Life, Literacy, And The Pursuit Of Madness
My history with literacy has somewhat of a rough past. I’ve never been known to write spectacular, moving essays or stories that will leave you wanting more. Most of the time when I am assigned a writing assignment, I accomplish the requirements that were asked for on the paper and turn it in with little creativity and detail as possible. This approach hasn’t really prepared me to write this essay so well. But I always write to my greatest ability and hope for the best. I guess I’ll start with my earliest memory of literacy.
In intermediate school I had always loved going to class and learning new things. Having the ability to learn and find out new information always interested me so much.
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My favorite subject was history and my least favorite was English. I remember walking into my new English class the first day of 4th grade. The classroom always reminded me of Christmas morning due to the strong aroma of cinnamon, which was Mrs. Valentine’s favorite scent of candle. So my first impression of her was a good one so far. Then after a week of getting used to everything she started the lessons. I never really understood her methods of teaching as well as the other students did. I was sort of the black sheep in the classroom, and Mrs. Valentine definitely realized this after we turned in our first paper. She told me to speak with her after class about helping me individually with my writing. Of course I accepted her offer eagerly. The following afternoon I made my way back to her class after school was done for the day. I came to find her with big drawn out posters, covered in nouns, verbs, adjectives and more. Her classroom was much larger and noticeably quieter than it was during school hours. Which gave off a very isolated feeling of me being alone with my English teacher, I was starting to get cold feet about the whole one on one session idea. Although I thought to myself that one afternoon couldn’t do any harm. As I approached Mrs. Valentine, I noticed a more determined look on her face. She didn’t even take notice that I had entered the room. With a lump in my throat I whimpered, “I’m here Mrs. Valentine.” “Take your seat” she said sharply. Hesitantly I made my way to an isolated desk that was centered in front of the white board. I sat down and pulled pencil and paper from my Dallas Cowboys back pack. With a sudden flick, the lights shut off and the class projector lit up like a lighthouse on a rocky shore. The silhouette of my teacher shadowed across the board. “You need to pay close attention to every thing I say during our time Jake” She snapped. “Yes Mam” I choked out. Appearing on the board were several sentences that seemed to have some sort of incorrectness to them.
She explained that three times every week, I will report to her class room after school and correct and re-write twenty sentences. In order of practicing this so often and frequently, that I will soon write nothing but flawless sentences. And that is exactly what I did. Every week I would correct sixty sentences and leave. All year long I repeated this until it was seared into my head what a well-written sentence consisted …show more content…
of. Towards the end of the school year I had became a fairly decent writer.
The last few weeks of every year we had to take the greatly feared “TAKS” test. I was extremely nervous about the writing portion of the test. So the night before I went to bed at eight o’ clock sharp and woke up early and ate a good balanced breakfast, ready to dominate this test! Waiting for the test to be handed out I had butterflies in my stomach, my palms were sweating and I looked like my dog had just died. Basically the perfect description of someone who is not ready for a test. After slaying through hours of questions and writing, I was finally finished. Around two weeks later the results had arrived. Mrs. Valentine called each of us to her desk to privately inform us of our score. Finally it was my turn to figure out what I had made, with a deep gulp I asked her what it was and she proudly said with joy that I had been commended! I shouted “REALLY” and she nodded eagerly. I was so relieved; a big weight had been lifted of my shoulders that day, and raised my hopes for writing in the future. All because Mrs. Valentine actually cared to help me, and to that I thanked her for all her help. English become somewhat of a second nature to me all throughout grade school. Everything was going great until high school came along. It seemed as everything had to do with literacy, not just English, but also math, history, science and even
sports! Quite often in sports literacy is used to signal plays and calls to inform players on what to do. In high school I participated in football and basketball, both sports required me to learn multiple signals. During two-a-days in August, our coaches nearly killed us by making everyone memorize each and every signal. If coach called a play and we didn't know what it was then we had to run for it. He brainwashed those signals into our heads, even today I still know every call. Literacy can be repetition and memory. Our motor functions have literacy, the ability to tell someone something and they understand what I'm saying. The dozens of different ways to express literacy just amazes me. A series of bumps on a page can be translated into literacy; brail is another astonishing form of communication. It enables people who cant see a thing read messages without a voice having to read it to them. Literacy is one of the longest lasting skills we have. Ever since hieroglyphics left by the ancient Egyptians, cave drawings from the indigenous Indian tribes that founded this country before us. Art and poetry from the Romantic Era opened our eyes by expressing literacy through the form of art and culture. All of these have been translated through generations to today, where I can express my writing in a multitude of different forms. Some times having so many ways to write can make it quite complicated. At least that is what happened to me my senior year in high school. I signed up for the duel credit English class that my school was offering, in hopes to get a head start in college. All of my friends had done the same thing so I wasn't really alone in the class, which gave me a little bit of relief. The first week of school my teacher assigned a four-page essay. All of my classmates and I were shocked, we had never written an essay over two pages long, and now she's asking us to write four. Ill admit that I was starting to doubt if I had made the right choice by taking this course. Over the next few weeks I started to get the hang of it, writing excessively, staying up all night just so I could meet the deadline of my next p But I noticed my writing progressively getting worse, and so did my teacher. I had gotten to the point where I was scribbling down words, trying to take up blank space in order to meet the word count. Plus, work from my other courses didn't help with my stressful writing either. I ended up having a talk with my instructor and dropping the class. I was ashamed and not too proud, but to keep my GPA from dropping, it had to be done. I was put into a regular English course with the other average students in my grade. The work was less stressful and I began to improve my writing again. The teacher of that class was a lot less hesitant to work extra time with me if I had needed it. Finishing the class with an A average and boatloads more confidence. I found that literacy isn't measured by its difficulty; it’s measured by how well you understand and comprehend the idea of it. That is the key to being a successful writer. So overall my history with literacy wasn't necessarily a good one, but it wasn't all bad, and it certainly isn't over. I intend to keep improving and learning new things to become a more developed writer.
