Response: Rodriguez

Rosie Caldwell
Professor M. Boland
English 329

Response: Rodriguez, Richard. “The Achievement of Desire.” Hunger of Memory.

The idea of creativity and creating something unique and never-before-thought-of is a little ridiculous, but likewise can be said by the idea of being "hindered by the constraints of their attempts at originality." By simply applying your own views and your own words, you are creating something different. Ideas are built upon each other and ideas are shared, expanded upon and often evolve or shift with the introduction of other ideas or outside sources. The discomfort that Rodriguez expressed....I thought.....was misplaced. Like him, people can be so insecure about not creating something original... but as long as they add a different element or see a different facet, they are creating something different and interesting.

The issue with the separation from family seemed a little odd to me as well. Although I come from a very well educated family, I have friends who are not formally educated beyond high school. I feel no discomfort or a need to distinguish between them and myself- there is no uneasiness or hyper-sensitivity to the fact that they might not know what I am talking about, or might be confused by some of my references... because I see that they know things that I do not. I realize that they have different knowledge that is not inferior or superior to mine. I did not really see his disconnect.... and thought it was interesting that I have heard these sentiments before from other people. People mention how they have to become a different person in order to avoid discomfort - they have to dumb down or try to impress with excess information and academic references....I'm glad to say that I don't feel this need :)

Comment on Fredrick Douglas

Rosie Caldwell
English 329

Douglas, Frederick. "Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave"

Sean commented on the idea that being literate and having a working knowledge about the world is important. Reading this article and Sean’s response from it makes me think of ignorance is bliss compared to the idea that we, as a society, have an obligation be well educated and know how the world works. Because when a society is uneducated or unaware of things- they are putting themselves in a position of vulnerability. And uneducated population can fall victim to their leaders (as we have seen lately within our own country) If you do not know your rights, you cannot enforce them, if you do not know what is happening in the political realms, then you are not fully equipped to make decisions about the representatives that will be making the laws that will govern you and others. Sean states that “Although it will give us knowledge of the evils in the world, I feel that it is important for us to learn these issues and struggles that have taken place in our history so that we can understand where we, as a society, come from. We should not remain ignorant and illiterate so that we cannot feel the agony Douglass felt. We need to feel the agony as well as the ecstasy from literacy if we are to learn about ourselves and those that came before us: how they thought, what they did, and what they wrote.” I could not say it better…. education may bring to light the harsh truths or the horrors in the world, but it will also be a means of better understanding where your surroundings and the way the world works….

reespawnz 2 shawn tuker preesees

I cannot stress how emphatically I agree with the idea that students must shake off other people's perceptions to come to hear their true creative voice. It is precisely for this reason that I have endeavored to become a creative writer and a teacher to pass such liberating and explorative concepts to students in high school. I feel that the dichotomatic nature of the intelligent and intellectual writer must be identified and embraced and allowed to exist to allow said nature to mediate the creative genius of the writer.

A.J.'s Response to Sherman's Viva La Chimichanga

While I cannot identify with the “choose your own ending books,” I can identify completely with the appreciation that accompanies a well written horror piece. I believe the “grim fantasy” composed with elements of peril and bloodshed to be rather addicting and cathartic. As a leisure activity, who would pass up the opportunity to escape into a fictional world apart from our everyday burdens? The problem exists when reading become mandatory, an assigned task. When reading is required and expected, it becomes additional weight added to the already numerous burdens we must carry.

A.J.'s Response to Sean Tucker's Rodriguez Precis

I could not agree more that individuals endeavoring to make successful strides in any form of writing should strive past the intimidation that accompanies the writing process. After all, there will always exist a writer whose overall semantics remain far superior. Though it is quite difficult, as specified, to compose anything out of “complete original thought,” it is necessary for the aspiring writer, in any forum, to give him or herself credit for making the attempt to think beyond the boundaries of what has already been set in place. Sure, it takes effort and talent to write. However, it takes an equally creative effort to draw from an influence and compose something beautiful in and of itself. So, along with not worrying about “how dull or imitative their writing is,” I believe the ability for a student to recognize his or her successes to be equally important.

