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Jason Wilkie
Ashley Marcum
February 1, 2016
UWRT 1103
A Change in Literacy
In modern times, as children grow up, literacy demands are constantly
changing throughout society. Think back to elementary or even kindergarten
when all you were taught was how to read and write. You spent hours or your
day just practicing how to perfect letters and form somewhat grammatical
sentences. That is one of the forms or literacy. Another could be reading. Just
picking up a book, newspaper, reading an email, or even texting someone.
All forms of literacy. We are constantly influenced by literacy in all the things
we do throughout the day. The way we talk; the way we read; the way we
write. Everything and everyone around us could be a literacy sponsor and
could help or destroy our literacy knowledge. So I am going to share some
experiences with my literacy that could have helped or torn down my love
for literacy.
I have been writing since kindergarten or even before that. My first
experience was trying to write my brothers name on the walls in my house
with crayon and then blaming him (he was not even a year old yet) for the
writing. With all that time writing I have had a lot of feelings as time went on.
I used to love writing. I trying to convey my opinions to parents as a kid to
show them I was brilliant or even writing notes to this girl I liked in third

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grade. However, writing has changed for me since then. Although I find it
absolutely necessary to literacy today, I personally do not like to write that
often. When I am given a writing assignment in school, the first thing that
comes to my head is, Ugh, a writing assignment. After that, I immediately
jump to thinking about how long this writing assignment is going to be and
how long it is going to take me to do. I just do not seem to think positively
about writing. I also do not like to write about specific subjects. I always
hated taking the SAT because of the writing prompts. They were very critical
of your writing no matter how good you thought it was. When a teacher also
asks to write about a topic that does not interest me or has no personal
value or meaning to me I generally do very poorly on the assignment and
wait till the last minute to do it. However, if there is a topic of interest or a
topic that I can put my own emotions and thinking into then I will have a
better attitude writing the paper and the paper will seem more real. I also do
not like writing for how people are so analytical of all the small grammatical
and spelling errors. I like doing more informal writing, so do not always know
how to phrase some things or when to use a semi colon or a comma. I just
remember that the bulk of my English classes were to help students
understand when to use different grammatical structures and how they can
make a difference when using them in sentences. I always hated having to
do those trivial exercises to work on grammar and punctuation as I still do
not use them in my writing today, and I still do not know how to use those
grammatical processes correctly. The only time that I think I have felt happy

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or good about writing was when one of my English teachers in High School
told the students to write about something that really evoked emotions in
the students. This was the only paper that I was really passionate about and
the only paper I actually enjoyed.
Also as I have grown up, I have learned to write many different ways. I
have been told several times that you should start with brainstorming and
then get a general outline of your paper. After that you can finally start your
draft. I feel that the process taught to me just takes too much time. So I
created my own writing process that I am comfortable with. I would consider
my writing process to be improvised. My writing is typically random and just
comes from the top of my head. For example, this entire paper will probably
just be from the top of my head and I will write the first things that come to
my mind. I typically do not plan out or strategize how to go about my writing.
There is not much brainstorming other than picking topics to talk about and
what my thesis or opening statement should be. Otherwise all of my writing
just seems to flow. Since I only like typing emotional papers or personal
paper I do not think about the research and the facts about the subject. If I
do have to make a research paper, then I will typically pick out all of my
topics and decide how they fit and flow best in a certain order. After I finish a
draft, I will usually give my draft to my Mom because she always gives me
good feedback. I will then create a final and then turn the paper in. My
writing differs between school, different subjects and home. When I write
school papers I usually have to follow a rubric and meet certain criteria. I

