Zac Mouser A Brief History of My Literacy My literacy began with reading.

As a child, my parents would often read me bedtime stories. Usually, while she read, my mom would use her finger to keep her place. In that way, she pointed to each word she read. I gradually began to understand the sounds each mark made, and she says I eventually started to correct her if she left a word out. While she thought it was amazing, I thought nothing of it. After all, I was just reading like she had. By the second grade, I was reading at an eighth grade level, and had pretty much mastered it. I didnt read childrens books anymore, as they were no longer challenging enough. However, writing was a little harder for me to grasp at first. I remember the pages with the big letters and pictures on them. I remember writing c-a-t under a picture in big wobbly letters. I wasnt used to writing, wasnt used to the small, precise movements with the pencil to create the symbols that we read. I didnt have much of an appreciation for reading or writing; it was just something I did without thinking too hard. The realization didnt hit me until some time during middle school: someone has written all of this, every single word Ive ever read. All of it has started as someone laying down a rough draft, then revising and restructuring many times. Picture for a second how many books youve read, been assigned, heard of, seen on shelves. Probably thousands or more right? All of that and more were reading what has come from other minds. We have a direct line to Shakespeares inner thoughts and the workings of his mind, and many, many more authors minds. This perspective blew my mind.

We were slowly steered from a reading focus to a focus on writing. First, the actual mechanics of it. Pick up your pencil, hold it between your thumb and middle finger, brace with your pointer finger. Now, every one of us has a big callous on our middle finger right by that last knuckle. After we learned how to hold this new tool, we learned how to move it. All you do is move your fingers. First we learned to print, then how to capitalize and some more conventions. In third grade, I remember learning cursive. My teacher said that I would use cursive for the rest of my life. Looking back on that statement, I cant help but laugh. I mean, most people dont even write anymore. We type. Writing has become a lost art in a way. My grandparents had the most beautiful handwriting; it was like calligraphy. Now, we settle for legible handwriting because were just going to type up the final draft anyway. We were steered again from the mechanics of writing to the idea of creating stories. Wed all heard fairytales, and my second grade teacher encouraged us to create our own. This is the first writing assignment I remember. We were graded based on creativity and conventions, but mostly on whether we could just create a story with a beginning, middle, and end. My story was a remake of The Three Little Pigs, and I called it The Three Little Puppies and the Big Bad Flea. I got a gold star. The next writing assignment I can remember was in fourth grade. We were to choose three historical landmarks and describe their history and importance. One of mine was the Statue of Liberty. I wrote about when, why, and how the French gave it to us, and why it was important. I got an A on that assignment. It was a kind of precursor to the rest of my years in school. We were gradually steered away from more creative writing and into more research based papers. I remember a seventh grade paper about the history of

ancient Egypt. I had to do a lot more research than I was used to, and we were learning the basics of a bibliography at the same time. I got an A on that paper. I became adept at precisely following suggested outlines, and mastered writing within a strict structure. It was easy for me since I never thought of myself as very creative, and I preferred the guidelines. High school was more of the same. Only now, reading was becoming structured too. We had certain books assigned, and we had to read certain chapters in a certain time period. I didnt have much time for leisure reading anymore. Our writing assignments were tied to the books we read. Often we were asked to research authors and explain their significance and contributions. We were always explaining something. Every assignment had that one phrase attached, Please explain. That phrase is engrained in me now, and Im sure its engrained in most of my classmates. The most recent paper I can recall is my English final senior year. We were to choose from a list of movies based on true stories and determine historical accuracy, then give a two-minute presentation explaining a few accuracies/inaccuracies from the paper. All the presentations were full of dry facts; it was hard to be creative with something like that. My schooling up til this year has instilled in me this thought that creativity is frowned upon; all we want is the facts, the data, the important information. My first semester of college. I thought maybe I was done with English for a while, but then I took an honors English class, the first honors English since my freshman year of high school. It was much different than Id become accustomed to. I expected to have more of the same research papers. Our first major assignment was a writing collage comprised of different pieces of writing that showed our process and showed

us as a writer. I had no idea what to do with this; the only collage Id ever made was with pictures. Years of writing strictly structured papers made this first assignment (and the rest of them) challenging. Dr. Franklin gave us a whole new mold. Messy first drafts, and my personal favorite, Make it different. Not necessarily better just different. It took me the whole first half of the semester to really understand what she was trying to say. However, once I finally grasped some of the concepts, the class became much easier. It broke the mold and helped me grow more as a writer. We only had one research assignment. The class made writing more of a conscious effort, rather than something I just did without thinking. Id never examined my process before, or even considered it. The reason this class helped so much in my literacy is because of the fact that I had to analyze my process. I learned certain things that make it easier for me to think of ideas, start writing, and keep writing. To think of ideas, Dr. Franklin was adamant that we keep our audience in mind. What do they already know? What do they need to know? Why should it be important to them? When we started writing in response to these questions, the first draft was created. It was messy, but we had the bones. Then, it was up to us to look at the bones and fill in the gaps with the other important bits from more questions. Literacy affects us in a big way; it affects our thought process. Professional bodybuilder Kai Greene has said that in order for a man to create something with his hands, he must first think it with his mind. By changing our thought process, literacy directly affects what we can create, and therefore has a big impact on us and what we can contribute to our society.