Deborah Brandt, in " Sponsors of Literacy", argued that class and race can impact how much access a person has to literacy sponsorship. She spoke of Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez who both lived in the same area, but due to their uncontrollable circumstances, had different amounts and forms of literacy sponsors. As I read this article I found myself between both Branch and Lopez's situations. I agree with what Brandt said and for that reason I will be joining her in the argument. I'm currently a freshman in college and one of the classes I am enrolled in is philosophy. One of the things we have been going over is deductive arguments and whether they are valid and sound. An argument can be valid, but not always sound. For an argument to be
Through this same lens, I chose to take classes that helped diversify what I learned so I always stayed interested and never found class tedious, just as Curious George would in his adventures. Outside of school, I keep myself in check by traveling and trying new things because on top of my natural curiosity, I am a true explorer. Like George, I love the enjoyment of participating in what life has to offer, even though it may cause mischief along the way. After all, satisfying curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in
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
Literacy sponsors “are powerful figures who bankroll event or smooth the way for initiates” (Brandt 167). Literacy sponsors are people who help to shape who we are in the future. They provide their skills to help us learn or better understand ideas and abilities. Anyone can be sponsor, as long as they help influence a person’s understanding or knowledge of certain concepts or ideas. “In whatever form, sponsors deliver the ideological freight that mist be borne for access to what they have” (Brandt 168). Everyone has literacy sponsors, we may not realize it at first, but thinking back on my life I have thought of a few literacy sponsors who have helped shape me into who I am today.
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
Throughout my childhood I was never very good at reading. It was something I always struggled with and I grew to not like reading because of this. As a child my mom and dad would read books to me before I went to bed and I always enjoyed looking at the pictures and listening. Then, as I got older my mom would have me begin to read with her out loud. I did not like this because I was not a good reader and I would get so frustrated. During this time I would struggle greatly with reading the pages fluently, I also would mix up some of the letters at times. I also struggled with comprehension, as I got older. My mom would make me read the Junie B. Jones books by myself and then I would have to tell her what happened. Most
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
Literacy embraces reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Integrating all of these into a literacy program is key. Teachers must provide endless and ongoing opportunities for their student to read, write, listen, and speak.
Writing is a form of communication that has changed over the years, whether that is the way it is used or the meaning it has for some people. In the generation that I grew up in, writing has been around in many different ways, such as texting or instant messaging friends. I remember using Facebook at an early age and communicating with my friends and family through a different form of writing. Compared to my elders, the way they were taught and the way they used their writing has changed immensely. Since I grew up in a newer generation than them, my writing experience has been partially different in a good way. My literacy narrative will reflect that difference.
Literacy is defined as “the ability to use available symbol systems that are fundamental to learning and teaching for the purposes of comprehending and composing, for the purposes of making and communicating meaning and knowledge” (Stock, 2012), and it is one of the most essential skills that an early year student will learn. Literacy serves to provide the building blocks for the continued knowledge acquisition and general education of individuals of all ages; by working to understand and identify how and why literacy is taught using the structured literacy block format in Australian schools, and in identifying the benefits of utilizing this type of tool for teaching literacy in student’s early years, it will be possible to gain a better understanding of the organization, planning, and teaching approaches that are used in a literacy block approach. A sample standard literacy block will be provided, offering the means of understanding the applications of the tool, which will serve to further stress the necessity of this tool’s usage.
A comprehensive approach to literacy instruction is when reading and writing are integrated. This happens by connecting reading, writing, comprehension, and good children’s literature. A comprehensive approach to literacy should focus on the many different aspects of reading and writing in order to improve literacy instruction. This includes teachers supporting a comprehensive literacy instructional program by providing developmentally appropriate activities for children. Comprehensive literacy approaches incorporate meaning based skills for children by providing them with the environment needed for literacy experiences. This includes having a print rich classroom where children are exposed to charts, schedules, play related print, and
...that was the best I could mange at the time. She would like to try to teach me how to not procrastinate but I don’t think that will ever happen. There is no fun in writing anything unless you are doing it last minute at twelve in the morning.
Being literate defines who I am, and forms an integral part of my life. From the practical to the creative, it aids, and enables, me to perform the tasks that modern society dictates. I shall explore the many aspects of my life that are affected by literacy. Through this, understanding in greater depth what it means for me, to be literate. I would not be writing this essay if were not for the pathways being literate.
This class has been significantly more difficult than any other English class I have taken all throughout high school. This semester, I have been introduced to different styles of writing that I have never been exposed to before. This class has been stressful, but also fun. With using all of the resources I have been given throughout the semester, I have been able to do my best to further my writing abilities and hopefully only continue to grow them as I finish my later years in college. Throughout this essay, I will discuss my failures, my successes, my overall performance in the class, and my skill development skills.
In our schools today, literacy should not just be a task for the English or Reading teacher. Instead, literacy should be a shared venture by all teachers within all content areas. Teaching literacy in all content areas is important because a teacher with a solid understanding of teaching literacy in his/her content area will tremendously help all students achieve greater success on class assignments and standardized assessments. There are three main points that surround the idea of teaching literacy in all content areas. Teachers need the necessary skills and knowledge to teach literacy, once the necessary skills and knowledge are gained then there is justification for teaching literacy across content areas, and