Rodriguez Précis

Sean Tucker
Professor Mary Boland
English 329
27 January 2009
Rodriguez Précis

Rodriguez, Richard. “The Achievement of Desire.” Hunger of Memory. Scribd.com, 3 Apr. 2008. Web. 25 Jan 2009.

In “The Achievement of Desire,” Richard Rodriguez reflects on his experience as a student from grammar school through his life as a graduate student. He explains that he was the type of role model student that the teachers loved—always reading, asking questions, and listening to their every word. Other people would often say to him, “Your parents must be proud.” Despite all of the praise and recognition Rodriguez received, he explains that he was “a bad student” and was “unconfident” and “sad.” This paradox comes from the way Rodriguez described himself as a “the scholarship boy” who is “an imitative and unoriginal pupil.” Rodriguez came to this conclusion when he read Richard Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy while searching through various Education texts to find something written about students like him. He felt he had changed dramatically from what his parents were and what he was before he began to progress through school.
What happened to Rodriguez was that as he progressed successfully through school, he began to drift further away emotionally and physically from his parents. His parents were working class Mexican immigrants that could not speak English very well and were not educated in the traditional sense, i.e. it appears that they may not have been high school graduates. Rodriguez’s education began to make him feel quite different from his parents and he was “least prepared for the change….he goes home and sees in his parents a way of life not only different but starkly opposed to that of the classroom. (He enters the house and hears his parents talking in ways his teachers discourage).” He was angry about the differences between his parents and himself but then became engulfed and enraptured with his education. He knew he was different but he still embraced his learning and he pressed on. It wasn’t until he realized that he belonged to a very lonely academic community, the ones that spend hours in the library without uttering a word to anyone or making any kind of friendly gesture to the one sitting next to them, that he decided to take a break from his dissertation and stay with his parents for the summer. He still had the realization that he was different from them, but he was “relieved by how easy it was to be home. Yet, he still “remained an academic” by constantly contemplating his relationship with his parents and how they did not do the same. Conversely, his way of thinking, due to his educational background, did allow him to do this and without it, Rodriguez feels that he could not and would never realize the importance of it. In the end, he realizes that his realization of this and his “desire of the past” had indeed completed his education.
What was most insightful for me in this piece is that although Rodriguez knew he was changing and becoming so different from his parents, he still pressed on with his education. He admits that he’s no genius. In fact, he claims quite the opposite. He claims that all he ever did was regurgitate what his teachers and professors taught him, i.e. he had no original thoughts of his own. However, I feel the opposite. Indeed, Rodriguez had been building himself into the accomplished writer that he is today. He failed to realize that he was going through a learning process that involved practicing skills and, yes, sometimes imitating those that were accomplished in these skills in order for him to develop his own original thoughts and ideas. The point here is that no one learns anything in a vacuum of complete original thought. Instead, we learn from others that we admire and learn from those we dislike as well. I fell that if students can learn this point and not worry about how dull or imitative their writing is, then, perhaps, these students will feel free to just write and not be hindered by the constraints of or their attempts at originality.

Viva La Chimichanga

Sherman Aspacio
Professor Boland
Eng. 329 Auto #2
28 January 2009
The first time a book affected me in an overwhelmingly influential way was when I exhausted all of the options of my first ‘choose your own adventure’ book, Silver Wings. I would explore (cheat) all of the different options in the book and never remove my finger from the last section of the book I read, in fear that I would prematurely end my story. I got the book from R.I.F., or, reading is fundamental, a free book give-away that my elementary school sponsored. I was utterly engaged into this book for three days, systematically hunting down the next progression and never feeling satisfied until the webs of choices lined up into the best possible outcome for my vicarious main character.
I remember that I died a lot, my plane would smash into mountains or I would get eaten by a crocodile, and each such instance brought an unprecedented pull of emotion I had henceforth never experienced from reading a book.
In my childhood home, The Phelan Orphanage of St. Dolores, the nuns kept two large bookcases, six by six by two feet deep, stocked with around one hundred books. These books ranged, as I grew up with three siblings . . . Uh . . . I mean orphans, . . . And it was always pleasurable (as orphanage life can get a tad morass) to sprawl onto a cozy couch, be warmed by the rays of sunlight wandering through the blinds, and simply disengage reality and submerge my consciousness into an alternate reality. I read many books that upon recollection simply offer me only the warm fuzzy feeling that pronounces itself so well with the cool nostalgia of those orphanage days. I brought all of the books with me to my adopted family (Which, ironically, was my biological family . . . ). The books in my house, growing up, were regarded as a distraction from too much television. I would love to convey the mass importance my parents placed on reading towards me, though, as I feel that giving your child a book to read to distract them from television is a poor motivation indeed. Truly, my parents asked me what types of books I enjoyed and supplied me with them, understanding the relevance of my early reading prowess as directly connected to my academic achievements.
The last book I read with true enjoyment was . . . Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. I enjoy books that allow for emotional involvement between the folds. I loved the grim fantasy of the piece, and imagined myself hovering over someone’s window beckoning to let me inside to feast on their innards. Truth be told, I was scared, but only a little bit. While I respect Stephen King for the literature he produces I never feel totally satisfied with his endings. But I appreciate and respect such horror books the way I appreciate and respect a well crafted machine, that is, I find machines functional and wondrous, but upon analysis of how it works one can create one’s own machine, and following this logic, I feel that, as a writer, I am searching out literary stimuli that will invoke certain emotional responses from a reader to add to my dazzling repertoire of literary devices.

