Kaila Wilson

Literacy Narrative Essay

Ms. Raymond
26 September 2016

Reading and writing were subjects that my family members werent too big on,
but once I started school my family started becoming more involved in my learning. They helped
me learn how to read and write while providing resources that impacted my literacy narrative
significantly in general. My mom would always take me to the local library after school on her
days off. I would pick out books about animals because I had this weird obsession with all the
shows on the channel called Animal Planet, so any time I read a book it had to be about animals.
My mom would always tease me about it and ask,
Are you going to have a zoo when you grow up?
It was her way of saying she was proud of me for taking my own sort of initiative for
reading about in depth topics at such a young age. My grandmother was also someone who
helped shape my literacy narrative. When my mom wasnt able to pick me up from school, due
to work, my grandmother would come and get me. She was someone who was around more so
for the writing aspect of my literacy narrative than the reading. I would go home with her and we
would immediately start on my homework, which was a lot of tracing letters, sounding out words
and putting certain words into sentences. I always had some sort of help as a child when it came
to literary work, since my family as a whole had more literary experience compared to other

skills, like maths and sciences. My family is a bunch of communicators so they have to be good
at speaking, reading, and writing in order to make it through life.
Not only did my family help shape the way I read and write, school did as well. As a
child I was always on the imaginative side, coming up with plays for my dolls in my head,
drawing anything and everything that I found interesting to me, I would even teach my stuffed
animals, just like they were in a class. The reason for me having to be so creative and finding
ways to keep me entertained was because I grew up as an only child. Now being an only child
definitely has its pros and cons, but for me I think the best thing that came out of me being an
only child was how creative I ended up being. Elementary school let me be as creative and open
minded as I wanted to be, which is great for a kid. You could get as wild as you wanted to with
stories or drawings and not have to worry about whether or not it was plausible or anatomically
correct.
As I got older and started moving throughout the grades, I hit middle school and that was
when I realized I had to worry more about grammatical errors and independent clauses rather
than finding some way to incorporate my creativity. In my language arts class, I had a great
teacher who knew how to intrigue her students. She knew what would get our attention and she
also knew what could be possible distractions, such as group work. We did a whole segment on
Ancient Greece and Greek Mythology just as an intro into the first book of the Percy Jackson
series, The Lightning Thief, which was exciting for everyone, especially because we all picked
from a list that had certain gods or goddesses, we studied them and reported what we found out
about them. In the end she had us tie our specific god or goddess back to the Percy Jackson series
and let us have a group discussion about the book. That class in particular I enjoyed, others, not
so much. I cant say I was amused in any other language arts class after that one, which was in

sixth grade. Meaning it would be a long time until I found another language class that I could say
I wouldnt fall asleep in.
High school language classes were just as time consuming and boring to me as they were
in middle school. Studies show that seventy-three percent of high school students claimed they
didnt like school, sixty-one percent said they didnt like the teachers and sixty percent said they
didnt see the value in the work they were being asked to do, (Bryner, Jeanna). I can relate with
that statistic since I hated how we would have to read specific books before the class even
started, let alone read other horribly tiring classics during the class and having to analyze on if a
specific line about seeing leaves on the ground means something deeper or if its really just
talking about seeing leaves on the ground. It wasnt something I can say I liked. I felt that school
started to become more like a forced task instead of a fun learning experience, like your parents
would always tell you. Which sucked for me because as a kid I loved going to school. I loved
learning and to feel myself come to the point where I dislike something I once enjoyed so dearly
was awful. School wasnt fun anymore to me, so I started to get lazy. I didnt feel motivated to
do any sort of school work and technology in high school was not of much help.
Technology in my elementary school years changed drastically from when I got to high
school. Of course back in the day I was able to blame things being late on my printer not
working or not having enough ink or saying my flash drive crashed while transferring my file to
it, but now because technology is so high tech and fancy its impossible to get away with
something like that anymore, unless you have a really old teacher who still thinks todays
technology works like that. "The linear, literary mind" is endangered It may soon be
yesterday's mind," (Crovitz, Gordon). Despite the part where I had lost motivation for school, I
did always enjoy typing. Its relaxing to watch your words appear on a page and not have to

worry about rewriting something because it didnt flow well or crossing out an entire line on
your paper because you just dont have enough eraser left to fix your giant mistake. Technology
has helped me enjoy writing a lot more than what I used to. I always hated having to write out
papers, especially because my handwriting was so big that I would take up more space and I
would have to waste more paper just so I could get a simple point across. Now I dont have to
worry about that because we have Microsoft Word and Google Docs! What a world we live in
today.
Even though technology in high school was more of a distraction than a help, I do know
that I ended up finding out that I like to write better than I like to read. Reading was something
that I felt like I was always doing in school and since I did it so often it didnt seem like it could
be fun anymore. I can say that I relate to one of our recent readings by Sherman Alexie, in
Superman and Me, he talks about how he would read everything that had words on it as often
as he could, every day, almost all day. Even though he read as much as possible he says
Despite all the books I read, I am still surprised that I became a writer,
and thats something I resonate with. Mainly because I have had to read so many books
throughout my life whether it have been on my own terms or because of school, that I was
surprised when I ended up liking writing more than I did reading. I felt more free and creative
whenever I wrote something and I still feel that way now. I love to write letters to people and I
love creating kind of like my own little world, where anything can happen and it wont be judged
or read by someone unless I want a specific person to read it. I like that. Writing is something
that has helped me regain my creativity that I couldnt find or lost while I was in grade school.
After I got out of grade school I wrote more and I started to feel better about myself while also

being productive. By simply writing out a list of errands I have to do for the day makes me feel
more accomplished and generally more in touch with creative writing part of me.

Citations
Alexie, Sherman. Superman and Me. Los Angeles Times 19 Apr. 1998. Web. 25 Sept. 2016
Bryner, Jeannaa "Most Students Bored at School." Live Science. N.p., 28 Feb. 2007. Web. 25
Sept. 2016.
Crovitz, Gordon L. "Is Technology Good or Bad? Yes." The Wall Street Journal. N.p., 23 Aug.
2010. Web. 25 Sept. 2016.