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Douglas Lee

Literacy Narrative 1
UWRT 1101
Jennifer Nicole Vogt
The Landous literate me XIV
Big, big, big, big water. It's very big, big, big, big water. Its deep and dark and
dangerous. Its scary and its strangerous. And things could re-arranger us. In that big water!
Oh geez, The Land Before Time V, The Mysterious Island. This movie was one of my most
favorite movies in the early years of my life. Nothing spoke to me better than watching this
movie over and over. Deep within me, The Land Before Time V was the basic start of my
realization that I was capable of being literate. I wanted to draw attention onto this movie
because the dialogue demonstrated within the movie closely associates what kind of literate
skills (reading/writing) I have today. They profoundly use words that do not exist as real words
in life, for example in the song Big Water a character named Petrie sings the part Its scary
and its strangerous. When I am writing I always and I say always, tend to place suffixes onto
common words which do not co-exist. Like the way I want to say mine-s or whatsoever-ing.
These illiterate words are random blurts that are come from within me which backgrounds where
my literacy evolved from. At times, I can read a word such as instructor properly but at later
times I incline to think the non-word instructionalist can be applicable for a different setting;
yet in reality, its not a word at all. I am in possession of having acceptable literacy as a freshman
at UNCCharlotte, but internally bottomless into my soul I read, write, and speak strangerous
words to myself and others not concerning about how I am in representation well, until I go to
bed and think about what I said for the day. Yes, I get very embarrassed and giggle wondering
was that a word?

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I also can noticeably recall in my mind back to elementary school in Seattle, Washington.
The place looked and felt very different compared to Charlotte, NC well at least from what I
remember through a past decades eyes. Even though I have lived only in Seattle for 7-8 years I
undoubtedly feel like all its surroundings are very homing compared to Charlotte, NC. This
feeling I get from my home place greatly impacts my inner personal feelings of writing, reading,
and/or oral presentation. I may not greatly demonstrate it through much of those literacies
upfront, but I surely FEEL it pumping within me. This feeling is nearly impossible to describe
but when I feel it it sets standards to what path my literacy is going. For example, my
kindergarten classroom was basically like a 23ft x 23ft living room connecting to another 23ft x
23ft living room without any kind of door or physical barrier between them. Then nearing the
middle end of the room when you walk in, theres another smaller room between the two big
rooms; that was where we kept our belongings. Here comes the most important part of
Kindergarten, for some reason I remember going past the locker room (the room which held
our belongings, it did not look like a locker though), opening the door (playground in the back)
and seeing a somewhat dreary, rainy but peaceful and lightful day (OH here I go again using
random non-existing words lightful). In many of the darn times I run into a situation where I
am using literacy; the blurry memory of Kindergarten awaits me and it confines me to express
my literacy in a way to further create that feeling of memory (I hope you are not lost reading
what I just wrote), yet reality speaking I am not nearly close to having mimicked the
environment as it was in the past. On a basic level, if I were to free write on anything right now;
its presumably going to have an atmosphere which feels like a dreary, rainy but peaceful and
lightful day. Another way to see what I am trying to analyze down to is that, these memorical
photographs within my brain is strongly engraved into my literate knowledge and how I am able

