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Ben Hammack

8/30/13

ENC1102-0003

Professor Wolcott

Literacy Narrative

I was born a middle child, and as a middle child, I have always felt slightly disconnected from the

rest of my family. In my years of elementary school, my older brother Daniel was a star baseball player

in the eyes of my parents. My parents originally had hoped that I would turn out just as athletically

talented as he was. To their dismay, I did not show any interest or innate skill in sports. As a result, I felt

as if I was a disappointment to my parents as compared to my brother.

To compensate for my failure, I decided to become the best at what I enjoyed doing. At the

time, my favorite leisure activity was reading. From dawn until dusk, I would read nonstop. I loved to

read fictional stories, consisting of good guys, bad guys, and their adventures. As an example, my love of

reading was so strong that I finished the entire Harry Potterseries before I finished elementary school. I

was reading at a high school level by the end of the fourth grade. Though my parents were impressed

with my FCAT scores and grades, I still felt as if I was letting them down in some way.

In fifth grade, my elementary school introduced a new program known as Accelerated Reader.

This program, known as A.R. for short, was a sponsorof literacy(Brant 167) in the sense that it

promoted reading. But for me, the A.R. program was a system in which I could compare my level of

literacy with the literacy of others. In the A.R. system, books were given a point value, and short quizzes

determined how many points a student earned for reading that book. Weekly leaderboards of students

with the most points were posted in the window of the library. I remember constantly looking at these

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leaderboards to see how many books I needed to read in order to gain the lead. When I finally did

achieve first place, I was ecstatic, because I actually knew that my parents were proud of my

accomplishment.

As I reflect upon my elementary years, I know that it was foolish to think that my parents

wouldnt love me if I didnt succeed. Ultimately, this extrinsic desire to prove myself and become

comparable to my brother morphed into an intrinsic desire to succeed in high school. My love of

fictional stories recessed from my appetite of literature due to the fact that I was introduced to new

materials that shaped my literacy.

In junior year of high school, I enrolled in Research class. The goal of this class was to create a

science fair project that would be judged at the end of the year. My project dealt with sentiment

analysis of product reviews, but in to compose this original idea, I had to step up to a collegiate level of

science. I read many abstracts of studies and PhD dissertations in order to learn advanced algorithms

and formulas that I later used in my project. These papers were written using a higher level of English

that I was accustomed to reading. Like Malcolm X, I spent hours on end reading over advanced

materials. As a result, my literacy improved as a result from reading these higher level materials, and

this was most apparent in my writing.

Before taking Research class, my sentences were purposeless blocks of words. I would write

with an idea in mind, but not apply this idea to each sentence. After science fair was over, I noticed that

my writing reflected my readings. My sentences complimented each other by reinforcing a central

theme using elegant diction. This enhancement of my literacy skills was a byproduct of my intrinsic

desire to present the best project in the county. Even though I received first place and multitudes of

additional awards, the most valuable product of this experience was the knowledge that I learned.

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In retrospect, even though I encountered many institutions and sponsors of literacy thought out

my educational career, the driving force behind my literacy is my brother. He cant be described asmy

sponsor of literacy per se, buthe was responsible for my motivation to pursue literacy. In the

beginning, I was envious of his establishment. This caused me to pursue my interest in fictional books.

Later on in high school, my enrollment into research class and desire to place first in county science fair

was rooted in the fact that my brother, years before, had done the same. I would now consider myself a

top-tier reader and writer due to these experiences in my life. Ultimately, my literacy developed through

competition with my brother.

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Works Cited

Brandt, Deborah. Sponsors of Literacy.College Composition and Communication (1998). Pg.165-185.

Print.

X, Malcolm, and Alex Haley. "Learning to Read." The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Ballantine,

1992. N. pag. Print.