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Minh Lu

Professor Michele Tubbs

ENGL-1301-127

Literacy Narrative Draft1

My name is Minh, I’m originally from VietNam, my parents are really strict about

my education, they always want me to get straight As. My dad is a boring guy, he

always makes me study, learn new thing everyday instead of spending my time doing

something else. My dad has graduated and got Master degree in his 30’s, that’s why he

always expect me to learn more rather than just study what school teaches us. During

my 8th grade summer, my dad has taught me a valuable lesson that has helped me out

on my Highschool years.

First of all, he taught me that reading what I like or interested in usually help out a

lot. He told me to choose a book that I like , or interested in , I can choose through it

cover , or the name. And also he told me to briefly read through the back of the book,

because most of the time every book will tell the reader what the book is going to talk

about. So I chose the book called “ Red Dragon” where the cover is not really interested

but it got this picture of a red dragon. It looks kinda unique in all of them and I like

dragons , so I picked this book up and read about it. Read the back story, it made me

curious a little bit, but usually I don’t like reading books, so I just picked this one up. As I

read through the book, it’s getting me more attention into it, the more I read the more I

want to know about the books and the end of it. As I try to read through all the book, I’m

getting to love it, it’s actually really interested even though it wasn’t even talking about
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any dragon at all. It talked about a serial killers that have a red dragon tattoo on his

body. I usually don’t stick to reading for more than an hour, because books usually bore

me to death. But I guess my dad was right about the cover and the back story might

grab my attention and change my mind about the book.

Although, I’ve finished the book, and I understand ‘most’ of what the book has

been talking about. English is still my second language and it’s a really difficult language

to learn and dictionary is a must have for second language. So he asked me if there are

any words or vocab that I don’t understand , he asked me to list all the words that I don't

know. Then he gave me his big ass dictionary that he used to use when he was in

college. You can tell it’s really old, but he kept it really clean, not even damaged the

cover still clean and neat. And he told me a story that back in the day of his college, he

used this dictionary to look up every single word during the lecture he got in class, in the

book. He wrote every single word down that he doesn’t know so he could look it up and

study it when he got spare time. As he trying to memorize it, he told me that one way to

memorize it is bringing it out to your everyday conversation. I'm always really lazy

looking up words, but I was into this book there’s some words that I don't know. Out of

my curiosity I have to look it up to be able to fully understand this book.

As I get to fully understand the book, My dad wanted me to summarize the book

to him, and tell him what’s up with this book. So I see that my dad is trying to help me

out to form a critical thinking about the book as well, not just read and throw whatever I

just read away. He told me that as I read the book visualizing a picture about the book,

is really helpful for you to understand and know more about the book, usually it helps
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you see what’s the book saying. I guess this is something every book readers do, me I

just fell asleep whenever I read a book, but as I tried to visualize the book, the picture

pop in my head as I read, It’s like im watching a movie or something. It got me

interested about reading books a bit . It help me memorize the book easier and know

what’s really going on with the book.

My dad, the guy always be so strict about my education, so strict to me on

everything , the guy that has living through college and be able to get Master degree

has now given me a good lesson. Thanks to lesson from my dad, I’ve used all this ‘tips’

that he gave me to carry it out to all my high school classes. Instead of letting me play

video games, hanging out with my friends, my dad has taught me a valuable lesson, he

has showed a real way to enjoy a book for the first time. Because of him showing me

how to pick on a good book by looking at the cover and reading the backstory to pick a

book, he advised me to look up words I don’t know and help me on critical reading in a

book. All his tips has changed me and help me to become reader/ writer me right now