Rahman 1

Austin Rahman Professor Leslie Wolcott ENC 1102-38 Literary Narrative Weakness is nothing but opportunity My journey into literacy all began when I was a child in the third grade. I remember that my teacher had assessed my "reading skills", and quickly understood that my reading skills were "below" par. In fact I was so bad at reading I had to spend 4 hours every day with another teacher; just so I could learn how to read . This of course did not fare well with my parents, my parents both being from Bangladesh knew the importance of education, they held education to the outmost respect, and clearly empowering me with education was there number one goal. To make matters worse I was the only child at the time, and was always being compared to my cousins who were especially bright when it came to academics. As my major literary sponsers,my parents invested a lot of time into my reading, and eventually they forced me into afterschool tutoring for 6 days a week. My parents and school may have though they were doing the best for me, but from my standpoint, as a eight year old child, I became classically conditioned to literally hate reading. Unfortunately, even though the school and my parents put a lot of effort into trying to get me to "read" at a suitable level; no matter how hard they tried, I just could not get any better.

Rahman 2 Finally, one day on my ninth birthday, my aunt had bought me the book : Magic tree house: Night of the Ninjas. The book itself looked really interesting, mainly because it had a ninja on the cover of it. That night I had decided upon reading it, and I immediately got hooked!. Whenever I got the chance I would pick up that book and continue to read it, my parents of course took notice of this and quickly realized it as a opportunity, and bought me more of the same books; eventually I had read the whole series. By the summer of third grade, I had finished every single Magic tree house book that was published at the time, in fact I wrote a letter to the author, Mary Pope Osborne, asking her to write more novels just for me. Upon reading these books, it directly carried over to school, literacy became my strongest subject in school. That same year, I had shocked my teacher by achieving a 5 on the FCAT reading in the third grade. I continued that consecutively for the years many years to follow. Soon afterword's, I started to read more and more books, not just the magic tree house, but anything that was nonfiction. I became so fond of reading that, wherever I went I always had a book with me. It got to the point where my parents would get mad at me because I wouldn't go outside to play. This was very ironic too me, they had always preached about how reading was such a great thing, but now they got mad at me for doing too "much" reading. On top of being a very fluid reader, I was equally, if not better at writing. Eventually, I was put into gifted literacy courses in middle school, and it was there where I found a passion in reading and writing. Once I entered high school, my literacy hit a drastic halt. I truly felt there was no "fun" in reading anymore. The reason being was because the books we read were tediously long and dull, and on top of that we were forced into writing essays that had to follow a specific schematic; Literary itself became a punishment. Up until Junior year, I did not pick up a single book to just simply read on my spare time. I felt that all my literacy in high school was meant for

Rahman 3 standardized testing and had no purpose in life. I soon stopped caring for school in general, and essentially became a "product" of rote learning, and did what was necessary to pass my class's. However, this did not last long, during the summer of my junior year, an older cousin that I greatly admire and look up to as a role model had told me to read the book: Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. At first glance, I was immediately put off, and felt that the book was a gimmick. My cousin continued to urge me to read it, until finally, one day I caved in and bought the book. The book itself was published in 1937, and follows the lives of some of the world's most successful people. The whole ideology behind the book is based on the principle; of having a burning desire. I firmly believe that the book has had one of the biggest impacts on me not only in literacy, but in life, it has truly taught me that; Knowledge is Power. Deborah Brandt also speaks of Literacy as a form of virtue; "Literacy, like land, is a valued commodity in this economy a key resource in gaining profit and edge" (Brandt 169).The book itself, became a catalyst for me to start reading again; to this day I still read books on investing, business, science, and biographies on successful people. I do this not only to improve my literacy and knowledge, but to become a much more successful individual. Although, I started to read again, I did not start to truly "enjoy" writing until last semester(fall of 2013) when I took ENC 1101 with Professor J.T Taylor. That class quickly became my favorite class. When I first started to write papers for the class it was quite difficult, I was so programmed into writing a certain way it felt almost like an algorithm, it was either a 5 paragraph essay or a F. Dr. Taylor's class, allowed my originality and innovation to come back to me, writing once again became fun. I also felt that my writing was appreciated and was of value, I also came to realize that writing at the university level is very practical, and tries to teach

Rahman 4 you how to write with a purpose. At one point, I had even contemplated on switching my major to english. In a sense, I felt that my writing class, was trying to "un-teach" me high school. In conclusion, Literacy, itself, has had a huge impact on my life and I believe it will continue to do so. Even though my literacy has been sporadic, I tend to not see it in the negative sense, but rather in a positive way; we learn from our mistakes, and adapt. For me, my very weakness in reading has become one of my greatest assets. The very fact that I was once a child that had a difficult time reading, to now a college student at UCF is quite a achievement for me and my family. Literacy has, and will always play a important part of my life. As a student at UCF, my top priority is to be the best student that I can be, and ultimately strengthening my literacy is a factor. One of my many goals in life is to aspire to be a lawyer, clearly, good skills in literacy plays a vital role in getting there. I know that when I do become successful, I will be able to make my literary sponsors, my parents, extremely proud, as they will be able to know that their hard work and effort did not go out in vain.

Rahman 5

Works Cited Brandt, Deborah. "Sponsors of Literacy." College Composition and Communication. 2nd ed. Vol. 49. 165-85. Print.