Your Literacy History
What is literacy?
It’s more than just reading and
writing! What does it mean to be a
literate person?
For our purposes, literacy is:
·
A set of skills, behaviors, attitudes and
dispositions demonstrated by people who function successfully in a field. These skills allow people to feel comfortable
and confident as they function in an educated group.
What do you
think reading / writing literacy is?
Do you remember defining moments that shaped your
reading and writing literacy?
Do you like writing and reading? Do you avoid reading or writing at all
costs? When was the first time you wrote
or read something you loved? Did you
write or read because you wanted to, or did someone make you write? What kind of feedback did your parents/
teachers/ friends give you on your writing or reading?
On the back of this sheet of paper is your
literacy timeline. Brainstorm moments in
your life that most stick out as having shaped your views on writing.
Assignment: Pick any five of these moments that you feel
best represent your life as a writer (or non-writer, as the case may be!). Write at least six sentences per
memory relaying that experience to your reader.
Be as specific as possible. Use details to help you convey this memory. REMEMBER
TO CONSIDER YOUR VOICE AS A WRITER! I
want to hear you in your writing, and I want to see what you experienced.
This assignment MUST be typed, 12 pt standard
font, STAPLED!
Your assignment is due next class!
M. Forster
My Literacy History
Memory: 5
years old
I’m in trouble. I’ve been sent to
my room and told not to come out. I
can’t recollect what I did to land myself there, but it must have been
bad. Sitting there, in solitary
confinement, I don’t quite know what to do with myself. I must remove myself from this dreadful
situation immediately, but how? I find
an old Steno notebook in my toy box and begin to construct my plea for
freedom. I write an apology note to my
mother, begging her to forgive me for what I had done. I offered her the alternative of “forgetting
about me” if she wanted to. My brother
Travis having just been born, I also told her I hoped she “had a nice baby”
(the implication that I may never see any of them again because of my
imprisonment). I folded it up like a
letter, addressed it to my mother, and shoved it under my bedroom door where it
skimmed down the hallway.
Within moments I was released from my shackles and permitted to rejoin
humanity. The power of writing astounded
me, and I kept it as a tool, in reserve.
Memory: 8 years old
I excel at penmanship. I practice
D’Nilean handwriting in my workbork. I
like its curly letters and graceful turns.
I hold the pencil tightly and stare intently at the guidelines on the
paper, making sure all of my arches and tails fall exactly where they
should. This seems to be the sign
of a good writer. Row after row of
scripty m’s proved I had the gift.
Memory: 10 years old
I try to keep a diary. It seems
direly important for me to do so. I
purchase a diary from the Weekly Reader book club at school. It has a real lock and
everything. I decide it’s imperative to
write in it to record all my deepest and darkest thoughts. I write in it religiously for three
days. For the next three after that I
write profound entries like “Went to school.
Had hot dogs for dinner.” These
entries make me feel guilty, and I rip them out. Looking back at my first entries, I find them
embarrassing and vulnerable. I rip these
out too, shredding them into a billion little pieces. Over the next decade I will have a dozen of
these diaries that will all meet the same fate.
I feel some obligation to record things, to be a writer. I feel dreadful about my inability to channel
that creative power and write.
I’m caught up in what a diary should be…what I think a diary should be,
rather, and it renders me absolutely impotent to write anything.
Memory: 12 years old
I’ve finally found something I can write.
It’s sixth grade and I have started writing parodies of well-known
songs. I write one about a classmate who
was overweight (the irony being that I, too, was overweight) to the tune of “I’m
a little tea pot”. “I’m an (insert name
here), short and stout. Here’s my love
handles, here’s my snout.” I write other
parodies too, without one particular victim, but a lot of creative use of
four-letter words. These are the kinds
of poems and songs that would make my mother shriek with horror and make my
grandmother pray for my soul. I get
laughs. I write more songs. I get more laughs. I branch out into poetry. I never take my writing seriously. No one else does either.
Memory: 13 years old
My seventh grade English teacher thinks I’m a poor writer. Well, she doesn’t come right out and say so,
but everything I turn in comes back with elaborate red splotches all over it,
as though some poor Bic pen exploded on my page. I write a profile of my best friend. I’m creative, I incorporate pictures and
stickers, I write neatly, I use stencils.
Mrs. Sundell remains unimpressed.
She seems to be communicating to me in her bizarre foreign tongue. AWK.
R.O. SP. It was worse than Morse
code. I don’t know what she wants from
me, and after a few failed attempts, I stop trying. I’m a poor writer. I sigh, and accept my lot in life.
I write academic papers with the help of my
personal friend, Encyclopedia Britanica.
I copy entire paragraphs from books that I don’t include on my
bibliography, so as not to be traced. I
write a thoughtful 10th grade thesis on Ezra Pound’s Cantos
(which I still don’t understand), which is almost entirely borrowed,
with the exception of some filler. I
avoid writing at all costs.
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