Bretts Review

As a child I was first introduced to reading at home with my parents. Before I

began pre-school, my dad read to me various children books such as Dr. Seusss
Green Eggs and Ham. Once I entered school, there were more concrete ways
that I was taught, such as correlating a letter in the alphabet to a word beginning
with that letter. The basic, A is for Apple, B is for Book, and so on and so forth.
The next step toward my literacy growth was learning to write. My first memory
that I have writing is when I was in kindergarten attempting to slowly sound out
words and writing down the letters in which I believed they sounded like. Having
my parents involved in my literacy development at such an early age definitely
gave me an advantage before I began my formal schooling.
As my literacy education increased from elementary, though junior high, to
high school, there were many readings and writings that I attempted. Types of
writing that I have accomplished in the past include research, poetry, reports,
fictional narratives, journals entries, and many others. However, I did not do all
these various writings by choice, they were all assigned to me throughout school,
and they never seemed to interest me. It seemed that once I learned how to read
and write everything became very boring to me and I always found myself
wanting to do other things instead of my English assignments. This could have
been because I was also introduced to sports at a very young age, which lead
me to lack interest in the subject. With this lack of interest I was never one to
read for my own pleasure, I would only read if necessary. I continued my
stubborn ways up until about junior year in high school, when I then gave reading
another chance, and I began reading a few books for my own pleasure and I did
notice that reading more enhanced my abilities with literacy.
Although my thoughts about reading and writing were not exceptionally
positive, I was always provided with people and tools that I needed to excel. The
institution in my life that acted as my main literacy sponsor would be the
schooling that I went through. The people that I consider my literacy sponsors
are my English teachers that have taught me how take what I know and apply it
to reading and writing. I also consider my parents to be my literacy sponsors,
because they were the first to introduce me to reading.
** I really liked youre story about literacy, I think you did a great job bringing in
very interesting topics such as sports, and your lack of interest because the
assignments were not by choice. I think that if you elaborate more on these ideas it
would really help youre story. I also thought that youre conclusion to your story
needs some work, it has such great flow that once it ended I was like, wait that is it?
I wanted more I think that if you add a few more details and have a really strong
conclusion youre story will be very effective to the whole project and very
interesting.



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Comment [EK1]: A more effective
conclusion will really ad a bang to this story,
I feel you need to wrap it up a little better
because you werent really talking about
literacy sponsors in the beginning so you
need to explain what that is so readers
understand.


Introductions
There are many factors when it comes to what motivates
someone to do something. When it comes to reading and writing it is
no different. For some it is the look on their parents face when they
can finally read a sentence. For others it is the satisfaction they get
for themselves that they were able to accomplish one of their goals.
Everyone has different motivations but we wanted to see if people
shared motivations as well. To answer this question we surveyed
different people and asked them to explain to us how they became
motivated to learn to read and write.
Interviews
The first person we asked was Nick, a junior from Cincinnati,
Ohio. He said that growing up he was motivated to get the most stars
in his kindergarten class for reading the most books. It was a
competitive thing for him. Soon after that he said he started to enjoy
reading so much that it became a hobby. It wasn't something that he
had to do it was something he wanted to do. He always pushed
himself to read bigger and better books and even gives the specific
memory of reading the book "Hatchet" in third grade. He felt that
although his parents had an influence on him reading, that he was his
biggest motivator and so was the drive to be better than everyone
else. As for writing Nick said he never really was interested in it until
he started growing up. He loves to do it now, but he had no
motivation to do it growing up.
The second person we interviewed was Cameron, a sophomore
from Columbus Ohio. Cameron was asked the same question as Nick
was but he had a completely different response. His biggest
motivation growing up was his parents. With his mom being a third
grade teacher, and his dad an avid reader, Cameron was heavily
influenced by his parents. They taught him how to read and write
before he went to school and always told him it was something he
must learn how to do if he wanted to be successful. Cameron felt like
learning to read and write was always something he had to do, not a
choice he could make. He said his parents were definitely his biggest
and only motivators.
The next person we interviewed was Joe Braglin, a freshman at
Ohio University that graduated from Logan High School. Joe's
biggest motivation was to make his parents proud of him by doing
Comment [EK2]: Choppy
Comment [EK3]: Youre main
argument/research question
Comment [EK4]: The method you used to
answer this question
Comment [EK5]: In general the way you
boys formatted your interview questions
was very nice, it was like reading a story.
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good in school and learning how to write and read successfully. His
next biggest motivation was the desire to become a higher educated
individual and share his views and opinions with a wider group of
people. Joe was not forced by his parents to read and write, but the
happiness he could give them by knowing how to read and
accomplish great grades in school was the reason he kept thriving to
become a better reader and writer.
The fourth person we interviewed was Allyson Craddock, a
freshman at Ohio University who attended Chardon high school. Her
main motivation as a student came through an artistic standpoint
because she loved to be creative and she had pretty hand writing.
She found the desire to read frequently at a young age because she
often traveled and would read for fun on the planes. Allyson said her
mom would often read to her before she went to bed, and she has
consistently done that each night. This has provided her with a
reason to keep reading each night and it has given her the love to
read.
Nicki, who is also a freshman at Ohio University, was our next
subject to interview. Unlike Lauren, Nicki attended a public school,
but she still said that her schooling was her main motivation. She
discussed how her drive to get a good grade pushed her to read and
write. Nicki also explained how her older sisters were very successful
with school, which also gave her more motivation, because she
wanted to follow in her sisters footsteps. Lastly, we asked her how
she learned how to read. Nicki said that her first memories of learning
to read was with her parents.
Another person that we interviewed was Lauren, a freshman at
Ohio University. When asked what her main motivation was to read
and write she explained that her school played a large role. Lauren
said that she attended an all girls private school, which made her
schooling very competitive. When we heard this response we then
asked if she thought that attending a private school gave her an
advantage over students who have attended a public school. She
believes that because she attended a private school she does enjoy
reading more because the practices that were taught are now instilled
in her. Lastly, I asked what her motivation was to read and write.
Lauren explained how her mom and grandpa would read to her a lot.
She would also be bribed by treats to read aloud to her family.
Conclusion
For some interviewees the motivation came from self-
determination, siblings, parents, competitiveness, and school. With
Nick, it was the drive to be able to read more books that were more
challenging before other people in his class could. Cameron on the
other hand was completely motivated by his parents. Nicki's main
drive was to follow in her older sister's footsteps to fulfill her family's
expectations of her. However, Lauren took her competitive learning
environment and used that to motivate her to excess in her literacy
studies. With Joe, his main reason for developing a writingwriting and
reading literacy was in order to make his parents proud of him. While
with Allyson, she read because she always found interest in reading
new books and writing was creative for her. A lot of people found
motivation through their parents, whether it was in their effort to
please them or prove that they can do what is expected of them;
however, this is not the only motivator for people learning to read and
write. It doesn't matter whether you are privileged or underprivileged
because there is always some form of literacy sponsor available.
Finding this sponsor is key in developing an interest in reading, and
overall improving your writing skills.


I thought that this Main Page was very nice and easy to navigate through. I thought
you did a very good job with the writing and I only had a few changes to make.
Overall, I think that this was a well done section of your website.
Comment [EK6]: Explaining your results
and your findings from data. (More than just
this sentence but I wasnt going to highlight
an entire paragraph)
Comment [EK7]: Discussing the conclusion
you drew from your data