Grace Conrad 9/9/13 English Literacy Memoir

What is literacy? One basic definition of the word simply cannot fit every person. We all have different backgrounds, teachings, and surrounding cultures that can influence and even define how literate, or rather illiterate, we are. Is literacy just a level of basic reading and writing skills or is it even beyond that? Can it include speech, skills needed for a job, basic survival skills for your culture, or even a videogame? To me literacy is simply the ability to read, write, speak, and communicate properly with those around you. Becoming literate in your surrounding community can take a large amount of time to properly accomplish. I know it did for me. I could state my literacy event as the over-played scene of going to school as a child and becoming literate from that, but my true literacy events did not happen until much later. That is not to say that my early years of schooling did not help with my literacy. My kindergarten and first grade year I was homeschooled. My mother taught me every letter of the alphabet and every digit in our numbering system. I learned how to spell, how to read, and how to write in both printing and cursive font. In kindergarten my mom gave me a book that was a compilation of Aesops Fables for children. I loved that book! I always begged her to let me read ahead, bus she always refused. After we had read the whole book together, I always would read it on my own over and over again. I read it to my dolls, stuffed animals, or just aloud to myself. After that I began to like reading and read books

all the time. My mom was quite impressed with my reading level when I reached first grade. Second grade and up helped me build on those skills with weekly spelling quizzes in elementary, and daily grammar lessons every year through high school. Schooling helped me achieve my basic reading and writing skills. However, I think that being truly literate in our culture takes even more than that. I am sure that my music abilities helped with my learning as well. For six years I learned all of the notes and chords of the grand piano. Each week I would practice to perfect my newest pieces or songs before moving on to another sheet of music. Every page, every bar even, required deep concentration and thought. I would scan over a note and depending on where it rested, I would hit a corresponding key in response. As I continued doing this, a song made its way out. I do not think knowing how to play a musical instrument necessarily makes one more literate, but I do believe it can help to develop those literacy skills even more so. In the United States we are entitled to our own beliefs and opinions. In my high school years, I learned what my own beliefs were about skeptical topics. Choosing where my thoughts lied was only the beginning though. Now I had to learn how to argue for my opinions, and stand up for myself through the art of speech. I learned valid and invalid arguments. Finally my personal literacy was developing. That year I also had an assignment of writing a rather long poem about nature. At first I dreaded the project, but once I actually sat down and began

writing it it was enjoyable. The words came flowing out onto the paper. I closed my eyes and imagined the scene, using colorful words to paint it. Now I had a better understanding of how to describe and explain things. My big project of the year was a huge thesis. With this project, I had to combine all my learned literacy skills to make the ultimate paper. I used my basic reading skills to do page beyond page of research. I used my basic writing skills to take the information I found, and turn it into a long paper. I used my debating skills to not only form an opinion on my topic, but also to take that information I had gathered and use it to back me up. I used my poetry skills to perfect my wording and make all of my points clear and exact. Lastly I used my speech skills to present my finished product as a speech in front of many students, teachers, and parents. For me, my personal literacy did not start accumulating until I was an eighteen-year-old student in high school, but what I learned that year will never leave me. I built the abilities to be an in-depth and opinionated writer, speaker, and thinker in my culture. To me, that is being literate in my culture. So do I consider myself literate? Yes I do. Do I find myself more literate than others? Not so much. People can be literate in their own ways, depending on their backgrounds, education, and ways of learning. I dont think it requires much to be considered literate in todays society, but the more you try to perfect it , the better off you will be. I am both very glad and thankful to be literate, and I wouldnt change that about me, even if literacy was not necessary in my culture and society.