English 1103 Digital Portfolio



Nat LawlessEnglish 1103Literacy NarrativeSeptember 6, 2013 The Ups and Downs of LiteracyFor me, literacy has always been up in the air. Throughout the years, I have come across literacy in terms of reading and writing many times. I find literacy to be a very controversial subject that can go one of two ways. One way is that I love reading a particular narrative or I really enjoy what I am writing. When this happens, I tend to be successful in either the reading, with being able to fully understand the story and being able to look into the deeper meaning of the novel as a whole, or the writing, with the creation of a good flow, diction, tone, and actually answer the prompt well and completely. This is due to the fact that, when I like an assignment, I can get into it. That in turn allows me to do the very best I can while reading or writing. The other way literacy can go for me is very poorly. I will get lost while reading because I will try and go back in the novel in an attempt to understand what is going on in the novel currently. If I am not into the book, I struggle retaining the information and making connections. Same goes for writing. If I cannot understand the prompt clearly, I know it is going to be hard to write about since I do not know exactly what to get passionate about in my writing. Back in elementary school, where my journey all began, my first big experience dealing with literacy was in the fourth grade. I was very fortunate to have such a great teacher and personal literacy sponsor at such a young age. Her name was Ms. Jones and she was all about bringing the creativity out of her students. Since the style of writing was creative writing, Ms. Jones’s teaching technique worked out perfectly. In the fourth grade, the school board gave out a huge writing test and if you did not make a good score, you could not move on to middle school. So my fourth grade class focused primarily on writing because it was so important. Come test time, I felt prepared and ready to go. When my test scores got back I was very pleased to find that I made a five out of five on the writing test. Looking back, it may seem like it is not that big of a deal but through my eyes, it was one of my best accomplishments. I was invited to my school system’s district office along with the other students in the district that made a five. They threw a party where I got to go up and shake hands with the superintendent and others on the board, and I got an official award from them. It was a life changing experience. The party was a huge confidence builder with my writing. My outlook on writing changed so much that for a few years I actually considered becoming a writer when I got older. Ms. Jones and my Mom were so supportive of my writing through this period of time. It made me feel very successful and accomplished in my work. Instead of agonizing over writing, I welcomed it. For the first time in my life I actually enjoyed writing.The other aspect of literacy that affected me during this time in my life was reading. In the fourth grade I started reading a series called Pendragon by D J Machale. Pendragon was the first series of books that I read on my own time and I really got into them. I was captivated by the story. I found the series to be very well written for as young as I was. This was the first time I found myself not being able to put a book down. I found it funny that when I was assigned reading for school, I dreaded every minute of it, but when I could read on my own at my own pace I did not want to stop. When I finished each book, my mother and I would sit down and discuss the events that took place and make our guess about what would happen next. She was usually right about her ideas on the story. This is how my mother became a literacy sponsor for me. I thought it was really cool that my mom read the books with me. Being able to analyze and share a book like that with someone else is a great and very enjoyable experience. I read all nine books and Mom and I could not wait for the tenth and final book to come out. Now my brothers reading them and it is funny to look back and talk to him about the series and ask his opinion about it. Reading Pendragon helped boost my reading skills and it started developing my ability to look into books deeper in an attempt to find the hidden meaning behind the story. My literacy sponsors at such a young age were very important to me. When someone is young, their opinions on things change to fit those who the young person looks up to. In my case the influence of my opinions of literacy were surrounding Mom and Ms. Jones. This positive influence in the beginning of my life on literacy motivated me to continue on writing and reading throughout the rest of my elementary school career. Mom and Ms. Jones being so supportive can be seen as a social and cultural influence. These literary sponsors can be seen as a social influence because they pushed me in my reading and writing skills till I succeed in both subjects. Mom and Ms. Jones can be seen as cultural influence as well because for me, they help improve my reading and writing skills to meet my culture’s standard. They set the bar and helped me reach it. During the fifth grade, I was still really happy about my writing. Being part way done with the fourth Pendragon book, I was inspired to write a story of my own. The only problem was that I had no clue what to write about. One day I was talking and laughing to my friends and it hit me. “I’ll write a story about all my friends” I thought. So the next few nights after homework I got to work. Over all I wrote five or six short stories about funny fictional adventures I would have with my friends. The next week I brought a few of my stories to school and I let my friends read them and they loved it. They laughed and asked me to make more and include some others in it as well. It was a great feeling to see everyone's smiling face after they read my adventures. I could not stop writing. I wrote so many that the teacher even heard about it and asked to see a few that I was finished with. Even though my fifth grade teacher really was not that great, she was still very supportive of my creativity. Over all, these stories represent a great time in my life. I felt appreciated by my peers through my writing, and my teachers would even tell my parents about how great they thought my abilities were.Over the summer of sixth grade, I went to the beach with my friend Carlos. Even though it did not turn out well, I still consider Carlos a literacy sponsor of mine. One night he told me a heartbreaking story about how his best friend died a few years ago. He was so upset about it. I really wanted to make him feel better, so I turned to writing. Like therapy, I thought if I could write down Carlos’s story, then he would not have to hide his pain inside of him anymore since it would be on paper. As soon as I got back home, I got to work. I started writing and I got a few pages in but then I found it harder and harder to write about as time went on. I kept rereading my