Eubanks 1 Cody Eubanks Leslie Wolcott Composition 2 8/31/2012 Literacy development is a process which is shaped by various forces such

as sponsors, accessibility, appropriation, and social status, however, while specific institutions and motives are deeply entrenched into modern literacy education systems, such involvement went unnoticed by myself, and remain unobvious to students today who are entering the advanced world of literary understanding. It was not until recently that I began to really question societies motives for my literacy acquisition, prior to questioning these motives I had assumed learning to be literate was just a process of life, almost a necessity such as learning to walk or talk, but now I realize the economic and political implications and advantages of a literate society, as well as the positive attributes of evolving such a community. For me, my true literacy development began with my entry into elementary school, prior to this my knowledge of reading and writing was somewhat developed as my brother, who is three years older than me, was entering the second grade as an above average English and reading student. While I was no stranger to the principle of the alphabet, flashcards, and oversized pen and paper, which I had seen my brother use, I lacked the analytical skills of understanding any applicable use for literature, and viewed the idle time my brother spent staring at pages to be a waste of daylight. Eventually though, my thoughts concerning the action of reading and writing transformed as the introduction of simple well illustrated stories altered my perception towards the practice. This began with the memorization of a simple story by studying the pictures and then connecting said pictures with words and phrases of the text. The most prominent book I recall using this method on is If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. My brother and parents all recall reading that book to me and watching me attempt to guess at the words as the pages turned, and over time I was able to independently read the book to myself. The book became a trophy, a symbol of my intelligence, which I frequently read to close family friends and grandparents. While my literacy skills were far from developed at this point of my life, I had a false sense of my reading

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abilities until I was asked to read a different book, one which lacked the picture, word, phrase connection system which was a science in my first book. This new literature was a name book purchased for me from my aunt. It featured me, Cody, in a set of adventures with my imaginary dinosaur friend. This customizable book was a novelty that sparked my interest due to its insertion of myself, mainly my name, into the text. Perhaps this is the first true example of a book I independently read, and it was the story which was told not only by the pictures but mainly by the text. Following my introduction to general literacy skills, my influence from large scale institutions and sponsors concerning literacy became evermore apparent. Events hosted both by my elementary school as well as the local library for interactive storytelling, writing exercises, and practice became a common occurrence in my weekly schedule. The goals of these sponsors, as introduced by Brandt, a notable English professor specializing in literacy research, were to gain both political power, in the case of my elementary school, and economic stature, in the case of my public library (Brandt). At the time of my participation within these literacy development methods I was unaware of the institutional goals which overshadowed the teaching activities. Perhaps the goals of these institutions were harmless towards my literacy acquisition and evolution, however I now find it interesting to discover that school standing, library funding, and even teacher stature from test scores were the foremost and underlying motives of my main literacy sponsors. Not only does this revelation reveal the implications of a literacy based society, being political and economic desire, but it also invites me to analyze the changing literacy requirements expected from higher education students. As a student who attended school through the public education system of Florida, I have been subject to the repetitive nature of mastering standardized test taking skills, especially in writing, and in my opinion, this portion of time in my education was harmful towards the evolution of my English literacy career. Until now I had not taken the opportunity to gather my thoughts on the degrading

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nature of such tasks. The rewards of my testing career only yielded high test scores, resulting in economic profit for the school system, as well as local political prominence for the successful administrators of the testing material. I believe that the formulaic processes of writing which standardized tests force students to compute restrict their ability to achieve gains in literacy understanding and evolution. In high school, my literature and language classes were fixated on the achievement of high testing scores on a final exam, and due to this overarching goal of the course I felt that much of my time was spent studying the exam rather than the true pillars of literature. Despite the goals of the course, my teacher Mr. Faulkner took a great amount of time attempting to expand my classs minds towards the complexities of storytelling, as well as the reasons of why we write. Due to this teacher, being the best of my high school career, I was able to make significant gains in my analysis skills of writing, as well as my understanding of complex literary works such as Shakespeares Hamlet. Overall literacy achievement, for me, has been ongoing processes sense my older brother began to study the building blocks of literature. While it hasnt been until recently that I have taken the time to collect my thoughts concerning my literacy evolution, upon the study I have come to realize the mass number of influences which society, my family, educators, politics, and economics have had on my knowledge of literature, as well as the level at which I am able to analyze literary works. In summary literacy for me is a growth, which over time allows for a deeper understanding of social connections, and through these understandings, reveals itself to be the foundation for an efficient society centered on the development of deeper, more diverse applications for various literacies.

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Work Cited Page

Brandt, Deborah. "Sponsors of Literacy." College Composition and Communication 49.2 (1998): 16585. JSTOR. Web. <http://links.jstor.org.sici?=0010096x%28199805%2949%3a2%3c165%3c165%3asol%3e2.0.co%3b2-b>.