Quadratic Literacy
My enjoyment for reading has been a quadratic function, with time being the x-axis and
enjoyment being the y-axis.
It all started when I was young, seven maybe. I was homeschooled, and my mom decided that
she would award me with a personal pizza for every book I read. Even though it all started because of
the pizza, I found myself in love with reading and writing. The main books that I would read were two of
Christian comedy book series, the Wally McDoogle series and the Bloodhounds Inc. series, both by Bill
Myers. I spent almost all of my free time reading. But I enjoyed more than just reading; I wanted to be
a writer back then. I would often get discouraged though by my poor handwriting and even worse
spelling. I found the solution to my handwriting problem when we went to visit my grandmother who
worked at the bank near to where I lived. She had an old typewriter in her office that I would type with.
I was never taught how to type, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
Quadratic Literacy
I kept reading for fun until I was 11. By then, my family had purchased a computer and internet
for my dad’s business. Everything I learned about the computer, I learned through experience. I would
use the computer to type out reports for school and print them out. It made typing even easier than the
typewriter did. But it didn’t help with my spelling, since it didn’t have spell check. It was easier to use
and see what I was typing. Eventually, the internet and the game system we had ended up taking all of
my free time. I learned how to use the internet to find online games and research topics that were of
interest to me. As I spent time learning about the new technologies I was presented with, I stopped
reading during my free time and only read when it was for school. As I taught myself the computer,
occasionally getting help from my older brother when I needed help with specific functions, I slowly
became disconnected from literature. I still enjoyed reading, but I wouldn’t do it when I didn’t have to.
I instead focused on math and science, leaving reading and writing low on my priority list.
Since I was homeschooled, I got to choose some of the books I read. I would often choose
fantasy books, like The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien, or
challenging books, like Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan. But I didn’t read for fun anymore, and I
noticed that reading was not as easy as it once was. I could not stay focused on the story and would
often stumble over words and phrases. I briefly tried to read for fun again when I was 12 by attempting
to read Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien. How little reading I did lessened my literacy; I couldn’t keep
with the book and never finished it.
When I turned 13, I got a Facebook account and a cell phone. They were originally meant to be
used to keep in touch with my friend who moved to Florida, but they continued to take up my time as I
learned how to use its various features, like adding photos, sharing videos, and sending messages. Using
these two technologies further decreased my reading and writing literacy. As my Digital literacy grew,
my attention span greatly decreased, keeping me from being able to focus on reading for extended
Quadratic Literacy
periods of time. And the texting language started to work its way into my school writing. I would have
to check whenever I typed to insure I didn’t accidentally include texting shorthand, like ‘u’ instead of
‘you’ or ‘2day’ instead of ‘today.’
In the eighth grade, I read “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe for school. I immediately fell
in love with the style he wrote in, the macabre subject, and the analysis of a broken psyche. I remember
reading the story, contemplating the insanity of the main character. I could almost picture the glazed,
cataract eye and hear the muffled heartbeat. It was the first time that I could fully picture the things
described in the story while I read it. I read and re-read the story, hoping to find something else that I
had missed before. When I had found all that there was, I still wanted more; I wanted another story to
read. I wanted to find another story about a main character with a broken psyche, described with
macabre details.
I immediately used the internet, which had once hurt my literacy, to search for other writings by
Poe and found “The Fall of the House of Usher.” In this way, digital technologies helped increase my
love and interest in literature. Though the story was more Gothic than “The Tell-Tale Heart,” I was still
entertained by the style of horror it was. I requested that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by
Robert Louis Stevenson be one of the books I read for school. My mother bought the book, but I never
got to read it that school year.
Quadratic Literacy
By that summer, I was 14 and planning on no longer being homeschooled and was going to
attend a public school. My father was coaching a select baseball team that my older brother played on.
Often getting bored at the field, I decided to take Jekyll and Hyde with me to read. It completely
restarted my love of reading. Later that summer, I bought three books at the nearest bookstore so that
I could have something to read on vacation. I bought a collection of short stories and poems by Edgar
Allen Poe, who was and still is my favorite author, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, and Dracula by Bram
Stoker. I took the Poe collection and Frankenstein with me on vacation. Reading Frankenstein was
important because it combined science fiction and horror together. This sparked my interest in further
combinations of these styles. This led to me getting The Invisible Man by H. G. Wells. This one book
completely sparked my interest in science fiction, a genre I had barely read before, and led to me getting
more books by H. G. Wells, who is today one of my favorite authors, and reading The Robot Series by
Isaac Asimov.
