Joshua Gobble September 2013 What Brought Me to Where I am Today?

English 1101

Today I sit here thinking about the long, but seemingly short, journey to college. The time has finally come for which I have prepared for the last twelve years. I already sit here thinking and writing about my past and my education. I think about my literacy, and how it started with just learning the alphabet and the sounds. Over the last twelve years, the alphabet has turned into knowledge of many subjects and different ways to use literacy. Many people and sources have helped me along the way. My parents, teachers, grandparents, friends, and leaders have taught me numerous things. Other sources that have helped me along the way include school, free time, eagerness to learn, spending time with smarter people, reading, contest, and watching television. If you are given the right resources that accompany your needs and personalities best, then you can learn anything you want. In kindergarten, my literacy timeline began. Even though I had no clue what the term literacy meant, learning the alphabet was the first step of finding out. I then had to learn phonics and how different letters made different sounds. Then came spelling. I remember a few methods of learning how to spell all the way up until middle school. One included participating in spelling bees. I happened to win the spelling bee between first and second grade students while in first grade. This not only excited me as a young learner, but it also helped me learn extra words outside of the classroom. I had to memorize and practice spelling words that might be in the spelling bee. When the spelling bee came though, I just had to take the

Joshua Gobble September 2013 English 1101 roots I knew to help me spell words I had never heard of before. I also wrote words over and over again in order to learn how to spell. As a student, writing words myself would help me memorize them. I have to give credit to my teachers for implementing assignments early in my life to help me learn how to spell. They helped me to do well on my test, and even devoted their spare time to helping me win the spelling bee.

By the second and third grade, I had begun to read larger books. Sometimes I would read on my own. Other times, contest motivated me to read for prizes. I remember always feeling so accomplished once I read the required amount of books to earn a Pizza Hut coupon. During this time period though, a bad influence on my literacy came about. Teachers begin making me do book reports. Now, I would not read books for fun, but rather because I had to, and I would also have to retain the information to write x amount of pages about the book in a report. However, this did not stop me from enjoying books. At the age of nine and ten, I enjoyed reading Hardy Boy books. I probably went through twenty-five of their mysteries during those years. I also read the Bible. This book gave me guidance and direction in my life. My parents and grandparents have given me help along the way. They both have bought me many books during my lifetime. I recall playing Scrabble and Upwords once my vocabulary became large enough. I was beginning to beat my parents during middle school. The book and games have broadened my vocabulary

Joshua Gobble September 2013 English 1101 and how to use certain words. My grandparents have given me knowledge on literacy through many talks about society. They have helped me realize that other people view subjects differently than myself. I have learned to have a love and respect for everyone. These are positive memories of literacy, which have helped bring me to where I am today. Along the way, in more recent years, teachers and their workload have affected my enjoyment of literacy. In high school teachers began making me read books and write essays that did not interest me at all. It proved difficult to write a whole essay on a subject in a story, especially a story that I did not enjoy. Polly Paddock relates to this in one of her articles by saying, Not to be discouraged. And to read widely, along the lines of your interest not what you are supposed to read but what interests you. These experiences took me away from the leisure reading that I use to enjoy. I began to come to school everyday dreading English class. It was not fun to write about given subjects at all with such strict guidelines. I enjoyed and still do enjoy math much more than English because of this. Large writing assignments frustrated me in high school, especially for English teachers. I can directly relate to Elizabeth Cookes quote that says, I got tangled up when I thought about that grade, about whether I was doing the assignment correctly. I was so concerned about form and grammar in my writing, that I did not enjoy it. When I got my paper back, and it did not have a perfect score, it was even worse. I made good grades in English class, but I worked so hard for them. This has helped me get to where I am today, even though I have not enjoyed it along the way.

Joshua Gobble September 2013 English 1101 Different factors affect each of us and how we learn everyday. Personally, I enjoy learning from leaders directly, or from knowledge that my grandparents share with me. Others enjoy reading dictionaries and surfing the internet to learn about certain subjects. Then there are those people that have not found out how they enjoy learning. This, of course, is not good. Some people argue that these types of students are not ready to graduate high school. Michael Skube expresses this thought by saying Exit exams have become almost necessary because the GPA is not to be trusted. Many students get through high school with the teachers help. I believe this is not good for society. As a high school student, I had a very good GPA, but I also have to give some credit to the teachers. Sometimes I felt like I got grades that I did not deserve, but my teachers knew I put forth all the effort I could into my work. I believe students should take an exit exam in order to show what they did learn. If a student is not willing to learn in high school, how long is it going to take them to learn in the real working world? These students need to find a resource that helps them to learn in the best way possible. They need to find their type of literacy learning tool. I sit here writing this paper about my personal literacy experience. I have enjoyed it more than the last paper I wrote. I have been able to express how I truly feel about a subject without guidelines. I hope whoever hears and reads this will realize, or find, their best resource for learning and what will help them the most. All I have experienced and learned has built my literacy to where it is today.

Joshua Gobble September 2013 English 1101

References Cooke, Elizabeth. Interview with a Published Writer. 11 September 2013. Paddock, Polly. Oates advises authors to read a lot, rewrite. 11 September 2013. Skube, Michael. High-Voltage GPAs, but dim bulb vocabularies. 11 September 2013. Revisions from first draft: 1st paragraph, 3rd sentence- Omitted now 1st paragraph, 5th sentence- Changed Different to Many 2nd paragraph, 2nd sentence- Omitted what this word meant 2nd paragraph, last sentence- Added more details 4th paragraph, 4th sentence- Changed at the beginning to during 4th paragraph, 5th sentence- Inserted another sentence 5th paragraph, 1st sentence- Omitted though 5th paragraph, 12th sentence- Omitted my before form 5th paragraph, 14th sentence- Omitted also at the end of the sentence 6th paragraph, 5th sentence- Put commas around of course 6th paragraph, 9th sentence- Revised Personally to say As a high school student

Joshua Gobble September 2013 6th paragraph, 10th English 1101 sentence- Revised wording at the end of the sentence

6th paragraph, 12th sentence- Changed the period to a question mark 6th paragraph, 13th sentence- Revised to help reader better understand 7th (last) paragraph, last sentence-Added more to my conclusion