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Katrina Buchanan
Grant
UWRT 1103
9/3/14
Tell Me I Cant, and I WILL.
When explaining where ones literacy evolved, it can come from a number of places. The
home itself, the area in which someone grew up, or the schools that one attended. All of these
shaped my literacy and continue to increase my literacy. Every person has their struggles and
their high points. Here is where I will begin to tell you of mine.
When asked where I am from, I normally tell people I am either from Hickory, North
Carolina or Granite Falls, North Carolina, mainly because nobody knows were Granite Falls is.
What I do not tell people is that I am actually from a small town in the mountains of NC by the
name of Burnsville. Although I was born in Asheville because it was the closest hospital,
Burnsville is technically my home. This is where my strong southern accent comes from. It is a
small town with nothing left but tourist attractions. There is no work left there and all that
remains are the people who are retired and have been there their whole lives. What is left are
tobacco farmers and true southern people. The way I talk has played an important role in the
way people see my literacy more so lately than it did when I was a child.
Moving from the foothills of NC to the city of Charlotte it was expected that I would
meet many different kinds of people. What was not expected is that I personally would be seen
as different. Even in just the first week of living in Charlotte and meeting my roommates, I was
overwhelmed at the amount of people who commented on my cute southern accent, which I
was flattered by. However, not all reactions to the way I talk were positive ones. I have had
people just stop and stare at me when I start talking like I am an idiot. I know that there is no
way people even listen to what I am saying sometimes simply because of the common stereotype
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that country peope are ignorant. I find this extremely insulting. Just because I may say
nothin, yall, goin, etc. does not mean that my literacy level is any lower than those around
me. The way I talk is out of habit and those who I am around, and is not based on my IQ. The
reactions of people here in Charlotte have insulted me greatly.
As the first child in the family I was kind of the experiment child. See how fast she can
learn to walk, talk, then read and write. I started reading around age three. Dot books started
out as my favorite. See Dot run See Dot play and so on were the simple sentences I
began to read. I grew up in a fairly religious family. Considering the church I attended paid for
its members children to attend Christian school, it only made sense that I go there. At age 4 I
put on my floor length blue jean skirt, packed my crayons and my books and I was ready to go.
Keep in mind I could already read entering kindergarten and that I did not need to sit through the
ABCs. I blatantly told my evil teacher, Mrs. Elkins, I wanted to show her my profound reading
abilities. She told me no, that I could not read, that none of the other kids were reading to take
my books home. However, as I think back on it, there was a boy, Colby, who was allowed to
read but yet I was not. In The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me, Sherman Alexie
felt the same way, only it was based upon his race rather than his age or gender. At this point my
family was a little aggravated but figured it may get better as the year progressed. I would get in
trouble at school because I was bored, zipping my boots up and down during chapel really got
me in trouble. What they did not realize was that I was still listening to what was going on
around me. The teachers and administration began to pay closer attention to me and realized that
while the high school kids were reciting their weekly bible memory verses, I was moving my
mouth along with them. They were then amazed that a four/five year old could do such a thing!
However, they still would not let me read. At the time this was not a huge deal to me, but now
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as I look back I cannot believe that a child in the twenty first century could be told that they
cannot read. My mother was appalled. After over half of the year went by with me constantly
getting in trouble for silly mundane things, my mother pulled me out of the school. The next
year I was sent to go into a public school. Upon registering for this new school I was not allowed
to advance to the first grade because of my size, MY SIZE. This was absolutely ridiculous but
reluctantly, I went back to kindergarten, again. Only this time, by my sweet teacher Mrs.
Honeycutt, was I was allowed to read.
I can remember practically running to the library once I was permitted to read at school.
I loved the smell of the books and can still vaguely smell that small library. Once I learned that
the less pictures a book had, the more AR (Accelerated Reader) points I would get, I started
reading as fast as I could. This would be considered my so called State of Grace. I felt like I
was above people simply because I was winning at this new skill. My love for books was
driven solely by competition. I would go to the library, read a few short books then rush to the
computer lab to take my tests. Once the teachers realized I was not going to the library to just
check out one book, the class was limited to how many tests a day they could take. There I was,
limited, once again. I wanted to win though, it had become a game to me. I started reading even
longer books, chapter books because they were worth more points and I could still win. Junie B
Jones was my favorite. All throughout elementary school I was driven by competition which
fueled by compassion for reading.
Once middle school came around, I soon began to realize there were a lot of kids a whole
lot smarter than me and my need to win was decreased. I was required to read books I no longer
enjoyed and for the first two years of middle school I only read when I was required to. When I
was in eighth grade, I began reading the Twilight series. As silly as these books seem to people,
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they sparked my interest of reading once again. For the next couple of years I read romance
novels, especially in the summer just to take up my spare time. Once high school came around, I
was given even more boring books to read and at this point I began to turn to spark notes. My
senior year of high school I did not read one single book. I made an A all year in my AP English
class and did not read one single book. To me that says that you do not even have to read to be
considered literate. You simply have to be witty and resourceful in your ways. Today I still do
not enjoy reading and if something is not written in a common language that I understand or
enjoy, I will read a whole page and not comprehend a single thing I have read. However, in this
UWRT class I have somewhat enjoyed the readings we have been given as they have been
relatable and yet controversial to class topics.
Now where I stand is as a first generation college student who is expected to finish
school. My parents got married at the age of eighteen and attended community college for a
while but soon figured out that being married and paying bills while going to college proved to
be too difficult. I am the first child, even grandchild to attend college so all eyes are on me. I
know that my father, and his father before him have had to work extremely hard and deal with
hardships in order to provide for a family. They send me to college in hopes that I will get a good
education so that I can start out with a good paying job right out of college.
I know that with an advancing society, the literacy requirements will go up. Whether that
includes the way accents are looked at or the current reading requirements, or even the pressing
issue of gender and the glass ceiling. I can only hope that my children are not treated with the
same indecency that I was treated with in my experiences of becoming literate.