Literacy Paper

Wade Webster

Zuzu Feder

Writing 101

9-15-2014

My History of Everything Literacy

Writing has always been a big part of my life. Since I was a kid to now, I have always had a desire to read and learn new information. This information could be in the form of science books or just stories, such as fictional novels. My first memories of books were of my mom reading me a book titled The Digging-est Dog by Al Perkins. This book was my favorite for close to two years, and I would need to have to read to me every night before I went to bed. I had gotten to the point where I had memorized the entire book, and I was able to tell the whole story without even being able to read yet. This was also how I first started to learn my first words. I had been able to talk at a young age but I was also able write and read at a young age, and I credit this all to The Digging-est Dog.

Like I stated earlier, my mom was always a big sponsor for my reading skills and enjoyment of books. Up until 3rd grade we would always read close to an hour every night before bed. We read everything from kids books, such as The Great Fuzz Frenzy, and Ten Little Mummies, to adventure books such as many Gary Paulsen books, which were my favorite. She always tried to make me love reading, and she did just that. She was also a big sponsor in my writing abilities. Whenever I had to write a paper during middle school she would always help me look over the paper and check for grammar and other writing mistakes. While most times we would get in arguments over the paper, we always got it done correctly. This help was very beneficial for me, because it helped me correct my papers on my own. My introduction to writing was similar to learning how to ride a bicycle, and my mom is like the training wheels. She helped teach me how to ride the bicycle, or write, before she let me write on my own. I owe a lot of where I am today with my reading and writing abilities to my mom helping and being patient with me during my learning stages of literacy.

Also during fourth grade, I had a huge love for reading that outweighed everything else. My parents would yell at me for locking myself in my room all day, and told me I needed to go outside and do something active. I was hooked onto the Warrior series by Erin Hunter, which is about a tribe of feral cats that fought other tribes for territory and food. While most people would be ashamed for reading such a book, I am very thankful for reading these books for two reasons; it got me to love reading with a passion I had never experienced before, and it also helped me learn new vocabulary. Reading and vocabulary go hand in hand. If while I were reading a book and I didn't understand a word that popped up, I would go find out what that word meant. Reading was always one of my huge passions as a kid, and sadly it has dwindled over the years due to stress from school and sports and an inadequate amount of time to engulf myself in books and novels. I didn't just love to read short books, I loved to read long novels that intrigued me. Some of these were Firebringer, The DiVinci Code, Watership Down, The Lighthouse Trilogy, and the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series. I also went through a period of reading a lot of war stories such as Unbroken and No Easy Day. This was during a period about two years ago when I had changed my life dramatically, and I wanted nothing more than to be as tough as these individuals. I had no aspiration to join the military in anyway, but I envied their toughness greatly. Allowing myself very little time to relax and forcing myself to go 100% in everything I did, I had made myself into a mock warrior, at least I thought so. I changed my life due to books and these authors heroic stories of their adventure and sacrifice to our country. Having a book or a genre of books change your life is extremely invigorating, especially in this day and age, when most people are changed by either drugs, sex, or money; it is great to have changed due to a very honorable source. While books have changed my life in many ways, there's still one person outside of my family that has influenced my reading and writing dramatically.

This person was my 11th and 12th grade English teacher, Mrs. Montgomery. Through grammar class and AP English, she taught me not just how to read and write properly, but she also taught me how to enjoy reading again. She helped teach me that reading shouldn't be a required portion of homework but an escape from reality. It was a time to let my imagination run wild and postulate opinions and possible answers to questions I had come up with while reading. It helped me finally understand what I was reading in a shorter amount of time, which was very nice noting that I was involved with extracurricular activities and had very little time or energy at nights to complete my homework. I also learned how to write like I do today. For years beforehand, I had always been taught to write papers in a five paragraph essay form and to use the pyramid technique for the intro and conclusion, but Mrs. Montgomery taught my class that it didn't matter what the format was as long as it makes sense, and you are able to get your point across. I loved this more than anyone would expect, because I had always compared writing papers to a machine. You would enter information where it was supposed to fit like an assembly line. Now with this new type of writing style I was free to make whatever choices i wanted to make about how my papers would look. I remember specifically my first paper in this style was an in class essay over The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. I had about 50 minutes to write the essay, and it only took me about 40 minutes to write more than I had ever written before. I felt so free and capable of writing anything that came to my head. Transitioning from a feeling of having very little control and ability to put forth your own imagination into your own paper to having total control and desired imagination and voice was very smooth. It was like I had been freed from the chains of the writing style I had been taught for over four years.

My reading and writing over the period of my life have increased quite dramatically. While most peoples do also, I feel that I had an accelerated learning due to all of my sponsors such as my mom, my individual reading and my high school english teacher. I had always had so much assistance when it came to reading and writing that I rarely had to struggle through much of my developmental stages of language in school. I also had such a huge drive to read that I never once dreaded reading at school or at home. It helped me to learn new words and write my own stories. I am looking forward to learning even more in my writing class this semester and adding onto my knowledge of writing now. I wish I could see what my progress will be at the end of the semester now.