Personal Narrative: My Journey Through Literacy

Some of the oldest and fondest memories I have from my childhood are those of my mother reading to me. Before I even began Kindergarten, I remember my mom reading stories to me from children’s books, or making up stories as she went along. I enjoyed listening to the stories and still remember some to this day. She also taught me how to write my name, count, and recite the alphabet. I loved the time I spent reading with my mom because she made it fun, so much so that I didn’t realize I was learning.

In today’s society reading is essential to function. Everywhere people turn they are required to read directions, labels, books, what’s going on in the news, or mandatory rules they need to follow. Just think about if a majority of the world couldn’t read how chaotic society would be.

"I am thrown off my reading game when i am forced to go fast."-Thomas Newkirk For me, reading has always been a obstacle because its hard for me to stay invested in a book.Throughout my years of reading it has become one of my not so favorite things to do unless if i'm interested in it.

In first grade, I had started reading, or that is what I recall as my first time. My stuttering problem was always there, but I was a “great reader” according to my teacher Ms. Brown. She was a kind elderly woman, who wanted to see everybody in her class succeed in reading a whole book. Then second grade came at the snap of a finger. There, I wrote my first paragraph full of “mumbo jumbo”. Even though I wrote my first paragraph in second grade, I did not learn about the writing process until high school. After I left high school, I learned that we had barely touched on the writing process due to a significant place in my life… College! In my first English class (Eng 180), my professor went over the ideas of rhetoric, the writing process, and discourse community. Since my old professor did not go in depth on these topics, meant that they were still fresh in my head with no place to stay. In English 280, we went into full detail on these topics and understood more about the meaning and purpose of them all. I know that the writing process includes brainstorming, researching, proofreading, revising, and etc.; however, I felt like I have been doing it all wrong for years. I have made many improvements to my writing due to English 280, but the skills that I improved in the most were researching and synthesizing.

English has never been my favorite class to take. I was more interested in math because there is one answer to a question and that is it. With English, everyone writes differently. Style is difficult to grade and there is not a yes or no answer to an essay.

My literacy journey had begun earlier than most kids, according to my mother. I started reading in kindergarten, with help with the BOB books and the PBS show Between the Lions. I don’t know when I had started writing exactly, but I remember clearly writing short stories about my cat Stormy in 3rd grade. At that time we had to write weekly short stories, and I only ever wrote about my cat. In 4th grade, I had started exploring writing more; I would write plays for me and my friends to practice during recess. Most of them, I’m happy to say, were actually educational, so my teacher had even let my friends and I perform one about early-American settlers in front of our whole class.

I believe that my literacy past has affected the reader and writer I am today. There is a lot I can talk about that has has an effect on me being the reader and writer I am today. One being the country and environment I lived in as a kid. In Gambia teachers don’t take reading seriously as they should. We as nursery students, focused more on learning how to spell and doing the math and also writing. We weren’t giving much books to read, maybe one or two books the whole semester. And because of that, I wasn’t a fond reader. Regardless of us not given books to read, we were giving many writing exercises so that really helped. My family however thought that reading is very important and because of that, they bought my siblings and I lots of book

A literacy narrative is quite often thought of as a personal account as to how the written word has affected one’s life. My literacy narrative, however, embodies my passion of art to define who I am and how it has determined who I have become. Photography has been a dominant part of my life since I was born; my mom loved to take pictures of me playing and she would get in pictures with me wherever we traveled. She would buy these cheap, disposable cameras in bulk and just let us kids play with them or she would take enough pictures of us that we felt like her little models. Sometimes, she would even develop the film she thought might be promising and add the photos to our baby albums she cherished so deeply. My mom was my budding inspiration for photography, and she is still my biggest supporter today. I have to thank the twenty-first

It’s crazy to think to myself that about this time last year I never would have thought I would be the person I am today. I have grown in many ways I thought were impossible, and gained experience that shaped me into who I am right now. One thing that stands out to me the most though, as I sit here in my dimly lighted room writing my literacy narrative, is that I have learned to not only enjoy fishing, but to love it. Being outdoors, hiking, fishing, etc., have never been something I have enjoyed, or ever been willing to learn. I always thought to myself, “why waste my time outside getting all sweaty when I could say inside with the AC and do my makeup?” but oh have things change, and ever since this summer, my love for fishing has grown into

This week, my literacy narrative actually wasn't that hard to write. Consider, that I recieve quite a few helps from peer review during class. I found the peer reviews to be really helpful. Although I don't really remember what we discussed in class. But having the peer review questions as a references was a really big help. Therefore, I understand what I needed to strengthen my paper on. So, during the writing process, I know what to focus on. Still, it was really difficult coming up with ways of how to connect the story together, making then flow nicely. Personally, I am well aware that the shift of my story is too fast, but I has no ideas of how to connect them together. Since, I hardly write in first person I kind of has no clude on how

Growing up, both of my grandmothers was school teachers who enjoyed reading to me and my cousins whenever the opportunity arose. Many of my favorite memories as a child learning to read lead back to my favorite book my nana would always read to me, The Napping House by Audrey Wood. I would quote the book cover to cover, before actually learning to read, pretending that I was reading in the meantime. My mother also played an important role in my learning to read and write, she and my nana were always encouraging me to read book series like Junie B. Jones, The Little House on the Prairie, The Boxcar Children, Nancy Drew,

My literacy path has a lot of exciting events that happened during my childhood. At that time I was inspired by my mother who was my literary guardian, and encourage me at that path. She was the closest person to me at that time. She has been teaching fine art for more than thirty years at one of reputable schools back home. She didn’t settle for that job only. She was cooperating with many other artist running exhibitions that won awards. Five years ago, my mother was promoted to be a supervisor at the ministry of education of all the art instructors over the region. As child whose literary guardian is an artist, I spent most of my time trying to imitate my mother’s painting.

Diving into past memories is something I am never found of. There is a lot of pain hidden behind some of my past experiences, but also a lot of triumph. It is always interesting to force yourself to retrieve some of those hidden memories. Sometimes the things you remember can be very surprising. Things that seemed long forgotten, can abruptly come back in a flash. The farthest memory I can recall about my own literacy experience is when I began first grade. At this stage, I remember feeling very confused about the whole purpose of going to school. I felt as if I was the only one not being able to keep up with the other children. I didn’t know what was cool, how to make friends, or even know how to play board games like “Candyland.” I was just not exposed to certain things that the other children in my class were aware of prior to beginning first grade. Most of all, I did not like learning. I liked doing things

My first main literacy who be my relationship with God, oh how I need him every day, I could write endlessly about this one, I feel strongly about my connection with the father and it makes me happy to even know the enjoy it has bought into my life .Oh how my soul rejoices every time I think about how much I need him every day he is the center of my peace and I could not start my day without him. He knows my name he is definitely my main literacy every day. The next main literacy would be my job and which I need that in order to live in this world and be a productive citizen in this society. To have money to sustain my lifestyle. My final literacy would be my whole family. They mean the world to me, there is nothing more important to me than

The beginning of the end of my reading days can all be traced back to a young, childish eighth grader receiving the brand-new iPhone 4S. As I sat there in awe of the gadget sitting in front of me packed full of brand new features such as the always useful Siri, I did not realize that within all of the bright flashing lights and constant buzzing there lay hidden a plethora of distractions called apps. I quickly lost myself in the world of the app store. Night after night I stayed up scouring the market for the latest games. Night after night I neglected to glance at the books stacked on my dresser. I stopped reading altogether. Something that had seemed completely impossible a few months prior had very much become my reality.