Critical Literacy Narrative

From the time when I was a little boy, growing up in Graves County, Kentucky, I have had problems with my reading and writing. Things never seemed to click for me, a trait that the teachers attributed to a mild case of dyslexia mixed with a healthy dose of attention deficit disorder. I knew, however, that no disorder was the cause of my distaste of reading and writing. Rather, there was nothing really interesting surrounding me that would grab my interest in the classroom. The teachers I encountered never took any interest in what their students wanted to read or write; they developed assignments based on what the curriculum, a course of study developed by some politicians at the Board of Education, told them to

I Remember that time I had that one page essay assigned back in my 5th grade English class and I thought to myself, “How on earth will I possibly write one page on something I hardly know anything about or share little to no interest on”. Well that 1 page essay is not looking so terrible now that college is here and the minimum amount of pages for most essays is up to 3 pages. Writing has been something that has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I was first introduced to it in my preschool days, it wasn’t anything too insane, mostly just single words with a picture of whatever the word was above it. But for the amount of time writing has been in my life the one concept that truly defined literacy for

In my English 1010 class, I have learned to do a number of things through writing essays. I have written a Literacy Narrative, a Discourse Community Analysis, and a Writing Research essay. Firstly, I have learned to identify how an author’s purpose, audience, genre, and context determine effective writing. The purpose of the literacy narrative was to help me understand myself better as a writer (Jones 1). My teacher was the intended audience of the narrative. The genre of the narrative was non-fiction by cause of it being about my experience as a writer. The context of writing made my writing more interesting and more effective. Knowing those elements helps you to compose writing that is more effective due to you needing to know what you need to write about and who is receiving your writing. I displayed these skills by going into detail about my experiences with reading and writing through my life. As shown in the following sentence from my literacy narrative I shared how fun and exciting it was when my second-grade class received the opportunity to write a book, A Book of Future Astronauts, “Everyone in the class was truly excited to be writing our own book,” (Writing is Good).

I have been working with the Coweta County School System since August of 2000. I began as a paraprofessional working with students with Autism through the Emory Autism Program. I enjoyed working with special needs students so much that I entered the TAPP program to obtain my teaching certificate. I began working at East Coweta Middle School in the fall of 2002 and am still currently working there as an interrelated special education teacher. I have taught resource, collaborative, and co-teach classes. I have even had one year where I worked one-on-one with a student that required specialized instruction.

Throughout my childhood, the idea of having a college education was greatly stressed. As a result, it was my duty as the next generational child, to excel in my studies and achieve a life of prosperity and success. Learning became the basic foundation of my growth. Therefore, my youth was overtaken by many hours spent reading and writing what was known to be correct "Standard" English. I first found this to be a great shortcoming, but as I grew older, I began to realize the many rewards acquired by having the ability to be literate.

Literature is everywhere. No matter where you are, you’re exposed to it. It is on your phone, in the paper, on the McDonald 's receipt in a wad under your car seat, it is even on the billboard signs as you drive down the interstate. With literature getting so much coverage there is no question of where such heated debates come from. It is hard to have an argument or sometimes even a conversation with a person using ONLY literature. Sentences can have the same words, but handed to different people and they may interpret the sentence in two polar opposite directions. Debates take on a huge problem when they are done solely through literature, unfortunately I found that out the hard way.

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.

Throughout my childhood, the idea of having a college education was greatly stressed. As a result, it was my duty as the next generational child, to excel in my studies and achieve a life of prosperity and success. Learning became the basic foundation of my growth. Therefore, my youth was overtaken by many hours spent reading and writing what was known to be correct "Standard" English. I first found this to be a great shortcoming, but as I grew older, I began to realize the many rewards acquired by having the ability to be literate.

I am sitting at my work desk reading an autobiography called the Blood of the Lambs, and I ponder about the amount of time having passed since I have sat down to a nice personal evening with a book. Upon reflection, I realize that the path I took to learning to read wasn’t an easy one and involved time, effort, and hard work.

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.

Learning to read and write as a child is an experience that all can relate to. The average child learns to read and write at the early ages of three and four. Developing literacy at an early age is crucial to academic development as well as to performance in life. Early development can be just what a child needs to stimulate their minds, which in turn is assisting in the evolution of their future. The early and latter stages of development in a child’s literacy journey are the makings for their reading and writing skills. It also plays part in their analysis of obstacles as well as their developed or problematic literacy future. A child

My freshman year of highschool I came to a turning point when my goals for the future outweighed my negative mindset. In the first weeks of my freshman year, I choose to use the failure I experienced so providentially in my past to motivate me throughout my following high school years. I started

My life flipped for the better once I left the 8th grade, it was finally summer time and I was ready for it. But deep down I knew once summer was over high school here I come. I won't even lie, I was terrified to start as a freshman in high school. All of the rumors that I heard with baby freshman day, and all the stuff they do to freshmens on the first day of school. To be honest I was really nervous, instead of a couple butterflies in my stomach I had the whole family flying around. But once the first day of high school came up all those rumors that everyone was telling me was actually a lie. High school wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. As my freshman year went on a lot of doors opened up for me, there were sports, clubs, new people to me, everything you could possible think of. I didn't really get into sports as much as all of my friends, I was more into video games and playing outside in the woods just adventuring finding old vintage things and old buildings and all of the beautiful views. My freshman year wasn't really too special, I was too busy figuring out what everything was and where everything was located at. Then my sophomore year came along this is where I started to get the foundation of high school and blend in. everything kinda went downhill I made good grades don't get wrong, it's just I never showed up which I regret miserably. Once I got to my junior year everything is still constantly changing, a lot more people know of me. I was never

Well my semester grades came in the mail again and not only did i fail my freshman math class, i also dropped two more classes down the drain. I kept thinking to myself “that's alright, i'll just try again next year.” But the irony about that was, i didn't try again next year. My junior year was the absolute worst. Failing three classes and wondering how in the heck i was even going to graduate. At this point i just kept thinking about all the times i took my school work for granted and how i thought going out with my friends and coming home late was more important than getting that

Growing up, before I entered high school, I always thought it was going to be like how they showed it in the movies. That was a lie as soon as I stepped foot in high school. Those shows and movies never really focused or talked about the actual education and grades and how important they are. They don’t mention the importance of being in a sport and how good of outcomes come from being involved. Now being in my last year in high school, I have learned a lot about myself and life throughout the years that I’ve been here. Not only has it helped me grow into the person I am today but taught me plenty of lessons. As well as accepting them and not giving up on myself or school. It was my junior year that I learned from all of my mistakes and focused on myself. As well as realizing that I needed to get my head back on track, especially since I was going to be a senior the following year. I would say that I was all over the place my sophomore year and so much was going on at home, friends, and myself. I would ignore any of these types of situations such as my mom losing her job, money problems, my house going up for sale, and worst of all at the moment, failing a class my sophomore year. When my grade in chemistry kept going down I thought to myself, “Oh it’s impossible for me to fail a class, I’ll pass it with a D,” or “I’m fine, it’ll go up with the next assignment.” Not in a million years would I have ever thought that I would fail a class. I was putting my school work aside. I procrastinated a lot by doing assignments last minute or turning them in late, I was also not involved in school one bit. I was in the car with my friend and it was the last day of exams, we were parked and on our phones.