work thinking that it was not good enough to heal Carlos’s pain of his lost friend. I became upset every time I sat down and tried to write. I found that I could not convey the beauty of my story in my writing like I wanted to. I just got stuck to the point I could not keep going. I was so angry with myself that I threw the start of Carlos’s story and all my short stories into the trash. I just lost all faith in my ability and I stopped writing altogether. I really wish I had not done this. It really put a damper on my writing from then on out. My passion was replaced by my failure.My ambitions in writing were very personal to me, whether I was writing about my friends in general or a heart breaking story about Carlos. These literary sponsors were sponsors to me without even meaning to be such a big influence on my writing. My friend’s positive reaction to my fun little stories about them motivated me to write more. Carlos’s sad story inspired me to write when all he want to do is get it off his chest, not get someone to write about it. My friends in the fifth grad could be considered a social and even cultural influence. They were social because they egged me on to write more with their positive attitude and they are a cultural influence because my stories were widely accepted throughout the class which gave me a since of popularity or importance. The culture of the people who enjoyed my stories encouraged me to keep going. Carlos could be seen as a social and emotional sponsor to my writing. He was a social influence because he was my friend and I cared about his story so much I wrote about it. He was an emotional influence because I could see his emotions were torn apart by his story and I was effected emotionally by his story as well, so much to the point that my emotions made me write it down for him and me both. In middle school, writing and reading was not an important part of the curriculum. I basically coasted with my literacy skills until my English class, sophomore year in high school. My teachers just did not challenge me enough like my elementary school teachers did. They were over worked and had too much stuff to accomplish since there were only two English teachers per grade at that school. I started middle school with a sixth grade writing level and it stayed there until I left. I probably only had to write eight total papers collectively between sixth and eighth grade. Our main focus was reading, but the reading selected was very easy. In sixth and seventh grade all my class had to do was sit in class and listen to a recording reading a book. My class did not have to put any brain power behind it at all. We all just sat at our desks board out of our mind. Eighth grade English was not too bad but our focus was on poetry and plays. We did have to read Shakespeare and a few poems, but these assignments took no time at all. As literary sponsors, my middle school teachers were a negative influence on literacy. The cultural viewpoint of the school not really putting the effort into English like they did with the other subjects rubbed off on me. I dreaded going to English after middle school. I took the highest level of English available to me in high school freshman year and I was still not getting the education in literacy that I want to be getting. It ended up becoming me sitting in class not caring and wishing it would all be over. This all changed sophomore year.In tenth grade I got a literacy wake up call. I came into English class thinking it was going to be another joke like it has been the last four years of my school career. I was very wrong. Mr. Slater, my sophomore English teacher, was the best teacher and literacy sponsor I have ever had. Since I thought it was going to be another waste of time, I did not try in his class. This ended very poorly for me as my grades started coming back. As the end of first quarter was around the corner, I was frantically trying to do anything in my power to at least get a C. My attempts to pull my grade up were useless and I still ended up with a D on my first report card. Mr. Slater saw that I was struggling to pull up my grade and he asked me to see him after class. He understood exactly where my mindset was. He told me he saw potential in me, but he knew that this potential I had could not get out until I really started putting forth some serious effort into his class. He said, “It’s ok that you slipped up this quarter. It happens, but you got three more quarters to go. Let this grade be a wakeup call.” It was very much a “wake up call.” I started working twice as hard as I was. I came in twenty plus minutes before class started each and every day to ask for his advice in my writing and reading. Before long, we became really good friends and I am very proud to say that. I respected him as a teacher and a person. The best way to describe him is imagine someone how has experienced or done just about everything there is to do and that is Mr. Slater in a nutshell. Because of him, my English ability was bumped up from sixth grade level to an eleventh grade level where it was supposed to be. By the time I left his class, my writing and reading abilities were not perfect by far but they were well on their way. As a literary sponsor, Mr. Slater was the best there could be. He was a social sponsor to me because of how he motivated me and how I became to respect him. The positive energy and the support was exactly what I was missing from elementary school a long time ago. The positive influence came at such a great strength that it would be hard for anyone not to try and succeed in this class. Mr. Slater could also be considered as cultural influence. Once again, like Ms. Jones before him, he saw that my writing and reading needed work so he set the bar to where everyone had to get their skills up to. The culture of the tenth grade was changed to fit Mr. Slater’s requirements.My life in terms of literacy has been all over the place. Sometimes I consider myself as a good writer and reader, while other times I think I am a failure. My experience with these subjects has been like a roller coaster ride. I have had my fill up ups and downs in terms of English, but I realize that it is a very important subject and it will remain that way for the rest of my life. Even though I get tired of reading and I get bored of writing sometimes too, I still want to be the best I can be. I am very thankful for my literary sponsors like Ms. Jones, who was always so supportive of my writing and creativity. Mom, who has always had my back when it comes to reading and writing. She helped teach me the foundation of very important skills that I went on and used later in life. I am especially thankful for Mr. Slater. He gave me a kick in the butt when I needed it most. He got me where I am today and changed my life. I know for a fact that my life would be a lot different if he did not do what he did to help me out. I was very fortunate to have these great people guide me along in my journey through literacy. ................
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