Abdulaziz M.

Aljarallah
Instructor: Debarati Dutta
English 1101

Abdulazizs Literacy Narrative

Every day in the United States, over 2 billion books, 359 million
magazines, and 24 billion newspapers are published. Nowadays, writing is very
important for everyone. Children read stories, adults read novels and poems, and
older people are more interested in reading books. In addition, newspapers and
magazines are very popular for all ages. However there are hundreds or perhaps
thousands of good authors and writers, each of them has her/his own way of
writing which attracts a group of readers. Books, magazines, newspapers, and
school help people improving their writing skills. For me, all these were reasons
that shaped my writing. My parents had an impact on my writing as well.

When I was in elementary school, my father used to buy me simple and

interesting books. He and my mother encouraged me to read them by making
competitions between my siblings and me. I read some of them and my father
read the rest to me, and I enjoyed reading and listening to these books. For
example, I read a story called "Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves". It is an old
famous interesting story. In this story, Ali Baba is the hero, and there are forty
thieves want to steal his wealth. I loved this story because I love the action and

adventure genre of stories. In addition, I was reading the Holy Qur'an which
provided me with a variety of vocabulary and terminology. Furthermore, it helped
me understand what happened in the old centuries. My mother who was working
as an Arabic teacher taught me Arabic grammar by reviewing my Arabic class's
homework.
In the first year of intermediate school, I had a strict Arabic teacher who
was giving daily homework and assignments. After a while, the same teacher
asked me to write the introduction of the school morning broadcast. That was my
first difficult assignment because I was afraid of standing in front of huge number
of people, and I really didnt know how to write such passage. Then, my mother
came and convinced me not to panic, and promised me that every thing is going
to be all right. I remember that she said: your teacher did you a favor and you
will know that by time, then she started helping me writing it. After I finished
writing the broadcast, I gave it to my teacher, and he liked it, and asked me to
read it in the school morning broadcasts. I remember myself practicing the whole
week, and in the big day night, I read the passage in front of my family. I walked
up early that day and I was the first one to get in school, and as the minutes
passed, I was becoming more scared. Finally, it is the moment, and the
broadcast was going to start, and I heard the teacher calling my name. I walked
to the platform, and it was the longest seconds in my life, I thought I was going to
fall, then I heard that voice inside my head Be a Man, You Can DO IT. I did it,
and guess what? It was just perfect. In the beginning, I was confused and
puzzled, but then I used to talk in public and I became a frequent speaker in the

morning school assembly. Moreover, in the last days of the junior high school
year, I started reading poems in different subjects. In addition, I was watching a
TV program called "Sha'er Almillion" which is a poetry competition located in Abu
Dhabi every year, where about 100,000 poets compete in front of a well educated
and literate committee. The majority of poets were from the Gulf Countries.
In the high school my writing skills had been affected by many factors. One
of the major factors was reading novels. The novels writers give specific details,
which help the readers imagining and picturing a delicate situation in their mind.
Therefore, when I was reading a novel, I was impassioned and excited and
looking for what's going to happen next. Furthermore, it's filled with the
expressive words and terms. In addition, Internet played a major role in
improving my writing and reading skills as well. It's an uncountable source of
formation. Moreover, many writers have blogs in the Internet where they hang
their writings, as well as an unlimited number of articles, reports, and speeches
with more liberty than the typical media.
Magazines and newspaper have a large impact in peoples lives.
Newspapers deal with peoples daily problems by including articles and comics to
the readers. They are very popular all over the world because they are cheaper
than other type of media and they meet everyone's desire. Meanwhile,
magazines specialize in different fields. Each magazine focuses in its field and
has its own audiences. Both types of media alter my writing and reading by
enriching my knowledge and by increasing my vocabulary.
Recently, my desire to come to the States to complete my education has

taken my literacy to another path. I found my self performing another language,

within a different culture than mine. It started even before I come, I knew how
important that was going to be, but living the experience it self let me realize that
it was worth it. Studying abroad was not about education only, this is a fact that I
started to believe since I came here, 18 months ago. I can go further and say that
education is the second important thing. The primary aspect of studying abroad
is studying how another culture looks like, which simultaneously lets the person
able to judge her/his own culture comparing to the current one. That is truly what
I felt, it started when I met the first American person, and became frequent
whenever I meet another American person or any person from a country that I
did not have good information about. I have learned that people think way
different than we do, and they have their own ways of judging and thinking. Even
the parties and the entertainment looked different here, which I believed had to
do with cultures.
The language aspect is a very important one as well, I thought that I had
learned a good amount of English, until I came here and found that I was wrong.
The way I had been taught English in my country, was more to have a supporter
skill in my future career, but it was not meant to be a real second language. This
has not been the case here, I honestly believe that I have been taught English in
America to use it as my first language, which I truly needed, since I was anyway
going to use it in my education later. After learning some English, and reading
some articles and mini books, I found that I am in the middle of another literature.
The characteristics of being a writer, or composing an article or a book are mainly

different between what I used to, and what I saw here.

I believe that my literacy has been formed and refined by many different
factors. The printed media such as books, magazines, and newspapers were a
big part of my literacy formation. The Internet has its role in adding many aspects
to my literacy as well. The assist and advice that I have received from my parents
are a major component of my literacy reservoir. Life goes fast, and these divisive
memories were gathered from different parts of my life. Several times, I have
considered my self a literate person at many things, but whenever time passes, I
always realize that what I have learned is nothing, and life has no purpose
without learning.