Ibrahim Almadani

UWRT 1101 Mrs. Thomas

9/18/2014
Second draft

Reflection: Before I wrote my essay I had to bring a sheet of paper and a pencil to write down
every single thought that I may write about. The challenging part was about gathering my
experience from the past until now because I was trying to remember how I was thinking when I
was a child, and what kind of things that affected me and changed my way of thinking. My strong
part in the essay is I gave a lot of examples that can describe my situations, and I gave a deep
explanations on every single thought to make sure the reader will understand. I tried to connect
between the dots as possible as I can. Before you read what you think about reading a paper for
someone who is not from your country, and who does not have the same culture as you have?
When you read my paper please try to compare your experience with mine, so you can reach the
point that I am trying to explain.


Reading is The Key to Discover The World
Being a literate person is very important for success in this life. When I was a child I always
asked myself. How can we be literate is it just about spending time for doing reading? Literacy is
a main part of education in our modern societies. We can learn from our mistakes, but sometime
mistakes could be harmful for our pure soul, so instead of learning from our mistakes we can
learn from other mistakes by reading. When reading a story or reading about history we will read
about all the experience that people encountered in their life, so that means the consequences that
people faced may have deep meanings on them, that may teach the reader a lot of experience
even if he did not have the same story. He can prevent himself from being mistaken in his future
because he already has an idea about what is going on. For me literacy is beautiful thing that
taught me a lot in my life. My history in education is still ongoing since I was a child, but now
the meanings of it are different for me.
I am from Saudi Arabia, and my country is located in the Middle East, and it is considered as
a very hot country. The main language in this country is Arabic. When I was child I hated
literacy. I did not like to read maybe because I did not really understand what I had been reading
about. I only liked to read small articles or reading proverbs and sayings. For me I do not like to
read about one thing. For instance, reading just about philosophers and their achievements. What
I like to read about every new thing for me such as technology, history, science, world policies,
or astronomy. I have older siblings they always have taught me, and always encouraged me to
read. I also liked to watch documentaries about wildlife or about dinosaurs because they are
visuals and I can see more details.
When I was in high school in my country Saudi Arabia. I reduced my time of reading because
I was concerned about my future, and I had to focus more on my classes. In my country we have
to take at least fourteen to seventeen classes per year and they are divided by two semester. The
classes were about science, languages, and my language grammar and literature, religion classes,
and art classes. I was just reading articles from the internet. I spent a lot of time on videogames
when I was in high school, and that is why my I was not reading a lot that time.


After I graduated from high school I applied for a scholarship to the US. When I arrived to
United State to study my major electrical engineering everything in my life has changed because
of the differences between my country and the United State different culture, language, weather,
food, music, and clothes. It was a whole new life for me, and I had to learn a lot of things.
Learning English was just about grammar or how to pronounce the vocabulary. Learning a new
language is learning about the people who speak it. I learned a lot by watching Americans TV
shows, and understanding the phrases that been used in commercials. Also when I go to a
restaurant or gas station I had to learn how to ask for the things that I need on the way that
people usually do for not being awkward because not everyone understands the feeling of being
away from you country.
By the time I am in the US after my language has improved. I began to read in English
because reading in English has two benefits learning more English, and learning a new things. I
am not fast in reading as native speaker, but I still can get it. When I started my college life I
realized that I have to read more and more because if I want to be successful I have to gain more
education.

Literacy now has a different meaning for me because each time I learn more I will see more
things that will seems more complicated than what it were before. Literacy for me is like a light
bulb in the dark room that the more the light is stronger the room will appear to be larger, and
this how life looks like. Everyone in this life have his own perspective that he can see the world
from. When I realized that I stopped judging people because of what they are doing, and I start to
listen to them and ask for reasons. After I tried to be like that not all the time Im right even if I
am right maybe the person who I am talking with does not know the fact that I know because he
has a different life perspective.
Also, when I read about history I can understand what was going on then I understand
that the people who live before us were the same, and they had exactly the same feeling that we
have such as: love, hate, sadness, happens, anger, shyness, anxiety, and envy, so I learn a lot
from their experience because it is the same but only one difference between us and them and
that thing is technology, and I mean the new way of doing. I took the chance to read about
people experience after I read am just going to think about it because the more I think the more
solutions I will get.


Literacy has impacted me in the good way. I am happy because I spent time on reading, and
for understanding life more. What I believe is all human are the same but they born in different
conditions. They can understand each other by education, and knowing about all the
circumstances between them, so people will be nice with each other, and they will respect each
other. Also, Literacy teaches self-discipline, and valuing the time that mean being successful.
In conclusion, literacy is a part of me that I want to make it stronger by hard work, and
tough times. As I am getting older the life will get harder because there will be more
responsibilities that I have to take care of, so I think before doing any new thing in my life I have
to read about, and I have to ask people about their experience to make mine better. Knowledge is
power, so I have to exploit it before the time goes on, so I do not want to regret anything I will
do in the future.