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Samuel Johnson
Grant
UWRT 1103
09/02/14
As a child my entire family read books, from my parents to my great grandparents. The
books they read were passed onto another family member, and once that person was done with
the book it would get passed along once again. For some reason I never developed the same
interest in books as the rest of my family. I did, however, have an interest in becoming literate in
order to open new doors, to be able to conquer new tasks. I wanted to become literate so I could
read a map, or educate myself in a new skill through educational literature. From being forced to
read for a grade, to learning new things because of being able to read, my culture and upbringing
were large impacts on my literacy.
When I was in the first grade we had a set fifteen minutes in every class that were
dedicated to reading. This may be the reason I hate reading now, or it may be the only reason I
learned to read. Obviously, as a six year old, not many of us were reading large books that
actually interested us for fifteen minutes. During that first year of this new time consuming task,
we mainly read as groups. We all had the same terrible feeling when it became your turn to read,
that pressure associated with reading in front of your peers, and generally the reader couldnt
pronounce half of the words in the book. This fear was the first motivator for me. Ive never
liked to be the one that pays attention, but just doesnt understand the material. So when it was
my turn to read the first time, I messed up a lot. We all did the same thing, stuttered and then
gave up on the word so the teacher would just tell us how to pronounce it. After the first
humiliating time I decided that was the time to learn.
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That night I went home and told my parents what had happened, as if it was equivalent to
Pompeii or some other enormous disaster. Since they read books all the time they decided every
night we would have a few minutes, ten to fifteen, where we read out of a slightly large book,
such as Tom Clancy books, because I was really into spies and action adventure. These larger
books had larger words, more sophisticated than I was used to, however, since I was with my
family I had no problem asking definitions or how to pronounce things. These reading sessions
with my family allowed me the ability to read the books in school with ease. The ability to sound
out larger words and more complicated words simplified the diction used in my school books for
the next few years. I had no trouble up until high school where you had to actually analyze the
books, which I soon figured out and had no trouble with either.
My next hurdle in literacy was reading for analytical purposes. In the beginning years of
high school they hand you a book and tell you to read it. This is an easy task, until they give you
the test and you realize that you didnt read for what they actually wanted you to read for. Most
people read the book and get the general concept, but this doesnt work in higher education, you
must completely understand every point the author makes in the book. In order to do this you
need more knowledge about writing to be able to break down each part of the passages. Books
like Oedipus Rex, where they make connections and use figurative language, you cant really
understand the material without understanding the concepts behind it. This was not as big of a
hurdle for me as the initial stages of reading. Throughout the few months we read books similar
to Oedipus Rex I gradually began to grasp the idea of everything being connected. This
connection throughout one book to another book intrigued me and I wanted to learn more. So
whenever I would see a connection in one book, I would research the connection. I did this even
if I had just a slight feeling it referenced to something besides itself.
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While reading about other connections I realized that the Bible is referenced, by far more
than any other book. This struck my interest and I decided to read it all the way through.
Through my ninth grade year I read the entire Bible and tried to write notes on things that may
be connected to in other books I had read by that point. Once I completed the Bible, I was able to
understand the references written in the various other novels and works of literature we read
during my high school career. On some papers, research and other styles, where I was able to
apply references I would stick in any reference that made sense. Some teachers enjoyed this,
others found it too repetitive and menial.
In the eleventh grade I had an English teacher that enjoyed references. Mr. Tangredi
decided to give a full day of when to use them and when to not. I used references only in papers
where metaphors were a requirement, this usually worked out very well. The ability to use
references was a must in my mind since the first time I saw it in a book, and was a big reason to
continue expanding my literacy. Reading the Bible wasnt the hardest book Ive read in terms of
diction, but the connections from book to book within it was enormous, and if you didnt actually
read for comprehension during one part then another part of the Bible would just be completely
unreadable. Understanding references and connections was a very large part of my desire to
continue reading and writing.
Senior year was when I had my third major desire to further my literacy. In my years
leading up to my senior year I had already taken all of the sciences, every single one except
calculus based physics. This wasnt a problem, I enjoyed the thought of learning physics. The
problem was that I hadnt taken, nor had signed up for calculus. Luckily for me, I knew the
calculus teacher. Colonel Ball was my pre-calculus teacher the year before and was also the
calculus teacher during my senior year. During the first week of school I explained my problem,
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he decided that I could have a book, but he wasnt able to teach me the material because of the
lack of tutoring time since he was also a club leader. My last desire to further my literacy began
at the moment I took the book from his hands. Before then I have had math textbooks and other
textbooks, but with someone who was able to explain everything, there was no need to actually
figure out how to read a math textbook, symbols and all. I took the book with the knowledge I
would be on my own. Im now realizing that the first time anyone ever gets a college level
course written on pages with no one to tell them how or what to do they are immediately
overwhelmed. I was not able to magically read everything out of the textbook and understand it
either. The first week of trying to decipher calculus codes I about gave up on trying to learn it
and admitted defeat. It wasnt like I was taking the calculus class anyways, so why should I even
try to learn it. I then convinced myself the meanest teacher in the school would just teach us
everything we needed to know even the knowledge that we were supposed to connect from
calculus. Ive never been so wrong in my life. He just assumed that we knew everything in that
class that related to calculus, since we had either passed calculus or were currently taking it.
Within a week we had our first quiz and I had my first giant letter F on a paper. My parents
didnt accept that very well.
My father always brags about how he has taught himself all the various levels of math, so
I decided why not. I asked him if he could help teach me calculus, this was my second biggest
mistake. My father did nothing but confuse and hinder my learning of the course even more than
it already was. The deciphering began again. I spent at least two hours every night teaching
myself the material I needed, looking at symbols mixed with phrases and intermingled within
paragraphs. After the first few units patterns began showing up in the symbols and way the
textbook was written. Pages flew by and I was easily understanding what everything written in
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the thick textbook meant. I quickly taught myself how to read and understand what was written
on the pages and with that level of literacy I was able to teach myself the knowledge needed to
pass my physics class.
To me what level of literacy you strive to achieve is determined through what you need to
do with your literacy. If you just need a basic understanding of whats going on then you get the
basic amount of literacy. However, if you are in need of teaching yourself a new skill or analyze
something then your level of literacy should reflect that. My literacy was motivated initially out
of sheer fear and then it was an internal desire to further my literacy so my knowledge and
comprehension could be enhanced.