Me and My Dorky Books

Sean Tucker
Professor Mary Boland
English 329
26 January 2009
Autobiographical Essay #2
The first time a book really affected me was when I read Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I was eleven or twelve and my grandmother gave me a collection of paperback novels by Dickens, H.G. Wells, and some other writers. Although I “shelved” these books for some time, I decided a year or two later that I would read some of these. I ended up reading most or all of them, I really do not remember, but Great Expectations really grabbed me and I could not stop thinking about Pip, the main character, and his love, Estella. By the way, I had to look her name up on the internet because I just remembered her as that girl, the one Pip or I would love but could never have. I must admit that I am really embarrassed telling you all this, but the prompt for this essay asked about the first time a book affected me in some way and I honestly could not make anything less humiliating up at the moment. I simply was drawn into this novel for some reason, and I became Pip—I felt what he felt and I yearned for what he desired. Without getting into any specific and far too personal details about my life, I will simply say that Pip and I had some things in common and I think I was glad that I was not the only one that felt how he felt and wanted what he wanted. I told none of my friends or family that I was reading this book in fear of the laughs or the questioning raised eyebrows I thought I would get from them. None of my friends read novels, they read comic books and watched T.V., and I did not want to look like a nerd. I read secretly next to a nightlight by my bed after I knew my parents thought I was asleep and I never told anyone my secret.
Books figured quite prominently in my childhood home. My parents, especially my dad, read constantly. I remember the two bookcases we had in the house were jammed with novels, college texts, reference books, and even various cookbooks. There were so many books that my parents put the books in double rows on the deep shelves—one row all the way to the back and another row directly in front. After some time, books were piled on top of the existing double rows of books. The bindings were all cracked and worn from being handled. My parents always seemed to have a paperback novel spread out on their nightstands. My dad read war novels and historical novels and my mom read mostly historical or religious novels; although, there was a time when she was reading various “self-help” books. I never read the books they read simply because I was not interested in what they were reading. I never understood my dad’s obsession with war novels and my mom’s self-help books seem gimmicky to me. I think that their heavy reading has left an impression on me and I continue to read leisurely when I can, but my schoolwork has really put a damper on this for the time being.
Although this may sound odd to most, the last book I read with real enjoyment was the assigned text for my Grammar II course, Explaining English Grammar by George Yule. What is odd indeed is that although many grammar texts are dull, dry, and absolutely a bore to read, this book was devoid of the drowsy effects that every other grammar text has had on me. Yule’s text seemed real, as if what he wrote would actually work. For example, most grammar texts use simple sentences and structures that are really too simplified and not really how people use the language to get a particular point across, but Yule used actual transcripts from real, everyday speech. He also approached language from a functional stance, i.e. the way people actually use language, not the way prescriptivists hammer out the way English should be spoken or written. Furthermore, every chapter ended with various lesson plans that an educator could use to teach the material that is covered in a particular chapter. These lessons even accounted for varying levels of proficiency so that the lessons could be tailored for just about any class. Yes, very dorky here, but I highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in language.

