Abdulaziz M.

Aljarallah
Instructor: Debarati Dutta
English 1101

Abdulazizs Literacy Narrative

Everyone of us has a specific vision about literacy. The ability to read and write,
to work, and to socialize are thoughts that I have considered as literacy. However, I
believe that I cannot limit a large category such as this, in one or ten meanings. I would
like to describe my flexible conception of literacy, but I must point out, that this word is
sort of new to me. When I tried to translate it to Arabic, the result was " The ability to
read and write", which is basically a synonym of the word "knowledge", and I think it is
not the word we seek. However, I would say: The ability to use the basic and modern
methods of communication, depending on the era requirements is the conception that I
am comfortable with.

I believe that everything started during my childhood, in my house. 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.