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Christopher Ramsburg Professor Raymond English 1103 13 September 2013 My Literacy Narrative through the Years During my life, there have been many events and circumstances that shaped my literacy narrative. Many occurred when I was younger, although there are some which happened over the last few years. These include the books I learned to read with, how my teachers taught writing skills and the popularity of technology in my generation, all of which played an active role in shaping my abilities to read and write. My earliest memories of reading are books about machinery and how things in the world worked. Much like Sherman Alexie who learned to read with a Superman comic book (Sherman Alexie), I learned to read with books about airplanes and trucks. While children usually learn to read in school by first understanding individual words and then forming phrases and sentences, I was attracted to books with pictures of equipment and would pick them up and just try to figure out what made sense using the context of the pictures. The more I read these books, the more interested I became in all the different types of vehicles which formed the basis for my passion now with such things. Given that all of my reading at that early age was nonfiction, I never acquired an interest for reading fictional stories. In this way Sherman Alexie and I are very different. As a kindergartner, he would read books such as The Grapes of Wrath, (Sherman Alexie) that helped him developed a vivid imagination and a lifelong appeal for such stories. In comparison, as a freshman in college I still have no interest in any book of that genre.

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My decision to pursue Engineering certainly was influenced by these resultant interests and how they developed from an early age. My early reading interests also influenced how I write. With a mostly nonfiction background, I am better at technical rather than creative writing which is apparent. In the novel The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Lily is a creative writer, a skill she developed because of how she was raised, having to create her own stories for entertainment. On the contrary, I grew up not having to create stories to stay entertained. Rather I would simply read about things that already existed. The parallel here is that while we have opposite writing styles, we learned in a manner which revolved around our activities and environment as children. I struggle with writing, though lately, I have been able to improve with a lot of practice. Often I find that composing a draft and having someone review it during my rough copy phase helps me to improve better than just writing the document and then turning it in for feedback at a later time. In school, I learned to write through short chunks which I now realize didnt allow me to refine my skills and has created a lasting effect on my writing. Today, computers pose a mixed blessing to my writing as well since they provide sophisticated aids to spelling and grammar. Unlike in Lilys time when you would learn to spell by using a dictionary and thesaurus, today as long as you know what a word means you can generally write a story and the computer will help you choose the proper words. While technology can have a significant effect on ones writing abilities, your social class also plays a large role in this. People who grow up in less fortunate homes are more likely to be strong in creative writing. This can be seen when examining Lily, who was raised in a lower class house living with T Ray and Rosaleen. Another factor that affects my writing versus that of others is the writing process I use. I have learned that many people plan their writing in an outline form which allows them to capture

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their thoughts and better organize them. I struggle with the outline approach and thus find it easier for me to free write. In this way I am similar to Lily. Most of the writing she did was from the top of her mind where as she thought about something, she would write it down. In Chapter Nine, when Lily and August go to visit Zach in jail, Lily tells Zach Ill write this all down for you. Ill put it in a story (Monk Kidd 185). Later, when she does write it down, rather than plan anything she just sits down and begins writing. In a similar fashion, if Im going to write a non-technical paper, I usually dont attempt to plan its layout ahead of time as I have found it to be ineffective myself. Again, this is a result of the way I was taught to write where I was never challenged to plan out my writing. In the Malcom X reading he describes where it began back in the Charlestown Prison and learning to write by transcribing the dictionary page by page. This contributed to him becoming exceptionally smart and literate. Interestingly, his skills had little to do with the way he was taught, but rather were heavily influenced by the way he learned. Teaching and learning are very different. One can be taught something by someone yet still have no understanding of the subject. In contrast learning implies that someone has a pretty good understanding of the subject. Unlike me, Malcolm X learned to read based on his writing. Spending so much time writing the dictionary led him to become very familiar with words that many people likely do not even know. As a result, he was able to read more complex literature despite being in jail. My literacy narrative is similar to Malcom Xs in that key event and circumstances in my life guided our learning styles and affected the ultimate outcome of how we read and write. Other events which affected my literacy include moving from Texas to Maryland at a young age and my circle of friends. The move from Texas to Maryland when I was in elementary school had a significant effect on my reading and writing because of the difference in teaching

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styles. In Texas, there was a lot of focus on both what you were doing as well as why you were doing it. What I found in Maryland is that they would give us an assignment but not relate what it was going to mean or how it would affect us. That teaching style was challenging for me because I like to put things in context of why Im doing something. By doing so, I am better motivated to do the assignment without feeling like Im simply wasting my time. The ripple effect was that my grades started going down since I wasnt putting as much effort into the work. Much like Lily, my friends also had a large impact on my literacy narrative in a very positive manner. Working with them helped me a lot to understand more of what I was reading which in turn, led me to do a much better job on the project or assignment. Overall, I share few similarities with the experiences of the characters in the books that we read in class, but recognize comparisons between their learning experiences and my own and how each had an impact on the development of my reading and writing skills, otherwise known as my literacy narrative.

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Bibliography Alexie, Sherman. "Superman and Me." [Los Angeles Times 19 Apr. 1998.] The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues across the Disciplines. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 11th ed. Boston: McGrawHill, 2011. 580-583. Print. Malcolm X Learning to Read smccd.net.web. 1 August. 2013 Monk Kidd, Sue. The Secret Life Of Bees. New York: Penguin Group USA, 2002. Print.