Marquist Parker

My literary adventure started at a young age. When I was four I received

my first book, Batman, issue 400. This comic book is important to my literacy

because it helped me see reading and writing as a power. Batman can’t fly, walk

through walls, or stop a bullet, his only power is his knowledge, and I wanted to be

batman. That comic started me on the road to literacy, before then I was so

fascinated with words, I looked at people who could read or write as heroes. When

I first opened the comic book, I knew that I had entered a world of literature that I

can explore and change on a whim.

After I learned how to read, I couldn’t stop, it was an addiction. I wanted to read

anything I could get my hands on. My favorite book growing up is the on the run

series by Gordon Korman, those books opened the door to the passion that I have

for books. At an age when most kids care about video games and television, I only

cared about books.

My earliest memory of writing came when I was seven, after years of reading

Batman comics; I was ready for the ultimate challenge, writing my own super hero

story. My hero was a seven year old kid who could read better than any human on

the planet, and the more he read, the stronger he got. While I was writing, I felt
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powerful, like I had the world in my hands, shaping and bending it to my will.

After months of writing, my character finally read enough books to be a super

hero, and Awesome Man was born. He fought his arch enemy, Captain Evil, who

hates books and reading. I think my hero story was a representation of my life, I

was awesome man, and the avid reader who defended the honor of literacy against

people who think reading is boring or useless. I think I made Captain Evil to

represent the people who would bully me for my reading, I wished that heroes did

exist so they could save me, but instead of waiting for a hero, I decided to be my

own. My writing helped me in other aspects of my life, I made friends who loved

reading and writing as much as I did, which helped me out of my shyness.

My days of being a super hero writer were over, but during my freshman year of

high school I discovered something even more fulfilling, journalism. My love of

journalism started when my teacher gave us articles to write, being a sports fan, it

seemed only natural for me to try my hand writing the sports section of the school

paper. As soon as I started, I knew this is something I could do for the rest of my

life.

Learning how to read and write was one of my biggest accomplishments. Even

when I was young, I understood the value of literacy I viewed reading as exploring

a magical universe and writing as creating my own. I got the sense that literacy is

the gateway to a successful life and a fulfilling career. I think I got this sense of
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literacy from my parents and my teachers who made sure I knew how important

the skill is.

The most difficult part of my literary adventure is William Shakespeare. He made

my high school life torture, I felt like learning about his work was pointless and

made English class more difficult than it had to be. Another skill that was difficult

to develop was my writing. Cursive made life difficult for me, and all of my

classmates. I never understood the use of cursive.

The most common writing I do is for school, papers and essays are much more

common than the articles that I enjoy writing. The most common reading that I do

is articles and blogs about sports and current events, which is also my favorite

thing to write. Articles are my favorite because they are quick and easy to read and

write and they are constantly coming out with new ones, as oppose to books.

My current feelings about reading are that it is a useful skill but it’s not as

important as having overall life skills. I think my current stance on literacy was

developed in high school. Like most children in middle school, reading for school

was hard, but it seemed worth it. High school, however felt more like busy work

than a beneficial aspect to school. Another difficult part was the rigidness that

comes with writing for school, I felt like Angelica from the reading, so used to

making personal works to public ones. Complicated plays, to useless novels, and
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rigid writing rubrics, high school made literacy a challenge instead of the tool of

expression it should be.

My current reading habits are mostly centered on school work, with the occasional

deviation toward personal novels for fun. My current writing, however is almost

completely personal, I do some school writing, but the majority of my writing time

is dedicated to personal articles, short stories, and journal entries.

I feel like my family and teachers helped me get to my current level of literacy.

Literacy was pushed on me at a young age, like Angelica in the reading, my

mother made reading and writing a top priority.

In Brandt’s view, sponsors of literacy are “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who

enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy—and

gain advantage by it in some way.”(Brandt 1997) My literacy sponsors have been my parents,

teachers, and a company called scholastic. Scholastic is a company who publishes, sells, and

distributes books and educational materials for schools, teachers, parents, and children. I believe this

company is exactly what Brandt was thinking about when he coined the term “literacy sponsors”,

they pay schools to use their books and materials to teach kids literacy. My parents are also

literacy sponsors because the benefited from my literacy, whether directly, by seeing me learn, or

indirectly.

The readings in this chapter reminded me of my own life when Kevin Rozzen talked about how

Angelica switched majors because she wanted her voice heard, as oppose to a robotic, academic

sounding voice that English class typically recommend. (Rozzen 2009) That is a problem that
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I’ve dealt with since high school, balancing your voice with what your teacher wants. In the

future, I want to get back to the love of literacy that made me start down the path to literacy, and

who knows, maybe I can continue the adventures of Awesome man.

Works Cited
Roozen, Kevin 2009 “From Journals to Journalism: Tracing Trajectories of Literate

Development CCC 60.3 (February) 541-572

Brandt, Deborah / “sponsors of Literacy” CCC 49.2: 165-85 Repr. Elizabeth Wandle and Doug Douons

Writing about writing 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin’s 43-62
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