Welcome to Dead House

A.J. Pallante
Prof. Boland
English 329
27 January 2009
Autobiographical Essay # 2
In general, books affect me in the same manner as pharmaceutical medications do. Before opening a book, I experience mild mood swings, questioning the reasons behind why the selected text is imperative to my education. After I reconcile this with myself, I begin reading, still enraged over the justification. Depending on the dryness of the text, moments into this now enduring endeavor, I experience a slight headache accompanied by the need to curse the author of the book. Not too long after this point, it is unsafe for me to operate any machinery, as I become quite drowsy. In most cases, this is the relationship I have with literature. However, the first book that ever affected me in a way that did not contain these expected side effects of marked drowsiness and suicidal abandon was Welcome to Dead House by R.L. Stein. This book was the first book of his Goosebumps series.
I will never forget third grade for this reason. Until I was introduced to the Goosebumps series, I had no interest in reading. I had low reading comprehension scores, and was not interested in improving them. I hated reading. This was because everything I was forced to read was terribly boring to me. I neither cared, nor wanted to read about, anything that did not include some element of horror. Noticing this, my third grade teacher informed me about this “new book series” entitled Goosebumps. The very next week, I somehow got a hold of Welcome to Dead House, the first book in the series. I remember very little about the first few chapters. However, from the chapter about zombies eating the family that moved into the house by the cemetery on, I was hooked. Even today, I have a major zombie fetish. I will never forget the way I felt, as a child reading about things I could only draw in secret. I had finally found something that interested me that did not involve routine and curricular standards.
At this point, I could not read enough. From third grade through fifth grade, I read all sixty books in the original series. Religiously, each month, I would buy the newest book on the day it came out. This is where family was a big help. I would do chores throughout the month, and my allowance would come in the form of the new book every month. This minor obsession became quite problematic when it came to school. I would spend so much time reading these that I would neglect my school work. Eventually, once the series came to a conclusion, I lost interest in reading. I could not seem to find anything that satisfied my need for gore. I made my way through the typical Hot Topic authors of the genre: Rice, King and Barker. None of them quite interested me. I read “creepy” tales in elementary school. I did not want “creepy.” I wanted something ominous and brutal, something that would keep me awake at night. It was not until my freshman year in high school I found it.
I would not have survived high school if it were not for two things: music and H.P. Lovecraft. Throughout high school, hardcore bands gave me the strength to stand up straight when everyone else cowered behind false personas and hidden agendas. However, hardcore and what it means for me is a different topic completely. It was the literature of H.P. Lovecraft sparked my interest outside of concert venues. His descriptions and subject matter was the chilling intoxicant I had been searching for. Throughout high school, I could not get enough of his writings. I began listening to bands that were heavily influenced by his work. H.P. Lovecraft had become my new Goosebumps.
Unfortunately, that is where it ended. Once I began college, I was forced once again to read meaningless and boring literature. I quickly lost all interest in reading, and have not looked back. It is quite humorous to me now when people criticize me for not enjoying reading and writing. I cannot help but feel sorry for those who have simply accepted what has been forced upon them. It has helped me to identify how far individuals will go to convince themselves that they are actually happy with what they have been given, how far certain people will go to convince themselves that this is truly what they enjoy.

