Abdullah Almansour

Professor Dutta
April 8, 14

Second Draft Literacy ethnography:

My first experience with reading was at kindergarten at the age of
5 or so. I remember after I have learned how to read single words. I
started to read every sign and ad I saw in the street. My cousins and I
used to challenge each other on our way back from school. Who can read
more and how can he pronounce it properly. My older cousin who is 3
years older then me was the judge. Apparently because he was older he
already has a good ability in reading. So him being not only the judge,
but also he taught us and correct us whenever we pronounce it wrongly.
That was my first literacy opportunity I had. Also its considered as a
literacy instruction, which my cousin has guided me.

After a couple of years I improved my skills in reading. My parents
bought me some kids stories, and magazines. This magazine is called
Majid. Its still being published at the meantime fortunately. It had
helped me out a lot especially at writing and drawing. This magazine was
published every month. I waited eagerly for it. It also had a drawing
competition. And then after you drew a picture we mailed it and waited
for the next month to get the results. They had three winners but also left
two full pages of the pictures that the kids had sent. My drawing was
really bad. My younger brother was better than me. I didnt feel any
competition with him but instead I felt that I have to encourage. And
finally, one day he got his drawing in those two pages where they shared
some of the kids drawings. We were so happy at that time that he made
it that far and accomplished his goal even though it wasnt that big yet it
gave him boost to do better next time. In my case I remember that one
day a teacher told us that everybody in the class had to make a set of
question about the subject we were studying and hand it to the teacher. I
told my father to help me out doing something lets say out of the
ordinary, something special rather than writing it in a regular way. He
suggested that I use the Power point. That was a good idea; I started
working on that assignment each day after school for like 3 hours to get
used to the application and how it works. Finally, I did the assignment
will and showed it to the class. The teacher complimented me in front of
my classmates and eventually I got full grade. That feeling you have
when you finish your job, do well in you finals and get good grades, is
the key to make you keep up the good work. That is an example of the
literacy cooperation, which is the participation of me in a literacy related
event. Which helped me understand well and being able to develop my
abilities in both reading and writing as I have mentioned above about the
Majid Magazine.


At the age of 11, my father bought us a Computer. I started
learning a lot of things from it, my first time using the Internet and set up
my own e-mail. Even went to online forums in the Internet where people
discuss some topic or write news. Also you can read about new video
games and football matches. Besides not to forget I had a PlayStation
since I was 8 that helped me a lot improving my English language.
Through the games I played, mostly all of them were in English, but
some were in Japanese. Along with the school, my English started to
improve more and more. At school I was placed In advance English class.
From elementary to high school, English was the best subject I had and
my grades were so good. Unlike the Math and science. Going back to the
video games. I remember since I was kid. When we played a new video
game. We gathered all on us, my brothers, my cousins, and I and played a
game together. I used to show off my English skills. I could understand
many of what the characters are talking about and what is happening
there. They questioned me sometimes. Hey, Abdullah, what do they
mean by that and this and that? Even my older cousins who are 3 years
older asked me that. But to be honest even If I didnt get it all, I will
make it up, I started lying and manipulating the plot and a different
direction.

My Brother whose is 3 years younger than me had an amazing
ability in writing stories. At the age of 9, he wrote 10 pages story about a
kid whose keen in football and how he managed to improve his ability
and become a professional soccer player. Obviously, he was referring to
himself indirectly and drawing the future he would like to have maybe. I
tried to convense him to let me read his story and help him with it. But he
refused. My father Whose an engineer, is a greet writer. Writing was his
favorite hobby. He wrote his first article at the age of 12 and it was
published in a local newspaper. He almost kept record of every article he
wrote. Also I remember he had some old writing by my grandfather.
After that my mother suggested to go every 2 weeks to the English library
in my fathers work. The company he is working in is the world 1
st
oil
producer. Its called ARAMC (Arabian American Oil Company). The
main location was Dhahran at the east cost. Only 15 miles from the city I
lived in (Dammam). That campus was so enormous. It almost covered 2
third of the whole city of Dhahran. No one enters it only the employees of
the company and their familys. When you go inside, its like a small
American town. That was only the main location. They had others also.
Back to my point, on that campus they had that big library, it is divided
into several parts. One was for the children. Which has that amazing
design that made you feel comfortable. I had some chances to talk to
American kids but most of the time I was shy and kept company along
my brothers. I had that Idea in my head that if I made one mistake they
will laugh at me. So I ditched that idea. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from
the books I rented from there. Furthermore my parents encouraged me by
offering me a deal, if you finished a book every book you rented and
understand it well, we will buy you as new video game. One for you and
one for your brother That motivate me to eagerly wait every two weeks
to visit the library and grab a new book. Unfortunately, It wasnt that easy
so after a while I stopped renting English books and went back to the
magazine I had. The reason was because it has that tough vocabulary that
I couldnt keep up with it. That was very important to me. I have learned
a lot from the Computer That my father bought us, Learned from the
magazine I got each month, and finally the library we used to go to for
sometimes.

The previous two paragraphs stated how I interacted with other
sources of literacy such as the Computer, and books from the library
which resulted in extending my abilities in reading and using the PC.
That is another literacy opportunity I had.

At the age of 12, I remember my first story. I wrote it along with my
brothers, and then we used the PowerPoint to draw some picture and
move them using the slideshow as a presentation to help visualize the
story more. I didnt stop at making story. Then I had a new idea, which
was to make a contest. I made a set of questions about soccer at the
beginning. After that I thought about bringing up what I study from
school and make a set of questions to compete along with my friends.
That helped me with my studies; it was like having a group study. Each
time one of us would take a subject and make a set of questions. And then
we used PowerPoint to animate the whole thing to make it more
attractive. To sum it all up, I had some opportunities as any other child to
interacted with literacy in different methods to develop me skills reading,
writing, and speaking of course. My parents obviously have played a big
role to help me out to explore the literacy and learn more both in Arabic
and English. They guided me and offered a variety of chances to get
involve in literacy activates. Along with my Brother and my cousins.

Now I would like to talk about the social emotional quality I later
experienced. It is creating a bond with someone whos involved in
literacy, which will impact your look at a specific subject; an important
factor that plays a big role in any child life. In The article we red at the
beginning of the semester The Family Literacy: learning from an Asian
Immigrant Family. In Yangs case, several factors influenced him inside
and outside home. When he started school in Canada, his main barrier
was his limited English-language ability. For example if you had
difficulties in a specific subject at school and your teacher wasnt helpful
or worse like scolding you in front of your classmates. Eventually you
will hate the subject and maybe the worse case scenario is failing it, that
is what happened to me at the middle school even though I didnt fail but
I had very law grade. I think I was like 14 years old when I had that strict
Arabic teacher. He was tough and very solid, even though he had a good
teaching abilitys but I couldnt get along with him. He scolded almost
every student in the class. He gave us so much homework and was so
harsh at grading. That what made me and many of my classmates hated
Studying Arabic. That was my experience.

In The end, I can tell that I have benefited from all the literacy
opportunities I have experience even if it wasnt good and have some
drawback in anyway possible. On the other hand, maybe I havent
supported my ethnography with any interviews or pictures. I had my
reasons but in the end I will add whatever important data I could collect
to my portfolio as soon as I get any. This ethnography which is about my
background life and how I benefited from the literacy opportunities I
faced had been reinforced from the journals I have wrote, reading we had,
and group discussions we did in this class.



Here is a picture a have found in the Internet for The magazine Majid: