My Literacy Journey
English 1301
My Literacy Journey I’ve always had the desire to write beautifully, from penmanship to placement and flow of the words. I remember getting birthday cards from my Granny with elegant cursive writing. Attracted to the way each word blended so smooth and soft, I would get a piece of paper and mimic the slants of each word connecting each letter, more like one lowercase “l” after another, to the next. One day I’d be able to spell the words in my mind, and until that day I’d practice my “cursive” one squiggly line at a time.
Penmanship was the first to spark my interest in literacy, but the words and descriptive details my mom and dad would read in our bedtime stories also struck a fire in the desire to know more. I remember “camping” with my best friend, who was also my next door neighbor, in our backyards telling ghost stories. Holding a flashlight up under my chin, I’d start in a mysterious voice, “Once upon a time, there were three little pigs,” telling a very short version of the three little pigs. I would struggle to remember the details of the story to make it spooky. I knew words like “big and bad,” describing the wolf, meant he was scary. These simple details in my childhood were essentially the beginning building blocks to my literary future. As I write this, I have my four year old niece sitting next to me saying, “Wow, you have a lot of drawing on your page!” All I can do is laugh to myself and think that was once me, not knowing the meaning of each word and innocently intrigued by the simple presence of words on a paper. This interest would soon turn into the curiosity to read. Hoping to read as gracefully as my mother when she read bible stories before my twin sister and I would drift off to sleep, I was devastated to find out I didn’t read as well as the other children. In fact, I had to be pulled from my reading class to a remedial class with one on one interaction between the teacher and student. As disappointed as I was then, I’ll
My Literacy Journey I’ve always had the desire to write beautifully, from penmanship to placement and flow of the words. I remember getting birthday cards from my Granny with elegant cursive writing. Attracted to the way each word blended so smooth and soft, I would get a piece of paper and mimic the slants of each word connecting each letter, more like one lowercase “l” after another, to the next. One day I’d be able to spell the words in my mind, and until that day I’d practice my “cursive” one squiggly line at a time.
Penmanship was the first to spark my interest in literacy, but the words and descriptive details my mom and dad would read in our bedtime stories also struck a fire in the desire to know more. I remember “camping” with my best friend, who was also my next door neighbor, in our backyards telling ghost stories. Holding a flashlight up under my chin, I’d start in a mysterious voice, “Once upon a time, there were three little pigs,” telling a very short version of the three little pigs. I would struggle to remember the details of the story to make it spooky. I knew words like “big and bad,” describing the wolf, meant he was scary. These simple details in my childhood were essentially the beginning building blocks to my literary future. As I write this, I have my four year old niece sitting next to me saying, “Wow, you have a lot of drawing on your page!” All I can do is laugh to myself and think that was once me, not knowing the meaning of each word and innocently intrigued by the simple presence of words on a paper. This interest would soon turn into the curiosity to read. Hoping to read as gracefully as my mother when she read bible stories before my twin sister and I would drift off to sleep, I was devastated to find out I didn’t read as well as the other children. In fact, I had to be pulled from my reading class to a remedial class with one on one interaction between the teacher and student. As disappointed as I was then, I’ll