auto #2

Rosie Caldwell
Professor M. Boland
English 329- literacy
26 January 2008
Autobiographical Insight #2
When I was fairly young, I remember reading Where the Red Fern Grows. This is a classic that I have heard many people reflect back on and comment on the feelings they had when they first read it and the evolution of emotions as they read it for the second or third time. I remember being completely enthralled with the story of the little boy who wanted these two hounds. I was touched by his determination and love for these dogs. Late into the night I would curl up under the covers with a flashlight, always anxious for the ending and yet, not wanting it to end. Feeling proud of the boy for saving his money and seeing the response of his grandfather was touching. But mostly, remembering how I was engulfed in sorrow when the Dan died and Anne wilted and died soon afterwards. I remember how the pain I felt for these fictitious figures was as real was when I had to put down my cat of 13 years. I thought it was odd, being so attached to figments of my imagination, but I was. I cried while reading it and for several weeks afterwards.
My mother reads compulsively, and my father has begun to read almost as much as her. The master bedroom, guest room, living room and even the dining room are all lined with bookshelves filled with an assortment of books. Cooking books, history books, encyclopedias, books for dummies, books about westerns, fantasy, and whatever else. Also, there always seems to be a LA or NY Times around. Between my parents, every book on those shelves has been read. Needless to say, my parents are very well read and learned. Obviously, books and newspaper articles were important to my parents and were constantly present in the house and their conversations. At lease once a week my mother would find an article about how yoga or breathing deeply will greatly reduce my stress level. She would read different political views, or express her gratitude for her family after reading a clip from “Dear Abby.” Dad seemed more interested in local type news and human interest pieces, as well as finding grammatical trouble areas in the local newspaper. Through osmosis, I picked up my current ideologies, views and base of knowledge of the world and the political and moral complexities that are embedded in society.
I have not read for pleasure in quite some time. Even when I have read, I find myself not appreciating the story as much as observing different writing methods. Despite the complexity and brilliance of the plot, I am more interested different descriptive passages, the author’s voice and use of language. I’m not sure when my approach to reading fictional work changed to this attention to style rather than content, but it has persisted throughout my college years. The last time I read a book (Wit’ch Fire?) that I loved and enjoyed reading was by James Clemens. Even then I was more attracted to his voice and style…the story was engaging and eventful; full of action, battle scenes, a sexy knight and a hot protagonist who eventually fall in love and go on their way. This book is an emotional rollercoaster, many plot twists and interesting characters throughout this book; all of which made it enjoyable and fun to read. But the author has the most beautiful way of describing things. I would read passages over and over in an attempt to soak in the beauty of his language. I felt as if I was placed there in his reality, experiencing the world he so artfully described. I cannot remember the last time I connected so strongly to a voice or style, but perhaps when I graduate I will be able to read more and find another author who stirs the senses of my imagination.

Douglass Précis

Douglas, Frederick. "Narrative of the Life Of Frederick Douglas, An American Slave". Berkeley Digital Library SunSITE. 21 Jan 2009 http://sunsite3.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/07.html.

This chapter from Frederick Douglass’s Autobiography describes how he learned to read and write as a slave who was forbidden to do so. His first exposure to literacy was from his master’s wife. She began to teach him by starting with the alphabet but then stopped after the insistence of her husband. Indeed, she began to treat Douglass quite poorly following this event and lashed out in anger towards him whenever she suspected him of reading. Nevertheless, Douglass continued his pursuit of literacy by befriending other poor, hungry white children that taught him to read in exchange for food. These children also pitied his condition in bondage and comforted him by saying that he should be freed someday.
Learning to read led Douglass to read books on the conditions of slavery, arguments for and against it, and made him aware of the terrible conditions that he and others like him had continued to face. He learned how they were stolen from Africa and had been brought here under terrible conditions. For Douglass, learning to read and learning of the terrible conditions of slavery became a great burden for him. His words tell of the agony he felt, “It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity.” His feelings about slavery at this point, being so strong, led him to learn about abolition and how others, the abolitionists in the north, would provide him and other slaves an avenue of freedom. This, in turn, led Douglass to continue his education in literacy and learn to write well from his master’s son’s writing handbooks so that he could write his own pass to freedom.
This entire chapter is quite strong and insightful with the most powerful being the seventh paragraph where Douglass wrote of the painful knowledge he gained of the atrocities of slavery via his newfound literacy. His literacy here is analogous to the “forbidden fruit” in the Garden of Eden in that he learned not only of the good that can be learned by being able to read but also of the evils that he learned of via literacy as well. Despite his anguish he felt from learning of the evils of slavery and his wish that he had remained ignorant, he pressed on and decided to do something about this—he began to write. This not only would lead to his eventual freedom, but it allowed him to eventually tell his story so that others could learn of his struggle to not only acquire literacy but, most importantly, freedom.
This chapter really shows explicitly what literacy can mean for us. Although it will give us knowledge of the evils in the world, I feel that it is important for us to learn these issues and struggles that have taken place in our history so that we can understand where we, as a society, come from. We should not remain ignorant and illiterate so that we cannot feel the agony Douglass felt. We need to feel the agony as well as the ecstasy from literacy if we are to learn about ourselves and those that came before us: how they thought, what they did, and what they wrote. Douglass’s writing here shows us how he thought and what he did. Without such a work, history would be devoid of his struggle for literacy, knowledge, and freedom and we would be missing out on an important lesson on what literacy can do for one and all.

