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Christopher Anderson Miss E. ENGL 1101-073 27 September 2013 Trials and Tribulations: A Personal Literacy Narrative From a young age I was taught that literacy is defined as the ability to both read and write literary works and understand spoken language. As one progresses through grade school and higher education its crucial to recognize and allow oneself to interpret, relate, and draw complex conclusions from any work, and by doing so you will enable yourself to further your own personal literacy. Ive become the scholar that I am today thanks to a combination of both positive and negative experiences, the trials and tribulations, and my ability to use these experiences to shape my literacy. The way I look at literacy is that its a never ending pathway to enlightenment, a path that is twisted and turned, stretched and widened; a path thats manipulated by both outside pressures and personal experiences which are unique to each and every person. This is a story of my personal literacy, a story of the events and people that have shaped me as a scholar and changed my ever evolving personal literacy. In order to understand my own literacy I recollected the first memory that I have of learning how to read and write. I was in the first grade and my teachers name was Ms. Stone, a soft-voiced, kind-hearted, motherly figure who was adored by all her students, especially me. It was a calm September morning, I was excited for my upcoming birthday later that month and shared my angst with my class. I told the class about what I wanted for it and what I was going to do for it with my friends in family in great detail, a visit to my favorite childhood place Chuck-

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E-Cheese. Just another day as a seven year old, but that day the world would change, that day the history of not only the United States but the history of the modern world was altered. That day was September 11th, 2001, the day the United States was attacked by enemies of the state in an attempt to strike fear into the hearts of Americans and other people worldwide. I first began to notice something was wrong when students began getting picked from school, first only a few. An hour went by and only four students remained including me, this was when my teacher began trying to explain to us what was transpiring. Me and the other three students decided to write what we were thinking about was happening, a piece of writing that I have to this day. We wrote how we felt, what was going through our heads; we asked why someone would want to carry out such an act. This was the first piece of writing that required me to think critically and apply myself to what I was writing, and not just write the usual small-minded journals about eating pizza or hanging out with friends. The words I wrote expressed deeper thought and cognition, especially for a seven year old child. I believe this event is the single most influential to me in terms of how my personal literacy has been shaped over my lifetime. In addition to my 1st grade writing experience, my father has helped to shape my literacy throughout my life in a variety of ways: such as editing a paper, helping with an English project, even showing me how to think critically when assigned complex literary assignments in high school. My father has been a resourceful and reliable guide on my everlasting journey to become more and more literate. In a popular movie titled The Matrix, a main character named Morpheus said, Im trying to free your mindbut I can only show you the door, youre the one that has to walk through it. This quote is interesting in that literacy is the same way, or at least thats how I see it. You can teach someone to be literate, you can tell someone to be literate, you can even show someone how to be literate, but in the end its up to an individual to figure out literacy for

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themselves. Its up to an individual to actually apply themselves, and by doing so will discover their own personal literacy. Its called personal literacy because its personal; its specific to an individual, specific because of an individuals of personal experiences that have shaped their literacy. Furthermore, my high school experience vastly shaped my own definition of literacy in many ways. In high school we all have gone through many trials and tribulations, tests of our morals, beliefs, and ethics. Through the many classes, study halls, pep rallies, football games, lunch times, parties, road trips, tests, and projects my own literacy was unknowingly being shaped and molded. Specifically, my English classes helped to teach me and many others how to think abstractly and that being able to read and write isnt the end of the road so to speak. In my viewpoint the road doesnt end, our literacies are constantly changing and being shaped, the definition itself dynamically changing. High school taught me much about what I think I know about literacy and has certainly shaped me as a reader and writer. Overall, since the day I learned to read and write to the day I die, I am constantly experiencing unique events that shape my personal literacy.