Sydney Westenberg English 1101-008 Mrs.

Grant

Literacy Memoir Literacy means something different to everyone, and like Scribner said in her article on literacy, there is no one definition that covers it all. The one thing you can say about literacy in most cases is that it often has an impact on peoples lives in both positive and negative ways, and the impact it has will go on to change how people view literacy in their lives. The first major literacy event in my life was would probably have to be when I was much younger, although I cant remember specifically what age I was specifically. , mMy mum would read the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling to my little brother Brett and me. She would read us a chapter or so a night and would follow along with her finger on the page as she read to us so that I could follow along. This allowed me to start to learn how to pronounce certain words and begin the process of reading along with her. When we were about half way done Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone I asked if I could read a chapter to Brett that night with her help instead of just her reading to us. I started to slowly read sentence after sentence with my mums help and although it took me three times as long to read one chapter as it normally took my mum and I had to ask for help on pronunciation for almost every other word, I finished an entire chapter that night. It was from that moment on that I loved reading. I believe that the experience of reading to someone else and having that person follow along with me while I told them about this wonderful adventure that the characters were going on was such a rewarding feeling that greatly contributed to my love of reading even today as a freshman in college.
Comment [EG1]: Watch out for repetitive phrases.

Sydney Westenberg English 1101-008 Mrs. Grant Although I may have a strong passion for reading, quite the opposite is true for writing. I truly do not like writing in the slightest bit. I believe that my negative opinion for writing began when I was in Mrs. Claridas second grade class. As a bit of a background, my entire family and I were born in Canada and Canadian grammar and spelling follows the British rules for writing rather than the rules for writing that are used here in the United States. Mrs. Clarida would give us weekly spelling tests, and they counted towards our grade quite a bit. I remember the fifth spelling test of the year had twenty words on it as per usual, and two of those words were color and favorite. The problem that arose was that in Canada and the United Kingdom many words (including the two mentioned) are spelt with an ou instead of just an o. This meant that to me the normal spelling of those words were colour rather than color and favourite rather than favorite. Well, Mrs. Clarida was unaware of this fact and when passing our tests back, she stopped at my desk and called out to the entire class asking who would be kind enough to help me learn how to spell the easiest words on the list we had. I remember my face turning completely red from being so embarrassed, and trying to explain that my parents had taught me to spell that way only to have Mrs. Clarida tell me to stop making excuses and talk to her after class. I was so humiliated and upset that I got counted off for having a different, but still grammatically correct, way of spelling words. I went home that day and told my mum that I was never going to write ever again and that no one could make me change my mind. My dislike for writing continued on from elementary school into middle and high school as well. Throughout middle and high school, we were taught a very strict format
Comment [EG2]: So embarrassing and culturally insensitive.

for writing that served the purpose of pleasing the people who graded our papers rather than writing to express ourselves. No matter what the paper was about, we were told to use a strict five-paragraph essay that consisted of an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. There was no branching off from this format, and after writing the same type of paper for seven years the thought of having to write another essay made me want to cry. I remember the moment it really hit me how much I disliked writing back in my junior year of high school. We were writing short twenty-five minute timed essays in preparation for the SAT every morning as soon as we got into class, and I remember the hardest part for me was always figuring out how to start the essay. I would spend so much time figuring out how to begin the essay that by the time I had actually started writing I barely had enough time to finish all five paragraphs in a way that sounded like I had the intelligence of anything higher than a three year old. I always had trouble starting essays before, but I had never been timed on an essay up until that point, and knowing I was timed caused me to worry much more. On the day of the SAT I struggled once again with finding a place to start and I ended up having to rush my last body paragraph and conclusion to finish my essay in time. As a result, my writing score for the SAT was not what I was hoping to get and it dragged brought my overall score down quite a bit. It was so frustrating to me that we were being judged so harshly on an essay that we only had 25 twenty-five minutes to write and that the score we got on that was a major part in determining what colleges you could get accepted to. The situation as a whole really caused my view on writing to become a lot more negative and made me dread English classes in college because I
Comment [EG5]: Yes. That is frustrating. Comment [EG4]: Break here because you begin the anecdote. Comment [EG3]: This section offers a good series of thoughts on why writing frustrates you today, but its a very long paragraph. Ive offered a suggestion for breaking it up below.

Sydney Westenberg English 1101-008 Mrs. Grant believed that since the SAT is an aptitude test that measures your success in college, it meant that the writing section of the test was how writing in college was going to be like. The idea that I would be stuck writing in one strict format in a SAT-like manner for the rest of my time in school made me cringe, and once again added another item to the con side of writing. Over the years, Ive struggled with writing because I have had a huge dislike for it, despite being told that when writing about something that I was interested in and wanted to write about I can be an above average writer. Reading has always been a strong suit for me, and I have always enjoyed escaping into countless books rather than going out on the weekends and partying throughout my life. Reading served as another way to learn for me. Reading increased my vocabulary, opened my eyes to completely new ideas and information, reinforced my understanding of previous knowledge, and allowed me to gain new perspectives I couldnt get anywhere else. Writing has never been able to do any of that for me, which made me question its significance. I know now that writing does indeed serve a purpose, and is not only limited to a five paragraph essay used to please whoever grades the papers. I would like to one day learn to accept writing as a not so horrible experience. I and truly do believe that I am already starting to tolerate writing a little more each day now that we are being taught how to write creatively and how to use writing to express yourselfves. Hopefully in five or ten years from now I can look back at this memoir and think how ridiculous it is that writing was such a negative experience for me for such a long time.
Comment [EG7]: I hope so, too. Comment [EG6]: Paragraph break here. Its a new thought and the beginning of your conclusion.

Nice work on this memoir, Sydney. You are a good writer, with an excellent sense of pace in your storytelling. Your grammar and spelling are almost perfect. With more practice (and if you keep working hard) you will excel in college writing.