Literacy Narrative
When I was around the age of eleven, my mother bought me the book Are you there God? It’s me Margaret (Blume, 1970). As far back as I can remember, I have treasured books. I love the way they smell and the way they feel. I love how some authors grab my imagination and suddenly I am a character of their stories. My favorite place to be as an adolescent was not the mall or the movie theater; it was the library. Even today, I can wander around a used book store for hours. It was not uncommon for my mother to buy me a book. However, the book she bought me was anything but common. Reading Judy Blume was an important moment in my literacy development because she discussed the controversial subjects of being an adolescent
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Growing up there was no internet so I couldn’t Google questions and in half of a second have 25 answers at my fingertips. I grew up in a very small town, in Catholic home and went to a Catholic school from kindergarten through high school. My father was a deacon and we attended mass daily. Yes, I said daily. My mother’s approach to teaching me about periods and teenage sex was to hand me books. She knew I wouldn’t listen to what she was telling me, but if I read it for myself, I would. Blume wrote about playground bullying and unnerving body changes and teenage sex and she wrote about parents’ failings. (Dominus, 2015, p. 1). I didn’t have many girlfriends growing up and had a lot of anger, sadness and a sense of isolation. Blume’s connection to me became strangely personal and she became my confidant. I felt confident that she understood the pact: Blume had gotten there first, and she would tell me absolutely everything (Dominus, 2015, p. 1). After reading this first book written by Blume, it soon became clear that I was going to need to read everything she ever …show more content…
At some point along the way, she inspired me to begin journaling my thought and feelings. The journaling continued through high school and the once angry, sad and isolated adolescent became a happy, personable, social teenager. In my thirties I became the person that everyone came to for advice and for a sympathetic voice. I am still to this day the go to person to help people sort through their feelings and frustrations for friend and co-workers. So many people have said “You should write a book.” During a difficult time in my life, I did just that. This book was not for anyone to ever see or publish, but was a collection of writings and stories of how I became who I am today. Maybe someday someone will find it and believe it is interesting enough to publish. Once again, there goes my
Literacy impacts everyone’s lives in various ways. Such as, someone and their career, the ability to read literature in general, one’s comprehension of reading and writing, or the ability to write a book. Each person takes his or her own path with literacy and consequently are formed by the sponsors of literacy present in his or her life. Being new to the term or not, sponsors come in various forms and can be positive or negative to someone and his or her literacy. The sponsors of whom I am going highlight are my parents, The Sesame Street Show, and my elementary and middle school St. Mary’s all of whom have been positive sponsors to my literacy by setting high expectations and providing quality teaching, which still impacts my literacy today.
In “Censorship: A Personal View”, the author, Judy Blume, argues that the censorship is the biggest restrictions that turn young people away from books that they are interested in. Blume first indicates that the censorship already existed while she was a kid. She provides her personal experience as a kid toward the curiosity about adult world that she wanted to read from books, but her parents and school were very careful and selective about what books she could read. Blume then expresses her own views on censorship while she likes to write the controversial topics as a writer. She provides her own experience while many of her books were banned because the topics in her book were dangerous to young people, and the censorship proposed the alternative
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
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.
She has taught me so many moral values to life and has made me the man I am
She would always help my mom with me. I would say one of the main things I’ve learned from her is to be friends with people who make you a better person. She would ask, “would you rather be a better person than you are now or become lesser?” Yes, as a young girl I could only understand to a point. At one point in middle school I realized what she truly meant. I was a extremely shy girl and making friends were hard. As this shy girl I was more likely be by myself so I saw how others would act and talk. It brought a new light to my eyes. When I started making friends I made sure they were people that were kind and truthful people. These people are still my friends today and honestly made me a better
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.
“It’s not just the books under fire now that worry me. It is the books that will never be written, the books that will never be read. And all due to the fear of censorship. As always, young readers will be the real losers” (Blume 1999). Judy Blume can not explain the problem of book censorship any clearer. The children are the real losers because they are the ones that are not able to read the classic works of literature which are the backbone of classroom discussions all across the United States.
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
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.
The portraying of the negative aspects of life results in social tensions and ambigous attitudes towards children’s fiction. Books are criticized for being inappropriate for children, and consequently attacked for their improper values. However, “together with the changing attitude to childhood, the legacy of children’s literature is established with the works of the following writers: Lewis Carroll and Edith Nesbit, Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain” (Hunt, 2001:13).
As children in the United States, we grow up listening to the stories of Dr. Seuss and Curious George as we fall off to sleep to the sound of our parent’s voices echoing in our dreams. As we start to grow older and the poetry of Shel Silverstein’s, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" no longer holds our imagination as much as it did at eight years old, we begin to read stories that are a reflection of the environment we live within. We engaged ourselves in the lives of such characters as the Hardy Boys and Willy Wonka.
My mother was a librarian. Until now, the odor of books associates with the time when I have spent in the library reading books, while she was working. Owing to the profession, she has always read and developed. The mother was very creative and full of ideas woman. Therefore, people have always surrounded her, and especially youth has been attracted. She had written scenarios for concertos, dedicating for special events and participated in as the master of ceremonies. She founded an amateur dramatic theater where she was the producer and actress. I liked to see their repetitions and shows. She was acting so harmoniously and speaking so naturally that there was not doubt that was a real personage, whom she was
She understood perseverance and the importance of people and she carried on against all odds. The last time I spoke to her, she knew exactly who I was, despite
My mother would always read to me before bed, yet not typical kids’ stories such as Cinderella, Snow White or Peter Pan. But rather wisdom thoughts and stories of Aristotle, Plato, Omar Khayyam, Abay, more modern writers, Robin Sharma and Louise Hay. As a mother, she has a masters in Language and Philosophy. She is constantly reading whether it is an article on her phone, a daily newspaper or a book that she has bought yesterday. She would always sit on the brown leathered sofa and wear her golden framed glasses on and a very focused yet relaxed expression. As I sat watching her read, she became my role model. I would settle down next to her, wearing fake black framed glasses with no lenses and read, just to seem a little bit like her. To