Zach Hegler

September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

My Development of Literacy
My first development as a reader and writer began in kindergarten when I first started
learning. Through the stages of grades I learned more and more each year. I remember in third
grade is when I first learned how to write in cursive. I didnt write much in cursive after the
third grade so Im surprised I remember what I know from then. Through the years we would
always do vocabulary test and quizzes to further advance our language and words for better
communication and understanding. I would also learn words naturally from hearing family,
friends, and television. There were many different ways I developed as a reader and writer.
Most of someones learning experience begins at the young age. www.rif.org states that
Most children develop certain communication skills as they move through the early stages of
learning language. I remember before I even started school my parents had all these
educational toys as a baby like the buttons you push that match the color that you pressed. Also
the wheel where you spin it, the arrow will land on an animal then state the animals name and the
sound it makes. They also had books that would talk to me as I was reading along with the
words. I would sit on my parents bed and pretend I was reading what the book was actually
telling to me. I understood the words and thought I was actually reading the books, but without
the voice reading aloud to me there was no way I would have been able to read by myself. But
because of the electronic books, and conversation, I was soon able to read on my own. After I
started kindergarten is when we started from square one. This is when all of the reading and
writing skills would begin to escalate quickly. We first started with letters. Learning the
alphabet and the sounds of each letter was probably the most critical part in learning to read and
write. Like without the alphabet we wouldnt be able to truly understand what we are reading.
After learning the alphabet we learned to connect the words to one another to make small words.
This increased my vocabulary and got me started on the basic concept of how letter and words
work. Although I knew words and what they meant, learning letters and sounds made it easier
for me to understand different words that I have never seen before. And the words we learned
would get bigger and bigger as we went on through the year. The only true way to get better was

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

to practice. And thats exactly what we did throughout our years of school. We practice reading
and writing through every grade, adding more and more knowledge each year.
I first remember doing stems in the sixth grade. From the sixth grade up we would have
stem test to learn parts of a word even if we didnt understand the whole word. Stems are where
you get a prefix from words, and you name the meaning of the word. For example pre- means
before, like prehistoric means before history, and pre-game means before game. Stems are a
great way to have an idea of what a word may mean. So through my grades in school I feel that
seventh grade helped me in my reading and writing skills more than any other time. I had this
teacher, Mr. McMahan. He was my teacher English teacher, and probably one of the most
difficult teachers I have ever had. He was hard on all of his students, but he also showed he
cared about his students. At the top of every paper we ever wrote (which was lot of papers) we
would have to write There is greatness inside me in the top left box. Im not really sure why,
but this was one of his ways of teaching, and making us believe in ourselves. And every
weekend we would have a minimum of two page essay due the next Monday. We not once got a
break from an essay. Not over Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, or anything. He would
also time us on our reading and assign us a number of pages we must have read each day and we
would keep track of our reading in logs that he would come by and check each day. We would
walk into class, get out our reading logs, and then he would have a topic on the board and we
would free write as much as we could as fast as we could. After he checked all the reading logs
he would call time on the writing journals and we would then count how many words we wrote.
Each day we were supposed to have a higher number than the day before. It was an exercise to
get us thinking, and to train us to write faster to help us out for whenever the time comes to takes
notes in the future whenever the teacher/professor is moving fast. As far as our writing essays
we had an outline paper that we filled out, and each week we would have a test, at first some of
the answers were already marked on the essay outline, and some were fill in the blank, and as
time went on he would take sections off of the outline test, and towards the end of the year we
were filling out the whole outline without any words already being on the paper. We eventually

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

memorized the layout of how we were supposed to write essays. He had us writing with an
introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion to sum up the main points. That is
probably my favorite way to write essays considering I have worked on so many that way. The
way Mr. McMahan taught has developed me into the reader and writer I am today. I am not the
best, but I could be a lot worse.
Not only has school developed me as a reader and writer, but my community has affected
me also. My community is a big place that has affected me because that is where I spend a
majority of my time. Im from Kings Mountain and that is where I learned everything I know
about reading and writing except for what I have obtained from the internet and television.
Digital sources are a good way to develop reading and writing. I know one of the main
television shows for developing young minds now are Dora the Explorer, and Mickey Mouse
Clubhouse. These shows get children started on learning literature skills at a very young age. A
age where they would not be able to learn in the classroom. The show use to always be on at my
house because of my nephew and I really believe it will help develop his literature abilities.
When I was in school using digital technology we would always use funbrain, englishbanana,
and websites like that to learn digitally. Sparknotes and Schmoop were also websites that have
developed my reading skills. I have spent a god bit of time reading from these websites and the
only way to become a better reader is by reading.
Another thing that has developed my literature as a reader and writer are my friends. The
people I hang around affect how I use everyday language, which affects the words I out onto
paper. Back in elementary school we had these things called AR (accelerated Reading) points.
Each book had a certain amount of AR points. The bigger books, like Harry Potter; were worth a
lot of points (around fifteen plus), and smaller books are worth less points since they dont take
as long to read. We had a certain of number of AR points we had to get at the each of each
month in order to receive a grade. At the end of the year the top students with the most AR
points would get to go do something special. Whenever I went to elementary school the top five
students would get to go in a limo to this restaurant called Fatz that was about thirty minutes

