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Christopher Anderson Miss E. ENGL 1101-073 27 September 2013 Trials and Tribulations: A Personal Literacy Narrative From a young age I was taught that literacy is defined as the ability to both read and write literary works and understand spoken language. As one progresses through grade school its crucial to recognize and allow oneself to interpret, relate, and draw complex conclusions from any work; by doing so you enable yourself to further your own personal literacy. Ive become the scholar that I am today thanks to a combination of both positive and negative experiences, trials and tribulations, and my ability to use these experiences to shape my literacy. The way I look at understanding ones personal literacy is that its a never ending pathway to enlightenment; a path that is twisted and turned, stretched and widened; a path thats manipulated by both outside pressures and personal experiences which are unique to each and every person. This is the story of my personal literacy, a story full of the events and people that have shaped me as a scholar and shaped my ever evolving personal literacy. In order to understand my own literacy I recollected the first memory that I have of reading and writing. I was in the first grade; my teachers name was Ms. Stone, a soft-voiced, kind-hearted, motherly figure who was adored by all her students, especially me. It was a calm September morning, I was excited for my upcoming birthday which was later that month and shared my angst with my class. I told the class about what I wanted for it, and what I was going to do for it in great detail. Just another average day as a seven year old, but that day the world

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would change, that day the history of not only the United States but the history of the modern world was written. That day was September 11th, 2001, the day the United States was attacked by enemies of the state in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of Americans and other people worldwide. I first began to notice something was wrong that morning when students began getting picked from school, at first only a few. After an hour went by only four students remained including me, this was when my teacher began trying to explain to us what was transpiring. The other students and I decided to how we felt about what was happening, this piece of writing I have to this day. We wrote how we felt, what was going through our heads; we asked why someone would want to carry out such an act. This was the first piece of writing that required me to think critically and apply myself to what I was writing; not just write the usual small-minded journals about eating pizza or hanging out with friends. The words I wrote expressed deeper thought and cognition, especially for a seven year old child. I believe this event is the single most influential to me in terms of how my personal literacy has been shaped over my lifetime. In addition to my 1st grade writing experience, my father has helped to shape my literacy throughout my life in a variety of ways: such as editing a paper, helping with an English project, even showing me how to think critically when assigned complex literary assignments. My father has been a resourceful and reliable guide on my everlasting journey to become more and more literate. In a popular movie titled The Matrix, a main character named Morpheus said, Im trying to free your mindbut I can only show you the door, youre the one that has to walk through it. This quote is interesting in that literacy is the same way, or at least thats how I see it. You can teach someone to be literate, you can tell someone to be literate, you can even show someone how to be literate, but in the end its up to an individual to become literate for

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themselves. Its up to an individual to actually apply themselves; by doing so they will discover their own personal literacy. Its called personal literacy because its personal; its specific to an individual, specific because of an individual of personal experiences that have shaped their literacy. Furthermore, my high school experiences have vastly shaped my own definition of literacy in many ways. In high school we all have gone through many trials and tribulations, tests of our morals, beliefs, and ethics. Through the many classes, study halls, pep rallies, football games, lunch times, parties, road trips, tests, and projects my own literacy was unknowingly being shaped and molded. Specifically, my English classes helped to teach me and many others how to think abstractly and that being able to read and write isnt the end of the road so to speak. In my viewpoint the road doesnt end, our literacies are constantly changing and being shaped, the definition itself dynamically changing. High school taught me much about what I think I know about literacy and has certainly shaped me as a reader and writer. Overall, since the day I learned to read and write to the day I die, I am constantly experiencing unique events that shape my personal literacy. In conclusion, literacy in my opinion is an ever-changing set of skills that an individual obtains through their own personal experiences. By analyzing your own personal literacy history, one can learn how you became the scholar you are today, and how to further your literary skills in the future; by doing so you can be more successful in school, the workplace, and in every day life.