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Daniel Maney
Raymond
UWRT 1103
24 September 2015
Basketball and Books: My Literacy Narrative
Do you ever wonder how you learned to do certain things that you do every day? Like
why do you tie your shoes that way? Or how did you learn to walk? How do you brush your
teeth? In what way do you treat other people? Some of it is instinctual. Our brains are wired a
certain way causing us to do these things naturally, others are taught to us by our parents or
someone very important to us. Which, brings us to the big question, How did I learn to read and
write? Not many people think about this very often but this is an exploration of that question and
I intend to find the answer. My literacy narrative starts off the same as most others, learning
from my parents and other family members, but the environment I learned in was not like many
other peoples.
It started around the time I was four years old. My older sister, Kristin, played all kinds
of sports but primarily basketball and while I was growing up I did so mostly in basketball gyms
watching her games. My mother would always bring things for me and my younger sister to do
or play with during the games. We would play tic-tac-toe, she would even bring some of our
toys into the games. As I got older my mother would start bringing notepads for me to practice
writing on. This is the first experience that I remember in which I learned how to write. I would
continue writing on those pads and as my handwriting kept progressing my mother would have
me start writing large words and I eventually advanced to cursive handwriting much like the way
Rosaleen learned how to sign her name in order to be able vote in The Secret Life of Bees.

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I learned to read in mostly the same environment and way as I did to write. Of course
like most peoples experience my parents used to read to me at bedtime and all that but I dont
remember that as much as I do learning at the basketball games. I had a leapfrog tablet that my
mother would bring to the games and I would be able to touch a word with a pen and the tablet
would sound it out for me. I continued to advance my learning in this aspect by reading harder
books and writing longer and more difficult words. A favorite book series of mine when I was
younger would have to be The Boxcar Children series; I liked these books because they had
adventurous and interesting plots that always came with a twist. I was not a huge reader growing
up, unlike Malcolm X explained in Learning to Read, I did not right outside my door was a
corridor light that cast a glow into my roomSo when lights out came, I would sit on the floor
where I could continue reading in that glow (Malcolm X). I was never one to continue reading
with such dedication, books would start to bore me after a while so I would put them down and
do something more active. And at bedtime I would usually watch television to fall asleep instead
of reading.
Major events can change someones life in a positive or negative manner; I looked
at mine as a negative in the beginning but realized it actually helped me tremendously. The
major event was my first essay for Honors British Literature with Mrs. Shirlen in my senior year
of high school. The first day of class arrived and we were to turn in our essays upon entering the
room. I turned in the assignment and hoped for the best as she said they would be graded and
returned in one week. A week went by and Mrs. Shirlen returned the assignment to the students
and we all quickly realized that the class was not going to be a walk in the park. I reluctantly
looked down at the stapled pieces of paper in front of and saw a sea of red ink covering the
pages. After flipping through, analyzing all of the notes and critiques she had written on my

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paper, I got to the final page and saw the grade I had received, a Seventy-five. That was the
lowest grade I had ever received on anything and I did not know how to handle it, I was
devastated. Luckily Mrs. Shirlen said that we would have the opportunity to revise our essays
and turn them in for an exam grade. I read every word she had written on my paper and revised
it to the best of my ability, returned the new edition, and waited hopefully for a grade
improvement. Another week later and all of our papers were graded and returned once again. I
received mine and was quickly relieved at the lack of red ink, which had been abundantly
scribbled across the pages on my previous attempt only a week earlier. I flipped through reading
some of the comments Mrs. Shirlen had made and finally got to the last page which had a grade
of ninety-five written underneath the conclusion paragraph and I exhaled thankfully. There was
a note written below the grade, which said, Your first draft was honestly exceptional work, but I
knew that you just breezed through the assignment knowing that your skill would get you a good
grade. I wanted to test you and a few other students just to see what you were really capable of
and you should know that this is the type of work I expect to see throughout this class and the
work I expect you to do through college. This event helped shape my literacy narrative in such
a drastic way. It changed the way I write, taught me how to take constructive criticism and apply
it to a revised version of my work, and beyond my literacy narrative, it completely reversed my
work ethic.
In the novel The Secret Life of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd describes how T. Ray abuses Lily
and it just prompts me to wonder how she coped with not having a strong parental influence in
her learning how to read and write. Her mother died while she was at such a young age and T.
Ray by no means took care of her in any suitable way as represented in this quote, Lily says, Id
been kneeling on grits since I was six, but still I never got used to that powdered-glass feeling

