Personal Literacy Narrative: My Relationship with Reading and Writing

Introduction

Growing as a normal child in Vietnam, I used to be read to many stories. Most of them were stories about myth characters and folk tales. My parents both enjoyed reading because they think it is the best way to learn. It is, actually. I grew up with a mind full of fantasy and immagination. I was always ready to create, to learn. Moreover, it develops my way of reading and writing increasingly. In my personal literacy narrative essay I will share the examples of the role of literacy in my life.

Personal Literacy Narrative Essay 

From prior experiences, I always favor reading over writing. While reading, I can imagine and imply myself into whatever I’m diving into. Whereas writing is a little diffrent. It obligates the writers to use words to express what they are conveying. For example, when I’m reading a mythical story about mermaid, I totally can picture a beautiful girl with a half human half fish body. Unlike reading, writing has many elements. It requires perfect grammar (well, most of the time), vocabulary, research information, etc. Moreover, you have rules to follow when write. In the other hand, there is none in reading. There was that one time I took the IELTS test. It's an international standardized test of English language proficiency for non-native English language speakers. The writing and reading tests were both timed. Furthermore, the contents and the prompts were definitely new. I did not pass with a sky-high grade at all. It was not due to the fact that I was not capable of a good writing but I always have a problem with starting my paper. I would find myself sitting there and daydreaming about what I’m going to write. But that’s it. I did not write any ideas down, I did not have an outline or even think of how my essay structure is going to be. I could not finish on time of course. My incomplete essay was lacking of both content and grammar. It clearly shows that I did not have time to revise my essay. This has taught me that when I can’t start the writing immediately, I need to do exactly what Lamott says 'In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts'. But of course, I did not know that back then, specifically, at the time I took the test. In contrast, when looking at the positive side, I do know how to start a paper now. When stuck, I start brainstorming, write down ideas, and write a really really shitty rough draft.

I’m always an OK writer when I don’t rush myself. I have good grades on reading assignments and pleasurable grades on writing assignments. In Vietnam, I used to be taught how to write in a different way. The teacher always expected the student to write as much as possible. The more the better. And of course, that one student has the longest essay, gets the highest score. I was not quite enjoy that type of writing. It was all about putting irrelevant information to the essay to meet the word count. The teacher also states that “You need to go around and around many times before go into the main point”. That’s why the paper is so long.

When I came to the US, I was shocked by the way I suppose to write. At the beginning, I thought it was just the difference between cultures. But it was more than that. It expresses how the citizen of this country, the United States, communicate as well. My EAP II teacher always says to go straight to the key point, then starting to develop and give examples. During the writing process, though it may seem simpler than the way I was taught back in my country, I struggled. I found myself going around and around and kept including nonsense things in my writing. The first writing was bad. I did not get it at all. I was so dissapointed. I kept questioning myself “Where did I do wrong?”, “I met the word count and made the claim, what did I miss?” I blamed everything for the excuse that it was all because English is not my first language and I’m not familiar with it. Anger and disappointment always surround my writing since. My EAP teacher seemed to notice my attitude toward these writing assignments. She once told me to have a meeting with her so we could both figure out what is going on. She and I kept on meeting for several weeks, she walked me through the writing process that is supposed to be appropriate in this country and explain why. First, it was tough to get through. But then gradually, I got used to it and slowly transfer the ideas on my mind to the paper. It was ugly at the beginning of course. I figure I need to go to the tutor to improve more. Then little by little, my writing becomes better through time. This event of mine relates to the quote in Writing about Writing, “You’ll find the college writing instructor who assigned this book probably believes a very different story, one based not on teachers’ rulebooks but rather on observation of successful writers and how writing, reading, language, and texts actually work - how people actually experience them'. It demonstrates that prior experiences impact on how you read and write.

Conclusion

Literacy ability means literacy ability. Since I am currently in the United States, literacy has a new definition for me, as I have to speak and write in English, not my mother tongue. In the course of learning English, I encountered language barriers and cultural shocks. Now when I think about my own fight, I know that I need to manage suffering and learn from them so that I can become a better learner. In order to stand at the same starting point as my colleague, I have read a lot of English sentences to improve my English interpretation.

There are times where I know what to say, just do not have the proper way of putting it on the paper. I feel struggle in itself speaks excessively about the world of literacy. There are people in this world who are experts in their specific field of work that could show you how things work using their own adaptive terminology compared to if you were to read up on it on your own. Literacy is something that has been around before it was given a name will always be as long as there is a need for living beings to communicate on this planet.