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

from the school. The students rewarded would get a free ride in a limo and get a free meal while
the other students were in school. These students definitely had to earn the reward though. AR
points was one of the main reasons I read whenever I was growing up. Without it being a
grade/us getting rewards, I wouldnt have read nearly as much as I did. Im not the type that can
read for fun (even though I wish I was). I feel like avid readers tend to have a better writing
skills, and a wider vocabulary than people who dont take advantages of books; who watch the
movies instead of reading the book (like me).
Junior year of high school is when all of my reading and writing skills would be tested.
This was the test that all of my skills would be put together to write the ultimate paper. At Kings
Mountain high school every junior was required to write a junior paper which was a research
paper on a topic of our choice, but it had to connect with what we were wanting to do our senior
project on which made picking a topic twice as hard. We could pick any topic we wanted, but
we had to write a six to seven page research paper on the topic we chose and writing six to seven
pages about one thing was a great challenge. But everything I learned from beginning of time to
now was all going to be used in this paper. From letters, similes, metaphors, paragraphs, periods,
etc. I did my junior paper on history. It was all about the history of the world and what history
meant to us as individuals. Because without history we would know nothing about the past and,
and would be vulnerable to making the same mistakes that we did decades/centuries ago (The
Great Depression). Just like without knowing history I wouldnt be able to know/understand
how reading and writing came about. Nobody would know the reason things are the way they
are, and thats why I chose to do my project on history because it is a pretty broad subject, but
my junior paper led me to my senior project.
The senior project was something all seniors had to do in order to graduate. Since my
junior paper was on history as a whole I had to do my senior project on history. For my senior
project I volunteered at the museum in town. The director of the museum Adria Focht, had me
write a paper on the history of King Mountain. Within that paper I had many different topics
like the hospitals history, doctor history, market history, banking history, etc. But without the

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

use of my writing and reading skills I would not have been able to graduate. My reading and
writing skills that I developed helped me to be where I am today. Not only did my reading and
writing abilities help me to pass, they also developed while working on these big projects. I
believe writing develops with practice, and those two papers were a whole lot of practice. Junior
paper and senior project were definitely the hardest papers I have ever wrote. And honestly I
think my seventh grade teacher prepared me for those papers more than anyone/anything else.
The reason I dont take my literacy skills for granted is because of experiences with my
family. My family is intelligent and everything, but when it comes to literature I would have to
say thats their week spot. Whenever typing up letters, resumes, and stuff like that they need
assistance from me, or my sister (whos in the tenth grade). Their spelling is off, and their
sentence structures are not the best. My parents/grandparents didnt get to grow up with the
education I was blessed to grow up with. My school, family, and community has made me the
writer I am today. My family encouraged me to keep learning and to do the best I can. My
teachers cared and did what they were supposed to do (and more) to enhance my literature. I am
thankful for everything my education program and community did to get me where I am at, and I
plan to continue to grow.

Zachary,
Well done! I enjoyed reading your narrative! I think you including a lot of interesting
ideas in here. It is very clear that you credit a lot of different sources with helping you become
the literate person you are today, and thats wonderful. Its nice to see that you feel yourself to be
the product of so many caring people.
Some things to think about for your revisions: While I appreciate that you have a lot of
influences, there are simply too many mentioned in this paper to give each its proper depth and
exploration. You need to think seriously about narrowing down your topic to perhaps one or two
influences so that you can give the appropriate detail to each. Perhaps, you can talk about your
English class and then talk about how that prepared you for your junior and senior papers and
project? You should be able to accomplish this and still meet the length requirement by
formatting this paper to the conventions of a narrative. Remember, this is supposed to be a story
about your literacy journey and should include vivid details, resolution, and significance. Really
think about how all of these people and practices have affected you and your opinions/ abilities
to read and write. Create scenes, include dialogue, tell an entertaining story about your literacy,

Zach Hegler
September 3, 2014
UWRT 1101

not an essay. I would definitely recommend making an appointment with the Writing Center;
they can help you narrow this down and fit it to the format of a narrative.
Ghost grade: C