Lite Racy

A.J. Pallante
Prof. Boland
English 329
20 January 2009
Autobiographical Assignment #1
Conversation, the ability to manipulate language, has always been something that has interested me deeply. The ability to convey emotion and conceptual information through the use of sound was always something that I found to be fascinating in the context of establishing an audient connection with another human being. Obviously, as a child I was less concerned with, and could not fathom, the intellectual aspects of conversation and remained more attracted to the sounds that accompanied speech. However, this is where the pursuit of endeavoring to gain something from literacy began. Though it is difficult to recall exactly how this practice was initiated, I can identify certain mediums that have enhanced the process along the way.
It must be said that I was never one who particularly enjoyed reading and writing. Even today, I still share similar sentiments. It is difficult for me to remain stationary and stare at a manuscript without pausing frequently to curse the author and all who were involved in the production of the given text. However, when I was in fourth grade, there was a book series that I could not get enough of. For some reason unbeknownst to me, R.L. Stein’s Goosebumps were all I read. I have always been entertained by macabre circumstances and the darkly humorous. Though not embodied in his work, I could identify certain elements of horror within these stories. This was my first memorable encounter with reading.
With this foundation, what sustained my interest in the ability to understand and manipulate language came in the form of lyrics. Though most lyrics are poor examples of what can be considered fine writing, there was one band in particular whose lyricist exhibited the ability to compose with an expansive vocabulary. The band was called Cradle of Filth. Now, I know the name does not due any justice to my claim. However, this is where I found my greatest connection to language. This is where language came to life. I can clearly remember devoting the majority of my time to writing, trying to understand how a person can think in terms of abstraction while expressing these abstractions in the form of beautiful poetry. By reading and emulating these lyrics in my own journals, I was able to maintain an interest. I was able to put abstract thoughts into poetic terms. Had it not been for the lessons I thought myself with these lyrics as a guide, I would have ultimately succumbed to the crushing burden of curricular standards.
Interestingly enough, none of what I accomplished in the arena of reading and\or literacy had anything to do with school. If anything, school drove me away from reading. Throughout, I was forced to read boring stories selected by individuals far removed from education in order to fulfill ridiculous curricular standards. I was taught to relegate beautiful sounds and ideas into parts of speech. This is what ultimately turned me away from reading and writing altogether. However, now that I am able to observe the entire picture, now that I am able to separate the purpose of public schooling from purpose of education, it has become easier to hold onto the memories of what language once was to me, and what it could potentially become once again.

My Earliest Literation

My early language and literacy development formed from a rather early age. I don't recall much before preschool other than these weird picture books that told stories, through pictures alone, of a stylized cat character washing his car or hanging his laundry etc., involved a mishap, and always concluded with a happy ending. This sparked my literacy as it presented me with a new mode of reading, and subsequently using, new facial expressions in certain situations.

I feel that because I was privileged enough to attend pre-school, I was given a leg up once I stepped into public school. I excelled at reading in kindergarten all the way through elementary school. My writing prowess emerged in second grade when I was given the challenge of writing a short story. I wish I still had a copy, it was entitled "The Rooster that Never Sleeps." The story is of an insomniac rooster who encounters a number of conflicts through his incessant attempts to maintain conversation with the other barnyard animals throughout the night. The story was given second place. Go, second grade me! woo!

I grew up with two male cousins of mine from age 3 to the present, they being one year younger than me, and fraternal twins. We grew up together in our small desert town and shortly upon group exposure to the Nintendo Entertainment System, a competition of ages began and has not relented to this day! Throughout elementary school, I excelled at school and sought to keep the buffer of a senior classman full and thick over my cousins to maintain superiority in the intellectual field, being as how I was the least skilled at defeating Bowser. This only lasted a while, . . . as both my cousins beat me up whenever they saw me reading.

