Assignment 3 Chelsey McMurry

Literacy is one tiny piece on the very broad spectrum of education. Literacy can apply to so many things such as reading, writing, school, and real world experiences. Each of us has a literacy history that we should explore. I had the pleasure of interviewing my grandmother and learning so much about her literacy history. My grandmother is seventy years old and was born and raised in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. Now she lives in Shelby, North Carolina. Shelby is a quick fifteen minute drive from Boiling Springs so the dialect is pretty much the same. When I first got the assignment I immediately knew that I wanted to interview my grandmother because although I have known her all my life I knew that there was still so much to learn, especially about how she learned to read and write. The interview part of my project is the source of information for my entire paper. I wanted to interview my grandmother somewhere that she would be comfortable. I chose to interview her in my kitchen while we baked cookies. I chose this setting because I felt that it would enable her to answer the questions with ease. Also, I felt like baking would help with the natural awkwardness of an interview. The interview took place on a Sunday afternoon after church. My entire family had gone to church that morning and come back to my house to have lunch. I conducted the interview after lunch while my grandmother and I baked dessert for my family. All of the information in this paper comes from this interview.

Comment [D1]:

Comment [D2]: I think it would read better if you said "She now lives in Shelby", although I don't think it really matters.

On September 11, 1942 a remarkable lady was born. My grandmother Barbara Sue Hawkins was born at home, delivered by a midwife. Her parents are Willie Hawkins and James Hawkins. My grandmother has 2 brothers and 2 sisters. She is the oldest of five children. Roger is the next oldest, then Diane, Carol and last but not least Richard. She lived in boiling springs with her family. As a child she had a Dog named snowball, a fiest. All of my grandmothers siblings are still living and all have families, except for Richard. Richard developed cancer in his early fifties. His battle was a difficult and short battle. Richard lost his battle to cancer in 2009 leaving behind a wife and three children. My grandmother lived at home until she got married to Allan Reynolds in her early twenties. When she got married she moved to Shelby with her new husband where the raised their two children.my grandfather, Allan, lost his life in a car accident when I was four years old. My grandmother has always been a very important part of my family. My grandmother went to a very small elementary school and this is where she learned the basics of reading and writing. She specifically recalls learning her ABCs in the second grade. When she told me this, I automatically thought, Wow, in todays society that is way behind. Children today are required to know their ABCs and numbers one through ten in order to place into kindergarten. She went on to say that in her elementary school they began teaching life survival skills at a very young age, which is different today. My grandmothers elementary school started in the first grade, which is contrary to todays kindergarten. Something that specifically stuck out to me was when she mentioned that they taught kids to save money and work hard when she started school. My grandmother started a piggy bank and saved until she graduated high school. She was taught from a very young age to earn your own money to get what you want in
Comment [D3]: I'm not sure what you are trying to say here. Is this an incomplete sentence? Or is this the type of dog?

life and she said, That is the biggest thing that todays society is missing. She stated that kids take everything for granted and expect everything to be handed to them. My grandmothers favorite saying is, Experience is the best teacher. Throughout her entire educational experience she learned more by applying the knowledge she learned in school to the daily activities that she had to complete at home. For example, my grandmother lived on a farm and one of her daily chores involved counting all of the various animals that lived on her farm. She said that this helped her more than having to count things in the classroom. If she got the animal count wrong she would be punished by her father. Her punishment consisted of cleaning out the pig pen, so that gave her far more incentive to get the count correct. Also, another example my grandmother gave was with measurements. She used measurements when she helped her mother cook, but school measurements never came naturally to her. Once she realized that the measurements she was using at home were the same as the ones at school, she became a pro at measurements. In todays society, I feel like my grandmother would be very behind. Technology plays such a vital role in society. Technology is something that a lot of older generations do not interact with as much as the younger generation. Just about any job now uses some form of a computer. My grandmother will tell you that she only uses her computer to play solitaire. IPhones, Laptops, tablets, and BlackBerrys are so important to the business world today. These devices can do anything from tell you the time to access your bank account. Many people have their entire life schedule in their phone, which to some is a necessity, but to others, like my grandmother, it is a waste of time. My grandmother thinks that if someone were to break or lose their phone they would just crumble because

