My Literacy Journey

I have very few recollections of my early years and the 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 grew 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 obtain the level, skills, habits, and processes that I use as part of my literacy

As for what majority the prompts were, I cannot recall, however there were simple prompts. On the other hand, I do recall reading and having to write a page after each chapter of the books from the Hazelwood High Trilogy by Sharon Draper. As it was the first time I had ever had a formal writing assignment, I had writer’s block for a majority of sixth grade year. It was not until seventh grade when I was actually capable to write with limited restrictions. In seventh grade, my writing skills started to increase. I had more complicated assignments, and my new homeroom/English teacher (which I still think hated me deep down inside), essentially made reading dull but writing enjoyable. My teacher would make us read stories from the textbook and over analyze the text, which was where my love for reading began to dwindle. On the other hand, I started to like writing and the fun, easy prompts the class was given. The prompts were easy to write about and allowed me to make creative stories without numerous difficulties (before I actually learned the rules for formal writing). It was not until eighth grade when I finally began to learn the proper structure of a sentence, grammar, subject-verb agreement, and the restricting formal rules of writing. Although, I fell asleep majority of my 8th grade English classes, I was able to still able to learn somewhat from the

In my English class, I wanted to do well and ultimately became competitive to be the top student. I would read several passages, plays, and books through the year and at all times write as much as I could for the essays. My overall goal was to prepare for the ACT during junior year and earn “Advanced” score on my EOC/Benchmark scores. Hence, any writing techniques I could learn from my teachers, I would. I learned a majority of my writing skills and techniques in my sophomore and junior honors English classes. During my sophomore year, it was the first time I was in an honors course and it challenged me with writing even more. The summer assignment for the class was reading the book “A Separate Piece” by John Knowles and to complete and A, B, C of literacy techniques and elements, which was simple enough. While beginning the assignment, there was what appeared like a heap of unknown and new words, which left to question if the class was for me. By the end of that one assignment, I learned several new literacy elements and techniques that I would go on to enhance my writing as well as add new vocabulary to my everyday conversations and papers. My sophomore year also required a good amount of writing for state standardized tests. In my Honors English II course, for a certain score on the standardized tests, the student would receive extra credit points for class. Parallel to when I was in