Life, Literacy, And The Pursuit Of Madness
My history with literacy has somewhat of a rough past. I’ve never been known to write spectacular, moving essays or stories that will leave you wanting more. Most of the time when I am assigned a writing assignment, I accomplish the requirements that were asked for on the paper and turn it in with little creativity and detail as possible. This approach hasn’t really prepared me to write this essay so well. But I always write to my greatest ability and hope for the best. I guess I’ll start with my earliest memory of literacy.
In intermediate school I had always loved going to class and learning new things. Having the ability to learn and find out new information always interested me so much.
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She explained that three times every week, I will report to her class room after school and correct and re-write twenty sentences. In order of practicing this so often and frequently, that I will soon write nothing but flawless sentences. And that is exactly what I did. Every week I would correct sixty sentences and leave. All year long I repeated this until it was seared into my head what a well-written sentence consisted …show more content…
The last few weeks of every year we had to take the greatly feared “TAKS” test. I was extremely nervous about the writing portion of the test. So the night before I went to bed at eight o’ clock sharp and woke up early and ate a good balanced breakfast, ready to dominate this test! Waiting for the test to be handed out I had butterflies in my stomach, my palms were sweating and I looked like my dog had just died. Basically the perfect description of someone who is not ready for a test. After slaying through hours of questions and writing, I was finally finished. Around two weeks later the results had arrived. Mrs. Valentine called each of us to her desk to privately inform us of our score. Finally it was my turn to figure out what I had made, with a deep gulp I asked her what it was and she proudly said with joy that I had been commended! I shouted “REALLY” and she nodded eagerly. I was so relieved; a big weight had been lifted of my shoulders that day, and raised my hopes for writing in the future. All because Mrs. Valentine actually cared to help me, and to that I thanked her for all her help. English become somewhat of a second nature to me all throughout grade school. Everything was going great until high school came along. It seemed as everything had to do with literacy, not just English, but also math, history, science and even
Deborah Brandt, in " Sponsors of Literacy", argued that class and race can impact how much access a person has to literacy sponsorship. She spoke of Raymond Branch and Dora Lopez who both lived in the same area, but due to their uncontrollable circumstances, had different amounts and forms of literacy sponsors. As I read this article I found myself between both Branch and Lopez's situations. I agree with what Brandt said and for that reason I will be joining her in the argument. I'm currently a freshman in college and one of the classes I am enrolled in is philosophy. One of the things we have been going over is deductive arguments and whether they are valid and sound. An argument can be valid, but not always sound. For an argument to be
My literacy journey commenced at a young age. My story begins with the typical bed time stories and slowly progresses into complex novels. Some points in my literacy journey have made me admire the written word but other times literacy frustrated me. These ups and downs within my story have made me the person I am today. My parents noticed that my reading was not up to par with other children in kindergarten and I was diagnosed with mild dyslexia at the age of five. My parents provided me a reading mentor named Mrs. Mandeville who has shaped my literacy journey in many ways. Events in my childhood have shaped my literacy in various ways.
Writing is a form of communication that has changed over the years, whether that is the way it is used or the meaning it has for some people. In the generation that I grew up in, writing has been around in many different ways, such as texting or instant messaging friends. I remember using Facebook at an early age and communicating with my friends and family through a different form of writing. Compared to my elders, the way they were taught and the way they used their writing has changed immensely. Since I grew up in a newer generation than them, my writing experience has been partially different in a good way. My literacy narrative will reflect that difference.