they dont know how to live without it. She says shell just stick to her computer solely for solitaire. People speak differently than they write. When they speak, they use markers subconsciously. As I was listening to this interview I noticed that I say ok ummmm all the time. I had no idea that I said that as much as I did. I think the reason that I did this in the interview was because after every answer from my grandmother I would have to look at the list of questions. I think I was buying time so that I could read the question. Also, during the interview, I noticed a nervous tick that my grandmother does while she is talking. I tried to make my grandmother more comfortable. Instead of just interviewing her, I interviewed her while we were baking in the kitchen. Although I tried to make her feel as comfortable as possible, she still tapped her foot very rapidly after I asked every single question. Also in the interview I noticed that my grandmother would stop baking and tap her fingers. I think the reason she did this was to but time to recall the answers I was asking for. Reading is very important to my grandmother. In the interview she specifically mentioned two books that she remembered reading as a child: Spot the Dog and The Adventures of Dick and Jane. These were very important to her because she felt like a grown up when she read and that is what made her want to read more. As she got older she would read the morning newspaper because she wanted to know what was going on around her and she wanted to be informed. As a young women in her time growing up women were not quite equal to men yet. She wanted to know what was going on in the world because it was her right. As she got older she had a family and she stopped reading books for leisure and just stuck to the newspaper because she had to take care of two
Comment [D4]: These are the books my mom said she read in elementary school.

kids. After her kids grew up and she retired from her job she started reading books for leisure again. She started with Nicholas sparks. She loves him as an author because he writes romantically and he talks about love stories. Also, she loves book that are based on true stories. Elizabth Edwards, Clinton, George bush sr. She says that she likes to read about things that have actually happened. The vow. My grandmother has been a book keeper for most of her life. The job that she had for thirty three years was at a company called BP. She kept records for them. This job required writing records and keeping books. Her office did not have computers. She has never really liked writing but when she was a book keeper the writing was much different than having to write a paper or a journal. The writing that she had to do in her job involved writing about specific information and filling in charts and things of that nature, not so much creative writing. My grandmothers reason for not liking to write was because she had never been good at it. One of the questions I asked her was did she keep a journal. She was very quick to tell me absolutely not. She said that when she was younger she did not have time to write and that she didnt want to. She mainly just talked to her family. Writing was not very important for her or her family. As I mentioned before literacy is a very diverse word. Literacy can be taught in various places. The most known place is inside the walls of a school building. My grandmothers school started in first grade and that is where she primarily learned her color, names of animals, and how to plant plants. My grandmother went to a very rural elementary school and I guess they didnt have a state curriculum to follow like we do now. I think that the reason that she learned the things she did in first grade before her ABCs in second grade was because of the way the families survived back then.
Comment [D5]: Names should be capitalized. Comment [D6]: This should be "books". Comment [D7]: Names should be capitalized.

Agriculture was everything to families and the community. They lived off of homegrown foods such as vegetables from the garden and meat from the cows that the families raised. With the economy based the way it was back then it made perfect sense for children to learn at an early age how to help their parents on the farm. This was their way of life. As my grandmothers education continued it still stayed agriculturally based primarily all the way through high school. In her high school they had something that was similar to FFA (Future Farmers of America) today. Each student was required to take at least one agricultural class every year of high school. This made complete since in the time period in which my grandmother grew up in. Lastly, my grandmother was very big on family. My sister and I were her only grandchildren. To her it was very important for us to learn how to read. She taught us how to read at a very young age. She would read Dr. Seuss stories to us whenever we would ask her to. This is a part of her literacy history because she read the books to us and had to help simply explain the stories to us. The stories may have been silly at the time but by her reading to my sister and I our curiosity grew. As our curiosity grew we wanted to read more and more. Because of my grandmothers love for reading she taught us how to read what we love. A literacy history is something that is developed over time. Literacy is not just limited to reading and writing. Literacy is made up of various aspects of a persons life, such as: education, life experiences, ability, reading, writing, and many more things. A persons literacy history is ever growing. As I have discussed, my grandmothers literacy history is ever growing. I had the privilege to interview her and get to know the history of

her literacy and how education plays a role in that specifically in her life. Each of us should explore our own literacy histories. You may be surprised at what you find.
Comment [D8]: Overall, I think your paper is really good. There were a few places that had capitalization errors and there was that one sentence where you were talking about the dog. Other than that, you have a good paper.