Vo 1 Long Vo Professor Emilia F.

Grant English 1101 22 September 2013 My Literary Memoir All this began with one with one straightforward question, What was your key literacy event? As I sat there thinking, the only thing that popped in my head was how much I hated pointless reading and writing assignments. But the question did lead me to realize that I didnt have any key literary event. There was never a point in my life where everything just clicked. I dont remember reading my first book or writing my first sentence. I used to enjoy reading and writing when I was young, and a small part of me still enjoys it today. However, I never had that defining moment. In deeper retrospective, I have come to the conclusion that that my literacy event isnt any specific event, instead, it can best be considered as a gradual process, moments where through literary means I came to a deeper understanding of myself and the society around me. Starting from the beginning, I remember watching anime as a young kid. Watching shows like Full Metal Alchemist and One Piece, and then having all these creative ideas that drew inspiration from the shows. I would create my own adventures and story arcs. Writing fan fiction was one my earliest experiences with writing. The stories were, in retrospective, hilariously bad, but they did help me develop my English at a young age and was one of those rare times I wrote of my own accord. As I matured, so did the source material where I drew inspiration from. Anime and games became novels and movies, literature that addresses darker themes. With darker themes, my ideas took on a more somber tone. I started to develop stories that reflected what I saw in real life and not just in what I watched on TV or read. Looking back, these little excursions helped me develop as a person. Writing all those stories helped me to take

Vo 2 a step back and look at things from an outsiders perspective; to not be emotionally involved, to not have any real stakes in the events that unfold because they werent real. As a result, I was able to reflect on my life with logic and reason, helping me make decisions that werent clouded by emotions. Which brings me to my first point: literacy as self-expression and self-definition. My literary moments helped me develop into the person I am today. It shows in how I talk and write, in how I interact with others and in the decisions I make. It defines my expressions, which in turn defines me. Why, you might ask, especially when I have developed such distaste for reading and writing? To be honest, thats an answer I dont have quite yet. I know it does because I see it every day. At least Ive come to understand how my literacy affected me. I create my own stories, my own heroes, and in turn, I try to be those heroes and try to live out those experiences; in a sense, defining myself with my own ideas. Thats what I meant when I said literacy as self-expression and literacy as self-definition. As I change, so do my characters, and as my characters changes, so do I. My literacy defines who I am but doesnt confine me. It gives me direction but no destination. I have yet to fully understand who I am and what I stand for as a person, but as I write this memoir, it does give me a somewhat clearer picture of who I was. As I look through my past readings and writings, I see myself growing and becoming the person I am today. Its like looking through childhood pictures and seeing yourself getting bigger and bigger. Going down that rabbit hole, leads me to understand something else, literacy as a state of grace. Why do we hold people we deemed smart and literate to such high standards? Why do we respect those who seek to further their knowledge and their literacy? I have come to the conclusion that it is because we as humans are always searching for answers. Why go to school or why go to college? It is to find answers to questions we might not even realize were asking.

Vo 3 Every step we take, every book we read, every word we write, it is to better ourselves in some way; whether it is to develop a better understanding of ourselves or to find answers to lifes questions. Questions regarding who we are, why are we here, and what is the point of waking up every morning. It can also be as simple as, why am I writing this memoir? I might say its for a grade, but thats not the whole truth. No one is forcing me to write, I dont have a gun to my head or anything. So why am I forcing myself to write this memoir, for a better future? Perhaps, though I believe there is more to it. Do we respect literate people because they are willing to put in the work to better themselves? Of course, but that cant be the only reason. Or is it because we have an innate instinct to grow, some sort of mental Darwinism? We respect literate people because they choose to see what others have willfully become ignorant of. They are people who have come to understand the world they live in. They see what others do not. Silvia Scribner broke literacy down into three metaphors. To put it into her words, she might say these people have surpassed literacy as adaptation, they use literacy as power, and as a result achieve literacy as a state of grace. Everything I have come to conclude so far has been my observation of literacy and its impact on the individual, but surely the impact of literacy goes beyond the individual, to affect the society that revolves around him. Much like how my fictional characters affect me, and in turn, I affect them, society affects us and in turn we affect, and ultimately define, our society. How is society directed by literacy? There is no doubt that literacy affects people in different ways, with different outcomes each unique to the individual, but how then does it bring everyone together when people are so different? As I have said earlier, literacy does not have boundaries, its a shape without form, its an idea that is more than the sum of its parts. How we as a culture, as a society, choose to align ourselves, the goals we all set, it is all reflected in our literacy. It

Vo 4 comes across not only in what we choose to write about, but in the way we write it as well. It may all look different from a glance, but the patterns are there. We choose different roads only to arrive at the same ending. That in essence is literacy, multiple paths that are intertwined with one another. Take Scribners three metaphors for instance, only when looked at as a whole, does it start to show the bigger picture. For example, take Malcolm X and Sherman Alexie, both grew up in different circumstances but the similarities between their lives are astonishingly similar. Two sides of the same coin. X was driven by anger, while Alexie was inspired by love. One used literacy for violence and the other to give hope. But ultimately what they wanted was the same. They were driven by society to change society. A familiar and recurring theme I come to realize about literacy. Literacy will always continue to affect everything it touches because that is its nature. Literacy comes in all shapes and form, it is such an abstract idea, when you really want to get into it, you can spend your entire life looking for answers and never find it. Sure, you can try to define literacy like Scribner, but is she any closer to finding the answer she is looking for, arguably no. Literacy is the voice of the individual and at the same time the voice of the many, unique to one yet unanimous to all. How can you possible define something that has no confines? After all is said and done, the one thing that I feel best summarizes what I drew out of this assignment is that literacy can best be looked at as directions without destinations. I know I read and write to better myself, to understand myself, but I dont know why exactly it changes me. It makes me think of exactly what I can say, of what I want to say but doesnt force me to say it. It gives me a voice that I didnt even know I had. It gives society a voice, comprised of all our collective voices; much like an orchestra, the cacophony of instruments and sounds coming together. What I have come to conclude may be different from what you, the reader, may have

Vo 5 come up with, but therein lay the beauty of literacy. It shapes us all differently, leaving it up for interpretation. Dont think too much about it, because the more you do the less sense it makes, the more you pay attention the less you see. Let it come naturally. Literacy is secondhand to us, you may not realize yet, you may not even like it, but it is second nature. It is both a window to our inner-selves, and to the outside world. I have finally come to the end of my rambling. I dont have much more to say. So considering this is a literary memoir, Ill end it with a quote by Molire that summarizes my personal feelings about writing pretty well: Writing is like prostitution. First you do it for love, and then for a few close friends, and then for money.