My Personal Literacy History Has Changed Our Lives

When times are filled with despair and unhappiness, we are driven away from the comfort of our mental home, and there is no greater relief than emerging one’s self into an activity or person that grants us a dry place to survive in life’s created storm. We turn to these things until the storm passes, and while we wait, we often discover something worth bringing back home. For me, my safe haven, my anchor, my shield against the rain, was reading books. Reading has opened many doors for me, planted seeds of new perspectives that I wouldn't have ever grew myself if I hadn't found the words and stories that nurture them. The luxary of reading has been taken away from many because of war, hate, and ignorance over the course of mankind, and I understand

Our view of literacy upon commencing this course, was that it is the ability to read and write. Our understanding of it however was partially true because, reading and writing are essential of any person’s literacy, but reading and

In the society of today, one of the most vital skills to have is literacy. It seems like our whole lives revolve around literacy.

Literacy the ability to read and write, it’s the overall structure and the very support for people to learn. Without it, our world would cease to exist. Every day, people are reading words, helping the learn, by doing that it will help them be a successor in life. Many people, including myself, say that they don’t like reading and writing, but in reality it’s everywhere. Literacy is something you see though everything: newspapers, books, television, and even though social media. Being able to understand your own literacy improvement is very difficult, remembering memories from starting to read and writing now being a college student in an English class. I was taught this in high school, in order to identify your own literacy, break down and remember back to your younger years.

• You are very aware of the importance of writing as a vital skill. You agree that “literacy” ecompasses much more than just reading and that

What is literacy? What does it mean to be literate? And can anyone be a literate person? It can be hard to decide who is literate and who is not basing on today’s world standards of “Literacy”. Literacy might not be as simple as we think it is could be, because it’s "not very well understood" (Scribner, 1929, p.6). Scholars and researchers have been looking for the “umbrella definition” for literacy. A definition that explains the general idea of the concept. Moreover, it was hard to connect all the different concepts of literacy to be presented by one comprehensive definition. To illustrate it better, Sylvia Scribner (1984) the writer of the article “Literacy in Three Metaphors” split the “yet unfound” definition into three concepts. Literacy

The idea of determining one's literacy based on his or her capabilities to read and write is widely debatable, with many academics claiming that with growing technologies and dynamic environment, only people who can learn, unlearn, and relearn would be considered as literate. This essay agrees with this statement and will explain the reasons for supporting this, along with supporting arguments, followed by a reasoned conclusion.

For the first big writing assignment in English, we were asked to interview someone and talk about their literacies. My first thought was right along the lines of “what is the point of this”. I didn’t understand how learning about how someone else established their writing and reading habits would be beneficial to me and my habits. It wasn’t until I started interviewing my partner when I realized the purpose of this paper. My partner, Janae, looked at literacy completely different than me. I was taught to read by my mother when I was 4 years old and was always told to read and write to better yourself. “Do it to better yourself.” This was my view on literacy until I met Janae. During our interview I asked her why she reads and writes. After all of the typical answers I expected to hear, she said, “So I can help others.” Initially, I was a little puzzled by that portion of her response. I had never heard someone put it that way before. I had her explain what she meant by the strange comment shortly after I put my thoughts back together. She stated that in her future career as a nurse she will need to communicate with patients and their distressed families, and the only way to communicate efficiently is to have a solid literary base. This was the motivation and drive behind all of her reading and writing.

Deborah Brant, who is an English professor at the University of Wisconsin, conducted a research on literacy, resulting in the article, Sponsors of Literacy. In this article, she defines a sponsor of literacy as “agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy - to gain advantage by it in some way,” (Brant 556). A sponsor, much like a teacher, guidance counselor, siblings or mentors, can have an affect on a person’s literacy. While conducting her research, Brandt interviewed many people, all varying in age and different backgrounds. By doing this, Brandt was able to engage and observe whether they all had a different way of adapting to reading and writing, but also if social economic status, or SES, affected the way they became literate.

Since the 1980s, Scholars have continued to argue that there is more to ‘LITERACY’ than just the ability to read and write they pushed that there is also a cultural and social approach to literacy. The most prevalent understanding of literacy to all is that, it is a set of tangible skills of reading and writing that are independent of the context in which they are acquired and the background of the person who acquires them. This essay explains in detail the critique of the Traditional view of literacy by Scholars, the merits and downfalls of redefining the traditional view of literacy and why LITERACY is indeed more than just the ability to read and write.

Literacy, in my eyes, is the way we identify with and comprehend the world and the various works of literary value. From the beginning of my existence, I believe my literacy has compounded upon itself to bring me to my present state. I will measure my different literacy stages in parallel with the type of schooling I went through (i.e. elementary, middle, and high school). As my literary power grew, the significance at which it held to me personally, also rose. Therefore, I will be measuring the direct relationship between the significance and power of my personal literacy.

You might have read stories about one’s literacy, when they started to learn reading and writing, what challenges did they face, what opportunities they had, and their extraordinary stories to success. Bill Gates as an example, he had this family as a bridge towards his success. His journey to literacy started when his family sent him to a private school; one of those only schools of the time that had computers. His family fully supported him that made him who is today. Moreover, he was sent to the college where they had computers. He had the privileges of being financially supported, being born at the right time and place, and having opportunities. However, my story to literacy is completely different. I was born in Afghanistan, but when I was only one year old, we were immigrated to Pakistan because of civil war. There was no education for immigrants in Pakistan’s public schools. Therefore, groups of immigrants, like us, came up with the idea to open a school for the children; with no professional teachers, no professional environment, and no resources. I learned reading and writing from a group of people or parents struggling and trying to teach their future generations literacy, trying to teach us survive. I learned the most not from the books but from their own personal life experiences. I studied elementary school in Pakistan, secondary and high school in Afghanistan; yet another country

The importance of literacy has been with me since before I was even born. From the memories of my first teacher, my mom, I was read to in the womb daily and listened to music by headphones that were on her stomach. The words from my loving mother and the music from the headphones were just the beginning of my journey to become more literate as I move toward the future.

Where to begin? Literacy has been in invaluable part of my everyday life since I was a child. Whether public speaking, writing or reading; I can say that all three of these areas have been vital parts of my life that have been developed as time went on. However I did not accomplish this alone. Whenever there was writers block I always managed to find a source of inspiration. There were teachers, friends, and family who were always willing and able to guide me and motivate me to accomplish my goals. Throughout everything I can truly say I am glad that I have made it to today.

I have very few recollections of my early years and at what exact age I was able to read and write. Some of my earliest memories are vague on the topic of my literacy. However, I do remember small memories, such as, learning how to write my name in cursive, winning prizes for reading, and crying over every assigned high school essay. Over the last twelve years my literacy has grown rapidly with the help of teachers, large school libraries, my family, and so on. There is always room for my literacy skills to grow, but my family’s help and positive attitude towards my education, the school systems I have been a part of, and the horrible required essays from high school helped me obtain the level, skills, habits, and processes that I use as part of my literacy today.