Bryant 1 Phillip Bryant English 1101 Professor Rieman September 24, 2013 Slowly but Surely Elementary School:

2000-2005 It is 2 oclock which means it is reading time here at Peeler Elementary School. Were about a month into school and my first grade teacher have begun something new called Reading Time where the

students in the class have to read for at least 30 minutes.

When this

was first implemented I was not a huge fan of it, even though you could choose the book you would like to read. We would go to the library every week as a class and check out a book to read and return it at the end of the week. I distinctly remember thinking to myself WHY IN THE WORLD ARE WE DOING THIS? In my head we should be going outside for recess for an extra 30 minutes instead of reading or painting, or even extending the lunch period, ANYTHING but reading. In theory this Reading Time sounded like a great idea but in reality my peers and I out smarted it by checking out the same book every week. The teachers did not really keep up with who checked out what so it was very easy. The book I would always check out was Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss. I would read the same first five pages over and over thinking the same thing every day not knowing this was the most important phase of liking to read which comes in handy later in my life. It was the same thing every year at Peeler

Bryant 2 Elementary, even as a 5th grader I could not stand reading which was hard because like I said before WE COULD CHECK OUT A BOOK OF OUR CHOOSING. I tried everything, checking out mysteries, horror, and action books it would just not work. Until I realized that I was a huge sports fan, particularly football and basketball. One day in the library I walked up to the computer and typed in the searched bar sport books and FINALLY I saw the light. Scrolling down past all the books made me have a huge smile across my face. I was so relieved to know that there was a group of books just for me. I checked out a book

called My Underrated Year that was 181 pages.

I was a little intimidated by

the amount of pages but was so intrigue from the cover and plot on the back I was excited and soon got over that. Previous years I would check out books that were less than 30 pages just to make the reading easier on my part. Our class reading 30 minutes a day was not enough for me, so on Friday before we checked the books back in I decided to check mine out another week and read it over the weekend, which I did. The books is about a sophomore named Roger Ottosen who plays varsity football at his high school when his loses his spot to Paul Mountain. Things take a turn for the worse when he realizes he has a crush on Pauls sister Mary Jo who plays Tennis for the school and is challenging him to take the number one seed on the team. To this day this is one of my favorite books Ive ever read and also one of the few I have read from cover to cover. I then began to check out more sport books and thought this was the beginning of me liking to read!

Bryant 3 Middle School: 2006-2008 Entering 6th grade for me was a little scary but at the same time I was excited. I could create more friends from Elementary School, better food, and the best thing to me.LOCKERS! The only things I was not looking forward to was, no recess and most importantly the work load. There were rumors swirling around the last few months of fifth grade that teachers at The Academy at Lincoln would assigned a book a week their choice and you would have to write a page paper on it every week. This was a problem of mine because I only liked sports book. The only part that wasnt true was that it was not assigned every week. While at Lincoln I had around 4 projects to do on books. All four were chosen by the teacher by you picking one from a list. The list did not have ANY sporting books which made me upset. I completed every single project but would cheat. I never read the books full through and would visit a website that helped me out significantly called spark notes. Spark Notes is a website online that has a summary of books separated by each chapter. In addition to that it also has an online quiz, character descriptions, background of the book and much more. The next year I transferred schools and went to Northwest Guilford Middle. I was hoping that we could choose our books and luckily we could with some and they had a better selections of books. From 5th grade to 6th grade I went from loving to

read to hating it.

Arriving at Northwest did not make me love

reading but made me realize how much of an importance it is. One day while in English class a speaker came in and talked about how important it is to read and how over half of the world is illiterate and how it can affect you in the long run in life. He also talked about how learning to read will improve your vocab and increase your chances of getting a job. This really hit me because I knew how important it was

Bryant 4 too have a job. This supports you and your family. I wish I could say And all of a sudden I loved to read and now I read every day but then I would be lying. I still did not like to read books but that presentation would motivate me to finish the whole book and not just go on spark notes. By my 8 th grade year heading into high school I somewhat started liking reading again. Slowly getting into it with various book projects and me receiving 90s and 100s made me like it even more. High School: 2009-2013 Until the summer going into 9th grade. This is when something called Summer Reading entered into my life. I thought reading in school was hard but the high school asking me to read over the summer was just too much. On top of that I basically had to do it because within the first week we would have a test and essay on the book. My first year of doing this I had to read 3 books. My first time I was very lucky because I did not read any of the books but instead went on spark notes. Luckily my teacher picked the test from this website so I received a 90 on it. Throughout the year we were assigned various reading projects and still could not choose. Although one day I chose a book called Runner which

interest me because I run track & field.

The book ended up being amazing

and in addition to My Underrated Year is my all-time favorite book. I was able to connect with the character due to him loving to run because it cleared his mind from what was going on in his life which was a lot like me. Only thing I dont see eye to eye with him in the novel is that he runs long miles which

Bryant 5 I cannot because thats too much. I can only do short runs which I was very successful in high school in

track & field.

Running clears the mind, a lot of people do it to get rid of

stress. My next summer reading did not go so well because I visited spark notes and the teacher created her own test and I ended up failing it. I got so frustrated with the books that were chosen because if they were something actually interesting then everyone in the class would actually read it. Instead we all wait until the last week before school and read spark notes. I did not learn my lesson the other 2 years in high school and did the same exact thing resulting in the same grade every year. When senior projects came around I choose to do illiteracy in America. With all the researching I was able to find this is what put the nail in the coffin for me. The statistics were amusing and shocking. Not that I was illiterate, it was very interesting to me how many people cannot read a job application or a sentence in America. I started seeing that these same people were not interested in reading as a child and teenager and some were not even able to access these things. After doing my project I was able to realize how much it is important to read and if you like it, it will come at ease when doing a book project. As I got closer to graduation I began to start reading more and more books. Nothing too crazy but a start for me. Preparing myself for college and also just doing it for it to try to become a hobby for me. I began thinking to myself that maybe its something that just comes natural to some people and I was not that person. It the hit me that practice does make perfect. Not just in the sense of sports but also with

Bryant 6

anything that you are trying to accomplish in life.

For example

Olympic Gold Medalist Usain Bolt is not where he is today by just being born like that. It is a lot of behind the scene things that we as an audience and I as a fan do not see. He puts in a lot of hours on the track working on form and technique. He also trains a lot in the weight room and by him putting this all together he is able to perform at such a high level and him and everyone else sees that it pays off. Now coming into the University of North Carolina at Charlotte I have finally began to like reading again because I now know the importance of it and know it will help me on later on life. I have a better motivation to read books and not just try to spark note them and earn a solid C on a test but now I actually try to read them and ask questions if it is something I am unsure of in the book. This is applying to me not just in English but also in other areas like Theatre and UCOL which is a class for Student Athletes here at UNC-Charlotte where we have reading assignments. Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him. Maya Angelou. This is such a powerful quote and I agree completely because reading doesnt do anything but help people especially children. In my opinion it is VERY important to start reading as a child because as you age in life it will become harder and harder for one to get into it. I am still working on it but have made great progress and will continue to read because I know it will help me out in life.