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also tend to pay a little more attention to pay more attention to the grammar
of the paper to make sure I do not get any points off. In comparison, when I
write papers at home, usually jus to present an idea to a group of friends or
an informal writing, I just write how I feel about the subject. Most of the time,
I am given a subject to write about. I very rarely just write to write because,
as I have said before, I really do not like writing. I also find it difficult to write
different things. Formal papers, for example, are the hardest things to write
because they require more thinking and planning than say a text or a
personal blog. Emails are easy for me because you just have to make sure
that you are not being rude or using slang. Every email should be structured
like it would be for the president. All in all, my writing process is very
unorganized and mostly personal, whenever I do write that is.
Although I talk about writing like I hate it, there is only one thing that I
really hate more than writing. That would be reading. In his article Disliking
Books, Gerald Graff states, Literature has no apparent application to my
experience (Graff 1). I completely agree with Graff, saying I have not found
a real practical use for literature as an Engineer. I have been reading even
longer than I have been writing, and do not get me wrong there are several
books and series that I have really enjoyed reading. However, reading as a
whole does not excite me in the least. I have many feelings about reading,
but when someone asks me about reading, the first thing I always respond
with is I am not a big reader, or I do not really read. It is true, I do not
really like to read as I feel there are better ways to spend my time than just

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staring at something that is written in a book and, most of the time, is not
even real. When I am given a reading assignment in school my first thoughts
are to figure out the easiest way to complete the book and gain an
understanding of it without actually having to read the book. As Graff also
states in his article, I would have been an excellent customer. In this
statement he was talking about using Cliff Notes, which I happened to use
quite often to complete any of my reading assignments. Throughout all of my
schooling there was only one book that I actually enjoyed and continued to
read the series. That was the book Enders Game. I think that I feel this
way mainly because I just get so bored with reading unless it is a genre or a
series that I truly like. I generally spend my time outside playing sports or
inside playing video games. I do not see how reading really helps me in life
applications other than learning the meaning of a couple of bigger words and
increasing my vocabulary. As an engineer however I need to create
something that everyone can understand, not just the people with a large
vocabulary. I do not specifically remember the first time that I did not enjoy
reading. However, there was a time when I loved reading. The only reason
that I really loved reading was because of how competitive I was. I always
wanted to be taking the most advanced classes in middle school to show
that I was smarter than everyone. Also, in elementary school, every week
there was a reading comprehension test that students had to take. I always
wanted to score the highest and take the test the fastest so I practiced my
reading to make sure that happened. After all the students started to level

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out in reading skill I just got bored of reading and did not care as much as I
used to. I still believe that I am a good reader and have a pretty expansive
vocabulary, I just do not care to spend my time free reading books anymore.
So now that I have shared my dislike for reading I feel it would be
necessary to really talk about when that first started. It was probably the
worst reading experience I have ever had and it honestly was not too long
ago. One of the worst reading experiences that I had as I was growing up was
probably reading a required book for one of my English classes in High
School. I hated the book so much that I really do not remember what the
book was. I just remember that I never wanted to do the homework and I
always tried to get the homework from one of my friends instead of doing it
myself. The experience was negative just because the book did not interest
me and I could not find any motivation or need for reading the book. I did not
understand how reading this boring book benefited me at all. The genre and
the material that was being covered by reading the book was supposed to be
covered in the curriculum, however, it just took so long to cover the material
I began to grow weary of the book. Whenever we were asked to talk about
the book as a class, I never raised my hand or participated in the group
reflections. When the class would get put into groups to talk about the
chapters that were assigned the night before, I would usually either say I did
not get to finish and not participate, or I would talk about how boring the
book was and that I really just did not care about sharing my readings or
discussion. This negative experience taught me bad habits as a reader. As

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time went on, if there was a book assignment for a class I would always try
to look for a summary of the chapters or borrow someone elses homework
to copy it down really quickly. The experience mainly taught me how to do as
little work as possible and still understand and be able to talk about the book
when there was a class discussion. I also think that this experience
developed a negative connotation towards reading as I became less and less
enthusiastic about books and reading in general, unless it was from a series
that I really enjoyed or a genre that kind of caught my attention. After this
experience I do not think I have taken a reading assignment very seriously.
Like my writing, I have created my own reading process. I was never
really taught a reading process so I just did what felt was right. Open the
book and start reading. It is as simple as that. So when I read, which is not
very often, I do not typically do any background research on the author or
the book to see what it is about. Half the time I do not even read the little
summary they provide that tells you a little about the book. When I come
across something I do not know in a book like a large word I do not really
look up the word unless I can not understand the sentence without the word.
I can usually figure out the meaning of the word just from some context
clues. I also do not really talk about the books that I read unless I am
required to in a class discussion. I will sometimes use the book as a point of
conversation if someone else has read it and I really liked the book.
Otherwise I do not really talk about the books that I read, the very few that I
have. I do not think I have ever annotated a book for the fun of it. I do not

