Literacy Narrative: My Development in Reading and Writing

Principal Cannon: “The more you read, the more you know. The more you know, the smarter you will grow.” My Elementary school principal repeated this quote every morning after the announcements. While most kids where talking and playing while she uttered those words every day, me on the other hand, I was absorbing those words and living by them. Reading, growing, learning, and gaining more knowledge by the day. Even as a 17-year-old college student that quote that she repeated still sticks with me and I and still living by it just the same as I did as that Elementary school student. Personal literacy narrative of my past as a reader and writer is long and detailed, mainly because I can feed my mind as much as I want, and it will never get full. The uniqueness of my personality has created a filtration system for all the things I have read and the style of my writing. As I have grown up over the years my abilities in literacy have improved immensely. From the first book that I have read down to this very course have an impact on my relationship and experience with literacy. There is a range of different emotions that I have gone through, but in a short, I can describe it as a love-hate relationship, with ups and downs and twist and turns. Overall, I can say the reading and writing involved in literacy has given me so much; an outlet to express myself, means to improve myself, and material to entertain myself.

At this point in my life, I recognize that I am not as avid a reader as I had once been. All through middle school I always had a book in my hands, always waiting for Wednesday “Library day” to check out my next read. My friends would always ask me “Why are you always reading those big boring books.” They were not boring to me though, the young adult fiction books had me enthralled; for example, my favorites were The Twilight book series and The Hunger Game book series. The fictional lives of the characters gave me an escape to live in their world and to avoid my own where nothing exciting seemed to happen as it did in there’s. It would take me no time to read a book and be on to the next. As of late my relationship with reading is rocky, to say the least. I feel that reading is inescapable in a sense, whether it’s reading a Facebook post or a road sign, but as far as reading things with substance or pages, for that matter, come far and few unless it is necessary. At this stage in my life reading books is not a simple pleasure for me anymore, I now tend to gravitate towards news articles to read about the “Donald Trump’s latest crazy tweet” and local papers to see what is happening in my community. Although I do not read as much as I used to, I will say that reading has exposed me to different styles, genres, vocabulary, and thus has made me a better speaker and a stronger writer.

Writing is very important; it is a way of life and essential to all people in all walks of life, including my own life. Writing is a means of communication and connecting with those around us and has helped me to do just that. When my cousin Bredon went to basic training last year, writing was the only way me and my family could as he would say “keep eyes on him” while he was away. I love to write, once I get a flow going it just becomes so easy to be captivated by the process. I gained most of my knowledge on the process of writing formally as a junior in high school where I completed the Advanced Placement Language and Composition course taught by Mrs. Hairston. On the first day we had 15 students in the class, by the end of the week there were only three of us. From that point on, Mrs. Hairston would always tell us “Your class is small, but not obsolete, there is still work to be done.” Which is exactly what we did, worked and worked and got better and better by each passing day. Before that class, I didn’t really know much about writing examples of a solid narrative essay, let alone a synthesis essay, a rhetorical analysis essay, or an argument essay, but by the end of the course, I could do all these things and so much more. I truly feel I was a stronger writer at this point in my life. Even though most of the material I write are formal discussions and essays, I still find pleasure in the process and even more so in my finished product. I do sometimes find it difficult to get the motivation to begin writing, but I think that is all a part of what writing is. Writing is a long process with several layers to it and it can be difficult at times, but is still worth the effort in the end.

To conclude my literacy narrative essay, I can say there is not an exact moment or just one single person that I can pinpoint that has helped me on this long journey through my relationship with literacy, because there are just too many, but somehow along the way of my 17-year existence, I gained much information, which has landed me here. I am confident in my literacy abilities, but I know there is still so much to learn in this area, so much that a lifetime might not be enough time to learn it all. As Mrs. Hairston would many times say, “This is just the beginning, it may be hard, but in the end, you will be a better.” Literacy is much deeper than just reading and writing; it has given me the tools to be the person I am today with thoughts, opinions, and views and the means to convey them through reading and writing.