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beneath my skinT. Ray sat in a chair and cleaned his fingernails with a pocket knife. I swayed
from knee to knee, hoping for a second or two of relief (Kidd, 24). Lily goes on to tell
Rosaleen that she had been kneeling on the grits for maybe an hour (Kidd, 25). Its just hard
for me to believe that things like this happens, the bad part is that this was in the book but things
like this do happen in the real world even today. It makes me very appreciative that I had such
great parents while growing up. Parents that supported every choice I made and tried their best
to be involved in every aspect of my life. It also informed me that other people might not have
had the same experiences that I did, so their stories might be different. I think having parents that
were so involved helped my literacy narrative in a positive way, but with any learning
experience, challenges will be present.
Once I started school my parents noticed that I would have trouble reading and writing
certain letters and numbers. I would sometimes have trouble differentiating sixes and nines and
be confused when it came to writing ws and ms, also bs and ds, occasionally I would even
read double-digit numbers backwards such as when reading the score at an athletic event.
Dyslexia is not uncommon; in fact many smart, successful individuals have dyslexia. In
Understanding Dyslexia, Emily Lapkin writes, dyslexia is not a prediction of failure.
Dyslexia is quite common, and many successful individuals have dyslexia (Lapkin). Some of
those successful individuals include: the investor, Charles Schwab, professional quarterback Tim
Tebow, even Whoopi Goldberg. Lapkin also writes, A good way to understand dyslexia is to
establish what it is not. Its not a sign of low intelligence or laziness. Its also not due to poor
vision. Its a common condition that affects the way the brain processes written and spoken
language (Lapkin). I do not see my dyslexia as having stunted my progress towards learning to
read and write. Obviously it presented challenges in the advancement of my learning but not in

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such a tremendous way that I fell behind other children my age. I eventually got over my
dyslexia, you cant grow out of it so I am not saying that but I usually never have problems with
it. I would considered myself to have handle it very well as I became an honors literature student
in middle school and throughout high school.
Another challenge, not specifically for me, but for youth in general, that has presented
itself in more recent years has been the advancement of old and addition of new technologies. As
the Internet and cellular phones progress, they have sometimes stunted the progression of the
younger generations ability to read and write. The main example that I can come up with would
be the way smart phones and texting have helped limit young peoples use of vocabulary and has
affected their grammar. Shortened phrases such as LOL used for the phrase Laugh out loud
or Ily for I love you, for just a few examples. Young peoples grammar is also suffering
because in text messages there is quite often a lack of punctuation. All of these examples raise
literary issues especially in writing; this new age of technology is causing students to submit
essays lacking basic spelling and grammar. In an article titled Are Texting and Tweeting Making
Our Students Bad Writers? Author, Kelsey Herron says, in focus groups, teachers expressed
concern that the informal language students use in texts and in social networking spaces like
Facebook is beginning to creep into students formal writing. As a result, teachers said they need
to spend more time educating students about writing for different audiences (Herron). From
this I understand that the teachers arent blaming the technology or students for the spelling and
grammar mistakes but instead blaming themselves for not educating them about writing for
different audiences (Herron) which I do not agree with at all. Teachers and professors alike
teach what they are supposed to, they should not have to change their teaching style or the
curriculum for any reason having to do with fixing basic writing skills. In an article representing

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an opinion opposite to the one in the previous source Jason Tomaszewski says, Cyber slang is
suspected of damaging students writing acumen (Tomaszewski). He even added a quote from
Shravan Goli, president of dictionary.com, which read, ultimately, in the world of business
and in the world they will live in, in terms of their jobs and professional lives, students will need
good, solid reading and writing skills. Im a little worried about where we are in America with
literacy levels dropping. Are these [electronic devices] helping us, or making it worse? I think
they may be going the other way and making it worse (Tomaszewski). I am concerned that so
many people are starting to lack basic writing skills and think that something needs to change, as
I said before I do not associate with this problem and for that I am thankful to the many different
English and literature teachers I have had throughout my educational career, but there is a
growing problem that needs to be solved. The primary culprit for these issues is technology; it
sure is changing the way we think and act but not always is it in such a good way.
Literacy Narratives are different for everyone. In my case, I learned to read and write at
basketball games which is a bit unorthodox considering the amount of distraction at the events
but it is all we did every weekend. I dont believe that learning in that environment has
negatively or positively affected my learning in any way, I think I progressed the same as most
other people. I am grateful to Mrs. Shirlen for opening my eyes to what was coming and
teaching me to become a better writer. I am also grateful for my parents and all the opportunities
that they gave me growing up. This is how I learned to read and write, this is my literacy
narrative.

Works Cited

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Herron, Kelsey. "Are Texting and Tweeting Making Our Students Bad Writers?" Are
Texting and Tweeting Making Our Students Bad Writers? Common Sense Media Inc., 14
July 2014. https://www.commonsensemedia.org Web. 21 Sep. 2015.
Kidd, Sue Monk. The Secret Life of Bees. New York: Viking, 2002. Print.
Lapkin, Emily. "Understanding Dyslexia." Understood.org. UNDERSTOOD.ORG, 2
Apr. 2014. https://www.understood.org Web. 19 Sep. 2015.
Tomaszewski, Jason. "Does Texting Harm Students' Writing Skills?" Education World:.
Education World, INC. http://www.educationworld.com Web. 21 Sept. 2015.
Malcolm X. Learning to Read. Smccd.net. Web. 7 Aug. 2014