VanDyke 1

Rebecca,
In my draft, I found it a little challenging to start my narrative. I did not know
how to write this memoir without just restating every point on my timeline that I
previously turned in. After picking out at least four key points, I found that it became
really easy for me to elaborate on those points and make them flow in my paper. I am
sure that I want to keep the paragraph on Harry Potter books because I see that as a big
contender to where I am today, in terms of motivation and improving my literacy,
however, I feel like I need to revise my introduction a little more because I was not sure
how to include some of the things we read in class like the guideline suggests, and I feel
like I could do better on that. The only question I really have is am I sticking to purpose?
I usually struggle with that and I want to make sure that what I am saying seems relevant
to the point of the assignment.

VanDyke 2

Comment [R1]: You want feedback on your

introduction, integrating sources from class,
and sticking to the purpose of the assignment.

Hunter VanDyke
Professor Rebecca Agosta

Comment [R2]: Excellent MLA. Be sure in

your final draft to not have this space between
this part of your document and the header.

UWRT 1101-029
8 October 2015
My Life in Literacy
Literacy, for me, was a long journey filled with, fortunately, more ups than downs. Most
people begin reading and writing at an early age, and luckily, I was among that group of children.
In class, we were assigned to read an article by Deborah Brandt. In this article, Brandt
introduced the term sponsor to us, which turned out to be a big part of my literacy journey, I
just did not know it. An article that meant nothing to me a month ago, opened my eyes to the

Comment [R3]: I thought this part was well

executed, as it led the reader to your main teme
of the essay: opportunities/sponsors that helped
shape your ability to read and write.
I think the part that sticks out was the in class
line because it makes the reader very aware
that this is written within a class. I wonder if
theres a way to incorporate a quote from
Brandt that will bring up sponsors rather than
acknowledging it was an assigned reading. It
could even be talked about as something you
read recently, which wouldnt be as distracting.

realization that I was actually blessed to learn such an ordinary thing- reading and writing.
Although everyone learns how to do both, I was oblivious to the fact that these two things are
based on opportunity. With that being said, here is my story.
I would classify my grandmother as my main sponsor. She was a first-grade teacher
before I was born, up until about six years ago. Seeing that she taught first grade, the prime age
for learning how to read and spell, put words together to form sentences, and so on, she took it
upon herself to teach me earlier than age six. I remember the day pretty clearly for a toddler. I
was almost four years old, about eight months away from starting preschool, when my
Grandmother stopped by my house one day to bring me a present. Not knowing it was an
educational program, I snatched the small box filled with discs, the movies, out of her hands

That said, if you want to overhaul your intro, I

want to free you from the burden of explicitly
referencing the readings. In class I mentioned
how our examples, for the most part, did not
quote other people. Instead their stories just
displayed what we had been talking about. For
example, Malcolm Xs story discussed
opportunity, motivation, and sponsors without
calling them these terms. Instead he just
showed us these things within his story.
You can discuss opportunity and sponsors
without formally naming the readings or
formally naming people as sponsors.
Removing your acknowledgement of that
reading would require you to rework other
parts of your essay, because if you do use the
term sponsor then you should quote or
reference Brandt.
Comment [R4]: You have two spaces after
every period. This was something I was taught
in high school too. Its generally accepted now
to only do 1 space, and you may have some
teachers that will not want you to use two. You
might make a note to ask teachers about it
when completing assignments.

VanDyke 3
and immediately went to put it in my DVD player. She explained to me that these movies
went in the computer and they were going to make me smart. Of course I agreed, who would not
want to watch movies on a computer? She plugged in my earphones, told me to sit down, put the
disc in the Mac computer tower, and turned on the program. These educational programs were
called Jump Start-Preschool, and they did just that. I did not know it yet, but I had a literal
jump start in reading and writing. Over the course of those eight months, I would spend as long
as my attention span would let me on the computer, even if it was just for thirty minutes a day. I
vividly remember the animated creatures talking me through small words such as dog, and
building up to small sentences about dogs. There were also small reading quizzes which
consisted of remembering small sentences and typing them out after seeing a few. I was in awe
that a rabbit was teaching me how to say and spell words, and I loved it.
By the time I started kindergarten, I could read small sentences faster than the other

Comment [R5]: Interesting. I have a couple

early computer programs that I could point to
as important too. I wonder.. did your
grandmother ever work with you on this
program together or was she more of a link
someone who introduced a resource to you?

children, and that evolved into me being the only one in my class who could read small books
meant for beginners in first grade. I could not understand why my teacher always called on me
to read words to the class, or spell other childrens names. I thought everyone could spell their
own name and did not know why I had to spell it for them. Little did I know that they were
amazed at the fact that I was ahead of the other children, and they had no idea my Grandmother

Comment [R6]: And I have to imagine that

other kids would learn from you or be inspired
to be able to do the same.

was the one to thank.

Every Friday in kindergarten, we would meet with our Reading Buddies, who were
also known as the fifth graders. We would sit in the library in the small bean bags and they
would read us a book of their choosing. One Friday, my buddy decided to read me the first
chapter of her Harry Potter book. Considering I was reading small picture books at this point, I
could have cared less about what she was saying. However, I was crazily intrigued by the size of

Comment [R7]: Ha, I like this scene. It was

more so the unknown/idea of such a long story
that was interesting.

