of obtaining more knowledge while I choose not to. However, I do not fully blame this on my lack of interest. Instead, I put some of the fault on my middle school career. If you ever attended a private school you will understand where I am coming from on this topic. In middle school I was told I needed to learn Shakespeare and Olde English writings in their rawest form. I dont have any clue who thought it was a good idea to teach this to middle-schoolers, seeing as none of us found it interesting, but I guess you could say it allowed me to comprehend older forms of English writing. I didnt think it was ideal for me to read books such as Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Pride & Prejudice, but it has stuck with me. In the seventh grade I was also told that I needed to compose a play about the historic events of World War II. I was intrigued by the assignment and I decided to put my creativity to the test. In my work I included multiple events from the time the U.S entered the war to the time the war ended. I created multiple characters with different personalities, and it reminded me a lot of the movie Valkyrie. After writing 21 pages, I felt that I had worked above and beyond the call of duty, and turned my paper in with confidence. I had spoken to many of my peers and it had seemed that I had put the most effort in by turning in the longest play. As everyone is getting their grades back I sit waiting to have mine passed out to me. I started to look through my paper to see what the issue could have possibly been. I get to one of the last pages and I see the error. I had been too drawn into my imagination and I added night vision goggles in my play. Now if you knew my teacher you would know where I am coming from when I say he was the cocky college graduate who tried too hard to get under our skin. I saw that he marked off points, and in my head I thought, You have got to be kidding me..... I felt as if none of the composed work was recognized and that my only fault was night vision. This was the point in time where I began to learn that some teachers did not take personal care into each persons efforts. I soon realized that I had to adapt to the personality of the teacher and that some teachers are only accustomed to

a standardized way of literacy. In this moment, I felt as if my writing had lost all purpose, and that I only needed to write according to a set of guidelines and rules. The summer before my High School career began I traveled to Uganda, Africa where I learned writing and language on a whole different level. I didnt realize how difficult it would be to communicate with the local village people until I got there. I probably looked like the biggest idiot to them using swift hand motions trying to describe what I was trying to say. This problem occurred throughout the remainder of the trip. The biggest challenge that was set on the team members occurred towards the end of our trip. Typically at the end of our stay in each village, every person on the missions team would receive letters from the kids that they had the most impact on. Sometimes you could interpret what the letters said and others were written in kind of broken English. It was a very emotional process because you knew it took the kids time to decorate and even write the letters because of how hard it was for them to write in English. I could feel the love through each letter that was given to me, so it posed the challenge how were we supposed to write back to them. It seemed like it should be a simple task; writing simple letters to each child. My biggest challenge was trying to write something different for each kid. I wanted to write something meaningful to each kid because they hold their letters close to them and they keep track of everything you give them. Having to write to kids who could barely speak my language was hard for me, but it became easier as I wrote more and more of them. Conveying emotion was difficult to do in letters, and was easier to do from a physical standpoint. The kids would show and share a great deal of their emotions with us as we would play and build friendships without really having to speak, and we knew it was mutual High School began my next chapter in my adventure. I remember hearing about how much harder high school reading and writing was going to be, and that middle school was nothing compared to. I had recently transferred schools to a public school, and I had the advantage of previously having a private school education. Never once did I struggle in my writing, my reading; however, is a completely different story. As I mentioned previously, I struggled with my reading. I was very impatient when it came to sitting down with a book in my hand, and I would easily lose focus when I tried to read. I will never forget my tenth grade English teacher, Ms. Bettina Pope. I was lucky enough to call her, momma. I had grown very close to Ms. Pope and she filled in as a second mother to me. She was one of those ladies who you would never mess with, and she really cared about her job and her students. I don't know one student who has ever said a bad thing about her. I did not do as well as I could have in that class due to my laziness when it came to reading, but she taught me more about writing and literacy than any of my English teachers. She was the teacher who helped develop my knowledge of grammar, and in this class is where my writing truly began to flourish. My sentences were coming together both grammatically and I was beginning to really add eloquence with my sentence fluency and word choice. She was also responsible for the expansion of my vocabulary, which along the road helped my reading comprehension. Ms. Pope is definitely one of the most influential people that has ever entered my life and has affected me not only in what I have learned about literacy, but has also been a wonderful life coach.

Every persons literacy background has a journey and story behind it. I know that as a student my journey has not come to an end yet, and I dont think it ever will. There is so much one can learn in the world of reading and writing that one cannot know it all. I believe that every culture has something to teach us about literacy. I know my experience in Africa had a great impact on my perception of writing and language. Starting from my time as a little kid, through middle school and high school, all the way to my freshman year of college, I would say I have definitely been affected by literacy a great deal. As I continue forward in my collegiate level English classes, I know that each professor will have different styles of teaching. I know that moving forward I can only learn more. The journey doesnt end after I finish school, but instead continues on as I take on more about literacy from many others. This marks a few chapters of my literacy narrative.