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Nicholas J. Tuttle
Deby Jizi
UWRT-1103-063
21 September 2015
Literacy Narrative Essay
Reading and writing for me all started in kindergarten, my teacher Mrs. Klien had the
children write their first names on these big strips of paper every morning. This simple task was
my first memory of writing. Clifford the Big Red Dog would always catch my attention, a big
TV would show PBS Kids each morning, and I watched adamantly. This caused me to find the
Clifford books on the shelf and attempt reading based on the pictures I saw, that simple morning
routine kick-started my literacy journey.
My affection for English/Language Arts is best seen as a hill, climbing it in the first half
of my academic career, then sloping down during the latter. In 3rd grade I was infatuated with
Lemony Snickets Series of Unfortunate Events, reading the entire 16 book series and winning
AR as a result. AR was a program in my elementary school that quizzed you upon completion of
novels and gave you points based on the books difficulty level. Into my later years school
became formulaic, no longer could I go to the library and read any book I desired, I got assigned
passages. The books that were required of me were relatively interesting at first, mainly fiction,
but as the years went by it became positively boring. The content of the classes became geared to
a set curriculum, which including research and boring papers. I felt like creativity was no longer
praised. Once in high school, English class became monotonous to me, I lost my passion. The
public school system cared more about test scores and scanning for information rather than
producing literacy aficionados.

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I came into college expecting to follow the trend laid out for me, disliking English.
Within my miniscule college experience I can see attention to detail becoming more prominent.
Not to say I never had a teacher that cared about my writings, but the amount that didnt far
surpassed them. Im pleased to know an instructor sets the stage for feedback and pushes for
quality out of the students. Thats been my main draw towards classes over the years, a teacher
that enjoys to teach.
Today reading is something I do when assigned or something I do when an interesting
online post catches my eye. I write for menial things like signing checks or signing birthday
cards, outside of school I just dont handwrite very often. With the modern age of technology
everything can be done much faster and much more efficient on devices such as laptops. While I
think the skill of handwriting will become overtaken by typing in the future, I believe having
paper novels is still very important. To me reading and even writing/typing to get your thoughts
out is crucial to being a successful person. Without great communicational skills, your talents
will be wasted. I try and work on my communication because I believe it goes hand in hand with
being literate, expressing the language in all ways. I like to pride myself in being a good
communicator and hope that my literacy corresponds with my speaking abilities.
My attitude towards English class may differ from time to time, but I respect being a
good reader/writer because it is key to being successful. I enjoy projecting my thoughts and
occasionally having people reading or agreeing with my ideas is satisfying. Being a great writer
is very rewarding, because its the ability to capture and be understood by so many people. The
teacher that I give the most credit to my pursuit of being understood and creative is Mrs. Trotter;
she encouraged me daily to keeping reading and to win AR. She encouraged my creative spirit in
everything I wrote, whether it was a paper or a paragraph. It may seem crazy to think a third

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grade teacher, just doing her job, could mean so much. The amount I grew in Mrs. Trotters class
set my path for literacy, the type of feedback and support she gave me credits her as my most
valuable literacy sponsor.