VanDyke 4
her book. It was huge! I knew that I was going to read those kinds of books, and even bigger
ones one day.
In third grade, I had my chance. The next two years were filled with reading books, such
as Junie B. Jones and Magic Treehouse, and participating in small class spelling bees. I enjoyed
progressively reading bigger books and winning some of our spelling bees. I was still reading
bigger books than most children, and it gave me a sort of drive. I still knew that I had to read
Harry Potter books in order to be the smartest. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Shaw, took us to
the library in hopes of encouraging the other children, who had read Junie B. Jones twenty times
for weekend reading, to branch out. This is when I knew I had to read Harry Potter. I ran along
the wooden bookshelves to the Fiction section and hurriedly tried to find Rowling before
anyone else. I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone, and could almost feel myself
getting smarter. The stories and fantasies in those books were so intriguing! Over Christmas
break, I read two more of the books, and had finished the series by February. Amidst my Harry
Potter phase, third grade was also the year that we were introduced to Reading Counts tests.
These tests were small ten question quizzes that tested our comprehension on a particular book.

Comment [R8]: You associated it with being

smart because of the 5th grader? Maybe in the
previous narrative you can add that you
thought someone would have to be really smart
to read such a big book.
Comment [R9]: I suggest a paragraph break
here. Youre shifting the focus.
Comment [R10]: Does one ever get out of
their Harry Potter phase?

If we made a fifty or below, we failed the test and had to take it again in order to receive credit
for reading the book. These Harry Potter books not only provided endless of fantasies, but also
a certain amount of points. The bigger the book, the more points we acquired and added onto
our Lexile scores. This fascinated me. The fact that I could enjoy big books such as these, and
acquire an insane amount of Reading Counts points, was more than exciting. This motivation
drove me to read bigger books, and more series, such as Eragon and Little House on the Prairie,
just for the reason that I knew I could obtain the most Lexile points and be at the top of my class.

Comment [R11]: This makes me think that

you are the creator of these tests dreams. They
so badly want to make it motivating, and that
worked for you. It makes me wonder if you
ever picked books that didnt have high points
but that you wanted to read.. or did the points
truly correlate to great books that pushed your
imagination or experience of the world? I
suppose Im wanting to see a critique a
questioning of how this ultimately shaped what
you read, how you felt about reading, and what
you think about reading for points/awards. It
doesnt mean it has to be a negative critique,
but everything so far seems to tell a story as
things that happened, and the critique would
help you fulfill the purpose of the assignment
connecting these experiences to larger culture
(and here larger cultural values of reading and
education).

VanDyke 5
No one was into the point system quite like I was, other than a few other of my friends, so for a
while I was at the top of my grade, as far as having the most points.
I believe that if it were not for this motivation, I would not have survived my senior year
AP Literature class. After skimming by with low As in High School honors English classes, I
knew if I wanted to stand out in my college applications, I needed to step up my game because
Harry Potter was not going to cut it anymore. In fact, I had not read for fun since third grade.
Once I grew out of Reading Counts and realized that I was not always going to receive points, all
motivation went out the window. So, then came the day I had dreaded since I received my senior
year schedule. It was late January, and also the first day of second semester, I sat in a cold desk
chair right by the air conditioner in a room covered with colorful student projects and perfumed
with coffee. I was so nervous I could hardly stand it. As I looked around I saw half of the top
ten of my class and I felt nauseous. I just knew I was going to fail; however, Ms. Carr walked in
with a warm, motherly smile on her face, and I immediately felt a sense of relief. She then told
us to take out a piece of paper and write about The Kite Runner, an assigned book for the start of
class, using three literary devices. I had no idea how to even start, but I was sure that I would be
fine from that day on, and I was right. Over the course of the semester, I received rather good
grades on assignments I had never even thought about doing, such as poetry essays and
SOAPSTones. Ultimately, I ended the course with a ninety-five, which was higher than some of
my peers who were in the top ten. I felt ecstatic, and like I could write analytically about
anything. Ms. Carr helped me tremendously during those five months I spent in her class, and I
could not thank her enough for adding onto my list of sponsors who benefitted, and bettered, my
literacy.

Comment [R12]: Ah so you kind of

anticipated my questions above. Im
wondering if you can make it more apparent at
the end how this has shown you what kind of
learner you are or how certain environments
shape you. It seems like you are
knowledgeable about how competition, points,
recognition push you to do better (and I think
thats the case for many), so it makes me
wonder what your own goals are with literacy
skills, and how you figure those out when
theres not a system creating those goals for
you.

VanDyke 6
As you can see, my literacy journey was, thankfully, one that most people would describe
as something filled with endless support and opportunities. If it were not for my Grandmother,
unexpectedly encouraging me to read and write at such an early age, I strongly believe that I
would have never developed the drive and motivation for striving to be the best I could be
literacy wise. Likewise, Ms. Carr, allowed me to openly take on assignments I would have never
thought I could write about no matter how unfamiliar and scary it is, such as this memoir. This
reflection on my literacy journey, and reading articles about others experiences, has opened my

Comment [R13]: Perhaps give a direct

example about how Ms. Carr helped you in the
previous paragraph so that we understand how
important she was. Right now you are telling
us, so work on showing us as well.

eyes to the importance of sponsors and using literacy as a motivational device.

I think you can take this from a story about
your sponsors to a deeper level story about
sponsors and how they impact motivation and
how that affects you as a learner. You can do
this through showing, through the style you are
already using. A lot of that work can happen
through an added sentence here or there
throughout your essay. I think your voice
comes through strongly and is very controlled.
It seems like you know what you want to say
and what your reader to think. Now you can
work toward hitting a deeper purpose for this
assignment to not only tell a story about
literacy development but within it to come to
connections about systems in
communities/cultures that shape the kinds of
learners/communicators we are. Your
community can be American education, as that
seems to tie all your stories together.