While my interest in science fiction was growing, so was my interest in other forms of literature.
I continued to add to my collection of horror stories, getting books like The Picture of Dorian Grey by
Oscar Wilde, The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux, The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole, and
The Jewel of Seven Stars and The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker. But I also had an interest
sparked in poetry from the combined effort between the poems of Edgar Allen Poe, and the epic poem,
which remains one of the greatest literary works I’ve ever read, The Divine Comedy and more specifically
Dante’s Inferno by the great 13th century poet, Dante Alighieri. These poetic works led me to purchasing
the epic poem Beowulf and the desire to get more epic poems when I have money. My literary taste is
not limited to just horror, science, and poetry; I enjoy political novels, fantasy novels, and period pieces.
Quadratic Literacy
Soon, my interest in writing was sparked again. After reading Jekyll and Hyde, I rediscovered the
same desire to be a writer I once had as a child. The very same summer I read Jekyll and Hyde I set to
writing a psychological novel, gaining inspiration from Stevenson’s Gothic masterpiece. But just as
quickly as the sudden desire to write came to me, it vanished. I was limited to mostly writing during my
father’s and brother’s baseball games, and without a laptop, I was only able to handwrite my book in a
small notebook. I quickly grew frustrated with this situation, my poor spelling, and the plot, eventually
giving up on writing the novel.
Quadratic Literacy
Freshmen year, right after that summer, I was encouraged by my language arts teacher to write
short stories in the hope of getting extra credit at the end of the year. I set about writing more short
stories, once more gaining my inspiration from Edgar Allen Poe. At the end of freshmen year, I was to
write a novel with three other students on a post-apocalypse world. Though I was ultimately
disappointed with the resulting story, it succeeded in renewing the desire to finish my novel. This time, I
chose to insure that I had a complete story line, which I was happy with, completed before I would start.
However, I had trouble hammering out a story line I would be happy with.
My trouble continued until I read Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane the summer before Sophmore
year. Lehane’s unique style of horror and his heavy psychological themes gave me the inspiration I
needed to finish my story; all I needed was a means to write the story. I knew I wanted to type it, and I
knew that I needed spell check. I was unable to use my family computer enough to write a full novel; I
was once more stuck. But my problem was fixed when I received my older brother’s old laptop. It
became my own personal computer and it had a version of Word with spell check, even though it was
outdated. The laptop enabled me to write out my novel.
Without the computer, and the internet, I would not be able to write as often as I do. While
expanding my digital literacy had once resulted in a decline in traditional literacy, I have learned how to
use it to my advantage. Whereas using the internet had only resulted in me wasting my time on
Quadratic Literacy
Facebook or playing games before, it is now used for me to find new books to read, do research on
mythology, folklore, and psychological conditions while discovering new styles of writing. Though I still
use Facebook and text, I now force myself to use full sentences, proper spelling, and correct grammar. I
have learned how to turn technology, which had ruined my literacy and attention span, into a tool to
grow my literacy. I believe that the best way to improve literacy is to practice. Now that I can write on a
regular basis, I’m seeing my storytelling skills improve. Looking back, I used to write myself into corners
and rely on deus ex machina to move my plot forward, or just write a poorly thought-out story. Deus ex
machina is Latin for ‘god from the machine’ and occurs when a seemingly unsolvable problem is
suddenly solved by the unexpected intervention of a new event, object, character, or ability. Now, I can
write fully formed and thought out stories, only using deus ex machina when I feel it will help a story.
I’m still writing that novel, as well as two other novels and an epic poem. Each of these writings
is inspired by one of the various types of books I have read. One of the other novels is inspired by
Gothic horror stories, like Dracula; the other is inspired by political books and ideals. The epic is a
religious allegory inspired by The Divine Comedy. And these writings are important to me. Reading and
writing has provided me with a means to escape difficulties I face. If a situation in the real world is
getting to me, I can escape to a world created by someone else or create one of my own. I vent
personal feelings by writing short poems about whatever I’m feeling. I can use these poems to express
hopelessness or how I feel about myself, then leaving the anger and hopelessness behind on the page.
Writing has given me a means to vent and express myself that, even if no else reads them, I know exist
and are my own creation.