Literacy Narrative Derek Allen English 1103 My journey of literacy has been as long as my life.

for as far back as I can remember, I have been hearing and telling stories. Stories were a part of my reality, whether I was imagining a story in my mind while playing with toys in the bathtub or barely understanding what my oldest sister was telling the family about her day at school while we sat at the dinner table. Throughout the timeline of my literacy, I have grown through things that I've been fascinated and provoked by. When I am provoked or challenged by something, I have the choice to forget about it or think about it all the time. I find that passion drives skills forward. Over the course of the first eighteen years of my life, I grew from viewing stories solely for temporary entertainment to telling and writing entertaining stories with meaning. Growing up in twentieth/twenty first century America, I viewed my fair share of television. Sitting (and often falling asleep) on the fuzzy white carpet in front of the TV, My four older siblings and I were enthralled by the colors moving behind the static on the screen. Somedays we could barely hear or see the shows on, but every little bit we could was blissful entertainment. At bed time, we would all lay on our parents' bed and listen to our mom read stories such as the Berenstein Bears, Magic School Bus, christmas stories and a whole slew of big picture books. I loved closing my eyes, just listening, and being in the atmosphere of the story. My dad would read us bible stories as well, which at the time were also very interesting to me. We had the comic book bible, which was awesome to just look at. I started reading superhero comics as well, and I enjoyed looking forward to what was on the next page. I loved the comedy, action and cereal occurrences of stories I watched and heard back then. Before about second grade, I rarely found meaning or lessons in books or movies. In kindergarten, I started to learn to read and write. Everyone in the class had their own picture books that told stories about each letter. The class would read these stories and then write one letter over and over again. This seemed kind of pointless to me, but I did it because I knew I should. Before I knew it, I was out on the town, reading all the signs and notes I saw. Books still didn't make too much sense though. I found it easy to remember how words were spelled, so I always did well on weekly spelling tests. If I'm not mistaken, the first time I picked up a chapter book was in first grade. I was pretty fast at reading compared to the rest of the class. My reading speed combined with my supposed drawing skills earned me a spot in the "gifted and talented" program. I wrote a couple poems and drew some pictures to be in the school's literature gazette. I enjoyed reading short books in first and second grade. For some reason, the teachers in second grade spent what seemed like the whole year nailing a story of a prince from Mali into our heads. I'll never forget learning about that country and the prince's story, and how interested I was in in learning about such foreign people. They seemed like they existed in another universe, almost

like Mali was just as real as Middle Earth or Tatooine. I liked to go to such fantastic places in my mind after school every day in my friend Conor's basement. Our imaginations would run wild as we created places and characters around us. We would fight in massive battles for what seemed like lifetimes, then we would sit in a big cardboard box and eat ice cream. Third grade was a big period of growth in literacy for me. I began to read independently. I was drawn to fantasy books such as Time Warp Trio, Magic Treehouse, and Deltora Quest. Adventures was what my mind yearned to embark on. I also was fascinated by historical fiction. I loved the book Charlie's House because it was the first book I finished and understood almost all of. Teachers in third grade began to get messages through to me more, and I started to find meaning in stories. These lessons were very simple at the time, but I started to sense that every story has some sort of meaning. My teacher, Ms. Buzzeli, was a great motivator. One day I came up and asked if we had to explain at the end of number 2. She stopped what she was doing, took off her thick glasses and looked me straight in the eye. "Derek, all you have to do in life is die.", she said in a stern tone. I thought for a second, and then I understood what she meant. From then on, I realized that everything I do is my choice and that if I want to learn and grow as a literate person than I would have to put in some effort. In third grade I learned not only how to spell and use grammar, but to motivate myself and allow stories to motivate me through meaning. Fourth grade literacy was a big change for me . I started to be more social and hard working. While I met a lot of new people and came more out of my shell socially, the actual curriculum of english class was beyond boring. Aside from occasional historical writing assignments, My class was assigned to typing and learning cursive. For this reason, my story telling skills excelled in areas off of paper. I much more enjoyed being a class clown than paying attention to how to write an upper case z. My teacher, Mr Frederick would read scary stories to the class. The way he paced the words kept everyone on the brim of suspense. The whole room was pale with terror as if we were watching a horror movie. This oral story telling inspired my own story telling in that it was captivating. Letters on a page can't evoke tones and emotions like the mouth can. I continued to read books independently though, including The Hobbit, which sparked an interest in epic stories. I loved reading comic books of Spiderman, Daredevil, X-Men and Batman as well as watching episodes of The Simpsons. At that time in my life, I enjoyed reading and watching things that were entertaining, that i could get lost in the world of, and i didn't mind learning a lesson every once in a while. One of the first times I heard a story that was both pleasant to dwell in and meaningful was when my dad taught my sunday school class for a couple months. He taught the class about the books Kings I and Kings II. I was always curious to see where these stories where going to go, and I wanted to go back in time to see them happen in person. The thing about biblical stories, though, is that they all have deep meanings that are applicable to everyday life. From when I was ten on, I aspired to draw meaning from as much in life as possible.