Literacy (Auto. #1)

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History of Literacy

From the beginning my mother read to me. When the time came she helped me read and sound out words. I remember her placing a fingertip over certain letters and saying “sound this out” or “what is this word?” Even still she is always trying to get me to read an article, or she is reading something from the newspaper on how to lessen the stress in my life with some breathing exercise. Despite all this, I feel a reluctance to read; it is not pleasurable for me. I do, however, love to write.

I remember in second grade we had a free-write exercise every day. My story would spill over on to the back of the page and when the teacher said it was time to put down our pencils, I never wanted to. I was not inspired by any particular teacher, just inspired in general… enthralled by the act, motion and feeling of putting my yellow pencil to paper. Nor was I inspired by the school setting, because when I was homeschooled my writing excelled and I wrote more than when I was in school. In high school my teachers liked my writing and always thought I could do something great with it. One teacher insisted that I should send her an autographed copy of my first novel. My professor at Crafton Hills College also thought that with some work, I could publish some of my short stories… I have not been met with such enthusiasm since I have come to this university, however.

My father is a very skilled writer and was always helpful when I had questions, needed input or just wanted him to look over something for me. Having this resource also pushed me along and ensured that my writing skills progressed and continually improved. Now... essays and analysis papers, research papers and structured journal entries occupy my time. I am constantly learning new things from the university and its various teachers; new terms, ways of viewing things and approaching writing assignments….

To sum up the history of my literacy…..I owe my reading skills to my mother and my writing skills to my father. The university has also deepened my knowledge and added to my repertoire.

My Language and Literacy Development

The earliest moment I can remember about my early language and literacy development is when I was about four years old in preschool. My teacher had little paper signs up on a wall that went across from one end to the other much like the alphabet banner that is place above the front chalk or white board in elementary school classrooms. On these little signs were vowels and double, long sounding vowels like “oo” and “ee”. The was a little picture next to each of these vowels such as a bee next to “ee” and a book and a pool next to “oo”. I don’t really remember going over these in class, but I’m sure we did since they stick out in my mind so much after all these years. I also remember that my sheets in preschool that I used at naptime had my first and last name written in all capital letters in thick, black permanent marker on one corner, “SEAN TUCKER”. I remember thinking, “That’s not the way it should be. It should look like ‘Sean Tucker,’ with the little letters, not all big letters.” I remember even telling my mom about it and said “uh-huh” in the half-listening and uninterested way that parents do when their child tells them some trivial fact about their day at school.

Another early exposure I had to early language and literacy development was that my mother used to read to me quite often. I remember her reading my favorite book to me when I was five, a red hardcover book that had brief adaptations of many Disney cartoons and movies such as Pinocchio and some Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck stories. If my mom couldn’t read to me, I also had storybooks with records that I would listen to and follow along with the words and pictures. These were the ones that would chime or beep when you had to turn the page. I had many different ones: The Rescuers, Peter and the Wolf, Bugs Bunny, and Scooby Doo were some that I remember the most. I listened to these so much that I just about had everyone memorized.

Later on in life, from six years old to my teenage years, I always remember my parents reading various novels constantly. In fact, they still do. Because they read so much and read so much to me, I picked up reading leisurely at a vary young age. My grandma gave me many classics such as The Prince and the Pauper, Great Expectations, Treasure Island, The Time Machine, and War of the Worlds when I was in the fifth and sixth grades. My mom got me a set of Conan books and I read all of these and feel in love with them including the books my grandma gave me.

I feel that, for me, my family had a greater impact on my language and literacy development much more than school did. I don’t remember reading much other than little short stories in elementary school and I cannot remember even one of their titles or plots. But I remember all the books I read that my family gave me when I was in elementary and junior high school. I’m sure I did learn a great deal in school, but I just cannot remember specifics like I can with the things I learned from reading at home. In fact, what I do remember from reading at school seemed mechanical and forced unlike the pleasure I felt from reading at home for myself. It’s funny how I can remember the corrections my dad would make on my speech such as saying “may” when asking permission instead of “can” but I don’t remember much from my early teachers other than that they were there teaching something in the classroom. Because of my family’s love for reading, I have this love and I continue to pursue it via education, continued leisurely reading, and reading to my daughter whom I hope will pick up this habit from me as I carry on the tradition of reading to her, taking her to the library, and giving her many different books of which some are already favorites of hers.