Through this same lens, I chose to take classes that helped diversify what I learned so I always stayed interested and never found class tedious, just as Curious George would in his adventures. Outside of school, I keep myself in check by traveling and trying new things because on top of my natural curiosity, I am a true explorer. Like George, I love the enjoyment of participating in what life has to offer, even though it may cause mischief along the way. After all, satisfying curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in
Throughout my childhood I was never very good at reading. It was something I always struggled with and I grew to not like reading because of this. As a child my mom and dad would read books to me before I went to bed and I always enjoyed looking at the pictures and listening. Then, as I got older my mom would have me begin to read with her out loud. I did not like this because I was not a good reader and I would get so frustrated. During this time I would struggle greatly with reading the pages fluently, I also would mix up some of the letters at times. I also struggled with comprehension, as I got older. My mom would make me read the Junie B. Jones books by myself and then I would have to tell her what happened. Most
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
Literacy sponsors “are powerful figures who bankroll event or smooth the way for initiates” (Brandt 167). Literacy sponsors are people who help to shape who we are in the future. They provide their skills to help us learn or better understand ideas and abilities. Anyone can be sponsor, as long as they help influence a person’s understanding or knowledge of certain concepts or ideas. “In whatever form, sponsors deliver the ideological freight that mist be borne for access to what they have” (Brandt 168). Everyone has literacy sponsors, we may not realize it at first, but thinking back on my life I have thought of a few literacy sponsors who have helped shape me into who I am today.
Throughout this semester I have learned many ways of writing through two main essays literacy narrative and comparison and contrast. These two essays have taught me how to correctly fix my comma splices, thesis statements, and capitalization. I have engaged in numerous learning material during this summer class. Many times when I thought it would be hard to work on those three developments I never gave up. I gain more positive feedback from my teacher because he pointed out most of my mistakes I made on both literacy narrative and comparison and contrast essays to help me understand what is it that I need to work on. My development as a writer became stronger.
This class has been significantly more difficult than any other English class I have taken all throughout high school. This semester, I have been introduced to different styles of writing that I have never been exposed to before. This class has been stressful, but also fun. With using all of the resources I have been given throughout the semester, I have been able to do my best to further my writing abilities and hopefully only continue to grow them as I finish my later years in college. Throughout this essay, I will discuss my failures, my successes, my overall performance in the class, and my skill development skills.
Literacy is defined as “the ability to use available symbol systems that are fundamental to learning and teaching for the purposes of comprehending and composing, for the purposes of making and communicating meaning and knowledge” (Stock, 2012), and it is one of the most essential skills that an early year student will learn. Literacy serves to provide the building blocks for the continued knowledge acquisition and general education of individuals of all ages; by working to understand and identify how and why literacy is taught using the structured literacy block format in Australian schools, and in identifying the benefits of utilizing this type of tool for teaching literacy in student’s early years, it will be possible to gain a better understanding of the organization, planning, and teaching approaches that are used in a literacy block approach. A sample standard literacy block will be provided, offering the means of understanding the applications of the tool, which will serve to further stress the necessity of this tool’s usage.
Literacy embraces reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Integrating all of these into a literacy program is key. Teachers must provide endless and ongoing opportunities for their student to read, write, listen, and speak.
A comprehensive approach to literacy instruction is when reading and writing are integrated. This happens by connecting reading, writing, comprehension, and good children’s literature. A comprehensive approach to literacy should focus on the many different aspects of reading and writing in order to improve literacy instruction. This includes teachers supporting a comprehensive literacy instructional program by providing developmentally appropriate activities for children. Comprehensive literacy approaches incorporate meaning based skills for children by providing them with the environment needed for literacy experiences. This includes having a print rich classroom where children are exposed to charts, schedules, play related print, and
In our schools today, literacy should not just be a task for the English or Reading teacher. Instead, literacy should be a shared venture by all teachers within all content areas. Teaching literacy in all content areas is important because a teacher with a solid understanding of teaching literacy in his/her content area will tremendously help all students achieve greater success on class assignments and standardized assessments. There are three main points that surround the idea of teaching literacy in all content areas. Teachers need the necessary skills and knowledge to teach literacy, once the necessary skills and knowledge are gained then there is justification for teaching literacy across content areas, and
Being literate defines who I am, and forms an integral part of my life. From the practical to the creative, it aids, and enables, me to perform the tasks that modern society dictates. I shall explore the many aspects of my life that are affected by literacy. Through this, understanding in greater depth what it means for me, to be literate. I would not be writing this essay if were not for the pathways being literate.
...that was the best I could mange at the time. She would like to try to teach me how to not procrastinate but I don’t think that will ever happen. There is no fun in writing anything unless you are doing it last minute at twelve in the morning.