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like dissecting books and trying to interpret all the different things the author
is trying to say. I take what the author says for its literal meaning and then I
create a picture and play out the entire book in my head as I read. My
reading process is extremely different between school and when I am
reading for fun. In school, a topic is forced upon me and I end up almost
always hating what I have to read. When I read for fun I can read at my own
pace, I can sit in a quiet place and I know I will enjoy the book because I
would not read it on my free time unless I enjoyed it. I like reading by myself
because I can create that imagery and picture everything the exact way that
I want to. I do not find books to read easily, but I came about a genre I liked
just from reading a random book and I stuck with that genre. Ever since then,
I have tried to find other genres that I would appreciate and be just as
entranced with, but I could never find a certain genre that I really enjoyed.
That is kind of why I just stopped reading over all. It just seemed like a waste
of time to me.
So if I do not enjoy reading or writing I have to find another way to
explore literacy and grow that knowledge as a person. I have found that the
most important way to expand your literacy without actually reading or
writing is through communities. I found one community in particular which I
enjoy and think will really help propel my knowledge. Coming into college
there were several communities that were open for joining. During the Week
of Welcome, several groups, organizations and fraternities would open
themselves up to talk about what their organization does. I found one club

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that sparked interest in me; the Paintball Club. There is a specific language
among the paintball club and I quickly adapted to it throughout the many
practices that I had with the team. Most of the words pertaining to the club
deal with the competition of the sport. Like most sports there are certain
phrases for positions and tactics that help propel the team to victory. So
there are some terms that are used to communicate while playing paintball
such as: D1, S1, 50 Snake, 50 Dorito, September and December, my mirror
and finally 100g. All of these terms refer to an enemys position on the field.
100g is a term for an enemy being shot and called out. It means that there is
1 person dead. Everyone on the team gets to speak their part and practice
this communication on the field. There is not just one person who calls all the
shots, that is what being part of a team is like anyways. Anyone can enter
this community as the community is open to everyone. There is not any
racial prejudice and there are not any specific requirements to join the
community. The only thing that would keep a person out of the community is
if they were not active and they did not treat to other people in the
community with the respect that everyone deserves. This kind of community
is something that people should get familiar with. A community that does not
have any boundaries or any prerequisites to being part of the community. As
soon as I joined this community I felt at ease and at home. I felt that I would
bond well with all the people in the community and I knew that their literacy
and their form of communication would carry onto me as we grew as a
community.

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As one develops through time, there are several people, places, and
things that sponsor your literacy. As Deborah Brandt said in her article
Sponsors of Literacy, [Sponsors] lend their resources or credibility to the
sponsored but also stand to gain benefits from their success, where by direct
repayment or, indirectly, by credit of association. (Brandt 4).From my
experiences, coming from an upper middle class family, in a good
neighborhood, and having all the opportunities in the world, I do not see a
specific way to improve your literacy. Literacy can improve or be influenced
through everything in life and through all things around you. So why not just
go out and explore the world? As a college student with little knowledge of
the outside world I have found it best just to find something that made me
happy. To improve my literacy, I have just found a group of people that I
know would help me become better than I was before. Literacy is all around
us. So no matter what you do or how much you hate to read and write, it will
always be something of importance. So learn it, and use it to the best of your
abilities.

Works Cited
Graff, Gerald. "Disliking Books." Writing about Writing: A College Reader.
By Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St.
Martins, 2014. N. pag. Print.

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Brandt, Deborah. "Sponsors of Literacy." Writing about Writing: A College
Reader. By Elizabeth A. Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston:
Bedford/St. Martins, 2014. N. pag. Print.