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Kevin Buscemi ENC 1102 Professor Wolcott August 29, 2013

My Quest for Literacy A Literacy Narrative

Writing and reading were often two words that I dreaded hearing while growing up. As a child, I found myself often having difficulty following along with in class readings, and zoning out during required writing assignments. I simply didnt have the patience nor the attention span to read or write boring texts based on some sort of educational topic in school. In defense of me, I was very young, and the majority of children my age were more focused on the latest Spider Man movie as opposed to reading the mandatory and boring texts our teachers forced us to read. At a young age, growing up in a modern American family with two successful parents, I was almost always being taught something about the English language. I felt literature was forced upon me and despised it at a young age; yet this all changed when I made the huge transition from Elementary school to Middle school, where I matured greatly and started to understand the importance of literacy. I can give credit to my mother who provided me with guidance for my first steps of literature as well as my most influential teacher, who both served as sponsors to me in an effort to change my view point on literacy. As a child my father would often work very late nights, and as a result of this my mother was nearly always by my side. This is typically how it is in American culture and because of this my mother was the first person to introduce me to the English language and the reading and writing behind it. I can remember at a very young age how she would spend numerous hours

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each and every day attempting to teach me English. She essentially introduced me to literature, as together we would watch education videos, read children books, as well as practice writing and reading each letter and some minor words. I was young and it was hard for me to understand what was actually going on but before I knew it I was able to read and write much better than the majority of children in my elementary school. I was immature to say the least, and often complained to my mother about how much I disliked reading and writing. It seemed like a chore or job that I was required to do, and it actually required effort and labor to perform, so I was much more set on playing with my latest toys and video games. Despite my hate for the subject, I still performed well in school because I knew performing anywhere below my parents expectations would not be good news for me. Next thing I knew I was graduating elementary school and preparing myself for the next major leap forward in my education. This was the extremely hyped move from elementary to middle school and I was nervous to say the least, as I felt I would most definitely be overwhelmed. I had envisioned it from the child hood movies that I watched as being full of strict teachers, lockers, and hundreds of students. When I arrived, my expectations of middle school were exactly correct and being that I was in honors classes my teachers were moving along with the course material at a very fast pace and in a serious manner that was not present at all in elementary school. I was not used to having multiple teachers, seven to be exact, and there was one teacher specifically who made this transition a bit easier while having a significant impact on my view of reading and writing. Her name was Ms. Buck, and she was my sixth grade English teacher. She had the reputation of being very stern and serious about her education and to be honest I was a tad bit afraid of her. However, when she began teaching I actually found what she had to say to be very

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interesting to me. She displayed reading, writing, and all other components of English to me in an entertaining manner, and told us to view it as a hobby rather than a job. I had never attempted to view literature in this sort of way, and I was shocked to think that with her engaging and affective lessons I was actually enjoying reading and writing. For example, for the first fifteen minutes of class each day she would force us to read some sort of novel of our own interest, made us write daily journal entries, and even taught the entire class how to write in cursive. Ms. Buck emphasized each and every day how reading and writing should both be things you enjoy to do, not things you are forced to do. She explained how there would be mandatory books we would have to read within class due to the course curriculum, but also noted the importance of reading out of enjoyment during ones spare time. Reading out of my spare time was something you would never catch me doing, until Ms. Buck influenced me to give a novel of my interest a chance. This novel happened to be Harry Potter, and before I knew it my eyes were glued to that book each and every day. I found it to be extremely entertaining and I even started to get a better grasp on the English language and grammar while reading, so this was a win-win situation. From this moment on I was more open minded to things related to literature and for the first time in my life I could actually say I enjoyed reading, and my new perception of literature would benefit me greatly down the road. According to Deborah Brandt, a sponsor is someone, usually a teacher, parent, or other peers, who has a significant impact on ones view of literacy. In this case, my mother and Ms. Buck would fall nothing short of being my sponsors, and I can truly thank them for their effort and influence on my view of reading and writing. My mother taught me the basics of literature, such as the alphabet, some minor words, and even how to write using proper grammar and sentence construction. Ms. Buck then influenced my literature in a much more serious way,

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explaining how important it is to read and write, especially in our generation where people rely on an education to eventually get themselves a job. I can most notably thank her for opening my mind up to the art of writing and letting me see it as something that I can benefit from as well as enjoy. When I arrived in college, and enrolled in ENC 1101, all of this had really paid off for me. I was so engaged in my class and found every little aspect of the course to be wonderful. Due to my sponsors influence on me I crave the opportunity to further develop my reading and writing skills as I know it will be a great help for me down the road, no matter which career I pursue.

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Works Cited Works CitedBrandt, Deborah. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 49, No. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 165-185.