Fifth grade and sixth grade english class consisted of reading chapter books and talking about them in class. I don't remember much about them due to my focus on history class. In sixth and seventh grade I had a myspace and produced online videos because entertaining people was my favorite thing to do. I stopped pressing the post button on youtube after seventh grade. However, from trying to make people laugh every day for so long, I gained a voice in my speaking and writing that I didn't have before. This voice grew stronger in my writing in seventh grade. I took a creative writing elective, which was great exercise for the right side of my mind. I also participated in Drama class and plays, which was good expansion and practice of my literacy. In middle and high school I was in honors and IB english and history. What I loved about these classes is that there was constant discussion. Ideas of the motifs and themes of the books we read were in constant flux in my mind. Nothing was set in ink until we had to write papers. By the time these writing assignments came around, however, I had already spoken to peers and formulated full ideas in my mind. In these IB classes, I read books such as To Kill a Mockingbird, The Lord of The Flies, Brave New World, Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, and The Odyssey. Through speaking about these classics in depth, I learned quite a bit about literature in many forms. This kind of learning took my understanding of literacy to a deeper level. IB Film studies class had the same effect on my literacy, except through cinema. After drawing many meanings from books and movies, I learned how to put meaning into a story. In junior and senior year, I tried to wrap up a meaning and put into an entertaining story so that the reader can simply enjoy scratching the surface of the story, or delve deeper and learn something from it. This duality of literature is crucial to all of my storytelling. In eleventh grade I switched from honors english to normal english because I wasn't ready for the heavy load of reading in IB english. English eleven was a cake walk. We learned how to write proper simple, compound and complex sentences. Although this seemed like common sense at first, I came out of the class highly improved in basic syntax and grammar. I am surprised to see how often people form incomplete sentences, and I'm constantly seeing commas in all the wrong places. Eleventh grade was a year spent working more on how I wrote than what I was writing, which is what I needed before I went to college. In twelfth grade, my english class focused around marketing ourselves and writing memoirs as well as analyzing fiction. The curriculum was shaped this way to get us thinking and delving into the college application process. I wrote a lot about past experiences and how they shaped who I was at the time. I learned a little bit about myself from English twelve, and I also became fascinated with metafiction. This newfound interest came about when we read The Things They Carried. During twelfth grade I came to the conclusion that stories are everywhere in life and they can be formed in any manner by anyone. This subjectiveness of story is what is driving my literacy inquiries in my life now. My journey of literacy has been as long as my life. For as far back as I can remember, I have been hearing and telling stories. Stories where in my life, whether I was imagining a story

in my mind while I play with toys in the bathtub or barely understanding what my oldest sister was telling the family about her day at school while we sat at the dinner table. Throughout the timeline of my literacy, I have grown through things that I've been interested in. I find that passion drives skills forward. Over the course of the first eighteen years of my life, I grew from viewing writing solely as temporary entertainment to telling writing entertaining things with meaning.