Houston Jones, Brittany Simmons, and Noel Maekele

Professor Muesing
University Writing 1101
August 24, 2014
Digital Literacy Narrative
Each individual person has his or her own narrative to tell, and in this
assignment we are given the opportunity to share what influences and experience
have made us into the writers we are today. In our groups case, two of us were very
largely influenced by past professors and in another case it was a senior project that
had to do with the Special Olympics. The development project has allowed us to
collaborate with other classmates to gain insight on different literary experiences,
which has been very beneficial to our own experiences. Every writer starts from a
different place, but how we get to where we are today is a story worth telling.
In my case, my high school AP US History teacher, Mrs. Gaskins, largely
influenced my literacy experience. Weekly, the class and I would be assigned to
write document based or free response questions from past AP US history exams,
this repeated exposure helped me to better clarify my writings and to reduce the
usual anxiety that I would receive before assigned writings. I strongly believe that
AP US history has made me into the student that I am today, simply by requiring the
upmost effort and diligence. Whenever I look back on my literary roadmap, my high
school history class will always be my favorite stop.
Brittany had a different set of experiences altogether, her literary narrative
was about her how her senior project had a large impact on her writing ability. She

was involved in a senior project in which she attended the Special Olympics. This
experience allowed her to see that people with disabilities can overcome great
circumstances and achieve their dreams. She found writing her senior project paper
to be an enjoyable experience because she felt a strong passion for her topic, and
had personal experience after attending the Special Olympics event. Like anything, if
you have a passion for what you do the task at hand becomes all the simpler.
One of our influential teachers was Mrs. Willis from Fuquay-Varina High
School. Her class environment and challenging activities became a great literary
experience for Noel. AP English III consisted of many classroom discussions in order
for students to illustrate their literary opinions and philosophies. Class discussions
helped other students feel more comfortable to annotate and interpret different
literary works with the class. This class was very different compared to other
English classes because of the academic freedom Mrs. Willis allowed.
Ultimately high school contained plenty of influential factors that helped us
become the students we are today. Our teachers showed amazing support
throughout our high school careers and we hope our college professors can do the
same. As students, especially in our earlier years, we are highly influenced in our
writing by the experiences and teachers that we surround ourselves with, and these
experiences and interactions have allowed us to progress into collegiate level
students. As we start our college career we hope to have more literary experiences
that will help us become the best writers we can be.