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to apply my literacy to valid performances. I love to listen to certain dreary and sad songs; they
make me enter a depression state (weird because it makes me feel happy in a sad way), as well as
certain happy and lit up songs; they make me cheer up, as well as peaceful faithful songs; which
makes me at peace to forget about reality. You see, with many things dealing with literate
familiarities; it orbits around this mental feeling I have experienced from the level of elementary
school. Being able to distinguish this distinct inaccuracy of my literate restraint, I learned the
ability to surpass this limitation and proceed to become a better literate person. As a side note; Of
course I can surely block my illiteracy out and follow correct criterias for specific genres, but
its definitely much more heartfelt when I am allowed to let them sink into my literacy.
In addition, The Land Before Time V and my elementary school days both adds up to
create my personal evolved literacy. The movie uses ridiculously undefined terms and my school
memories embrace those terms into the literacy of my personal dreary, rainy, peaceful and
lightful day aura. More so, it can be thought as an example such as, I search for those
scarecfully windful cloud-like days with sunshine and green patches. If you noticed, I had a
basic connection of both personal literate inspirations in that sentence.
Moving to Charlotte, nonetheless also differentiated my reading, writing, and speaking
literacies. In general it doesnt really feel like home, because all my starts and foremost
beginnings began in Seattle Anyways, the language I was hearing and the ways I saw literacy
read really engaged me to evolve positively and/or negatively. I heard a lot of slang used, as well
as the word yall. After a couple of years I began to replace my How are you guys doing
today? into How yall doin? Then I started writing that down; eventually I began to realize
books with How yall doin? aspects were easier for me to read because I grew up in sort of this
life style. Charlotte was my town ever since the start of the 2nd grade, so being here ever since

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overlapped with my usual ways of literacy knowledge. Back in the North-West, the custom of
proper literacy was more common; to a certain extent. I never read a book having slang used in it
before when being a resident in Seattle, but I did read books that had them here in Charlotte.
IDK its weird and questions my bones, but it totally rotated my orbit in a 90 degree angle. This
sudden differently new literacy can be portrayed as a general characteristic which can sum me up
as being an illusory term-defining, slightly melancholic-utopian, dialectic 18 year old boy.
Not the coolest way to describe oneself but its how I feel my literacy was naturally
offered to me personally. Now, this may sound confusing but there are definitely the given and
applied literacy as well. These are learned from my teachers, they educate me with proper ways
of literacy through past teachings/experiences, and international standards. Such as learning the
principles of a research paper, or lab report, or what genre is what. These given and applied
literacies has given me enormous and I mean lifesaving improvement on what I am literate upon
and allowed me to succeed in applying specific literacies to the expected literacies; and I am
heartily grateful for my teachers who gave a chance of that happening to me. There basically are
the literate things you learned in life literally by yourself and then the literate things you learned
through others. I use both these teachings of literacy every single day, out of school and in
school with moderate literacy hesitation. At times I do catch unrecognizable language and
writing; and sometimes I just go with the flow and feel embarrassed about it at night like usual.
Overall, its safe to say I have prevailed and assembled who I am and possibly may be in the
future. Sometimes I wonder perhaps this is nearly the beginning of my literate education,
rather just a warm up for a very long route that awaits me.
Forever is a very long long time, and time has a way of changing things. I like to think
about this quote when considering my literacy because it enacts my acceptance to new learnings,

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so I can grow into a stronger literate person with my amazing literate base to support me. But
just like a stamp on a card, today I am the illusory term-defining, slightly melancholic-utopian,
dialectic 18 year old boy externally applying as a learning literate college commuter in the vast
Great Valley.
Douglas,
I really enjoyed reading your narrative! I think you chose a great topic and I love the
integration of the Land Before Time movie in your text. As a reader, I did have a hard time
understanding what you were trying to say. I found myself confused by the phrases/ vocabulary
you would use at times. I think you should go to the Writing Center for some help with this. It
seems like you try to use bigger and better words in your sentences, but Im not sure theyre
accomplishing what they should be in your work.
Another thing to think about for your next round of revisions: this assignment was to
write a narrative (a story) about your literacy development, so your text should exhibit all of the
elements of a narrative that we talked about in class (vivid details, resolution, and significance).
I think your text could use more of all of these things. I find that your text is reading more like an
essay and less like a narrative. I liked where you began the story, but you lost me somewhere in
the middle and it was difficult to see how all of these aspects came together at the end. If you
have any questions about this, please come speak to me about it. Like I commented earlier, you
could always go see the writing center; I think they could help you a lot with clarity in your
writing.
Ghost grade: C