Fahad Alamer
English 1101
September 25, 2013
Dr.Rieman
My Memoir!
I have read the paper many times after the comments Kayla and Bijan left on it, and
honestly, I believe that I still miss many things and have to do a lot of work. First, I
have to improve my introductions and conclusions. The introduction of a story or a
memoir such this, has to be thoughtful to catch the readers attention, and I think I
missed this. I also did not write a conclusion or a statement, which feels the memoir
suddenly was cut. The transitions were weak, and sometimes they feel that each
paragraph is independent. What I was trying to do, is including personal story about
many influential moments in my life, because I felt the readers may want to know
more about the writer in a memoir. I also tried to write about common literacy
between the readers and me, such as in the smartphones and Internet parts to let them
compare between their experience and mine, which makes them engage more to the
memoir. According to Kayla and Bijan, the stories I wrote, were the best part in the
memoir, and I recommend you read the part where I wrote about the reading I have
done for non-academic purposes, because it describes a lot of a lot of my good
memories in many periods of my life.
I would like to describe me conception of literacy, but I must point out, that
this word is sort of new to me, when I tried to translate it to Arabic, the result was "
The ability to read and write", which is basically a synonym of the word
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"knowledge", and I think it is not the word we seek. How ever, I would say "literacy"
means: The ability to use the basic and modern methods of communication,
depending on the era requirements.
The the educational status in my house is relatively acceptable, my father has
the bachelor degree in accounting, and my mother has the bachelor degree in English
Literature, and she has been an English teacher for many years, when my father used
to be an auditor, until he recently retired. As a child, I was the one who asks 100
questions per a day, I could ask about my father's car, and then ask my mother about
why she did not bring me another brother. Honestly, I do not remember the first time I
held a pencil and wrote or paint, but I do remember moments that I had been looking
to many books with pictures of humans on their covers, and wondering what adults
could do with such thing! As any child, I used to watch T.V, cartoon movies and
series, and liked the old stories my grandmother used tell me about my father and
relatives. However, I can say that my literacy's actual beginning started with my first
day in school.
In primary school, there was a strange paradox, that I learned how to read very
fast, but I struggled in writing. I could describe a word by looking at it's letters order,
but I was not actually able to write them, even If I knew the word, until I became
better be practicing. Later, in middle school, I had to have an obligatory intense dose
of several subjects, such as Arabic grammar, literature, reading and 4 various
religious subjects. The difficulty and monotony of all of this subjects, is that they are
most of the time written and came to us in the original Arabic, which is too far and
different from the Arabic we use both write and speak, that made many teachers
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change the study guide and the syllabus that we supposed to follow. While this, I read
and saved a lot of old literature, poetry, religious texts and parts of Qur'an.
In high school, I started to learn English, which is a language that I had a good
idea about, since I had watched many movies and my mother was an English teacher
and had lived in the United Kingdom for while. I think I was much better than most of
the students that time, it did not take me much to know the basics, and I have to admit
that I have been terrible in grammar, but I took the advantage of my mother's
knowledge and kept asking her about any word or information I did not now.
After high school, I attended a two years college. The first year included only
English language courses, 24 hours a week, and professors were mostly Americans, or
professors whose first language is English, because the second year (the major year)
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was going to be taught in English. I believe that I gained English structure and basics
in the college, by studying the material and communicating with those teachers. But
the real fact, I had not had chance to practice my English officially, whether to speak
or to write (except for few experiences when I have worked later), until I came to the
US.
For non-educational purposes, I have bought many books; the first book
probably was a novel in my first years as a teenager. I have been in love with Agatha
Christie novels, with those professional criminals and smart detectives. I also loved
Charles Dickens ones, and I still remember the adventures of Oliver Twist. I tried to
read to Shakespeare, but the translations were kind of complex to a simple reader as I
was. As soon as I get older, I became interested in politics and sociology, which
pushed me to have books on those topics. I remember a funny story, when I argued
with a relative about human rights, and I could not describe my thoughts, and then, I
decided to learn more, so what did I do? I downloaded the "Political Science" book
that was scheduled for Egyptian students majored in politics and read it.
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My writing experience is limited; I focused in journals, blogs and tweeting
currently. I tried to write poetry, but failed to follow the strict standards and could not
match the rhythm of it. I also started a short story 5 years ago, but have not completed
it ever. I prefer to write social journals or blog about a social issue, it is all about I am
writing what I like, and I am thinking about translating on of my best writings and
present it in the class some day.
I have another story with technology, the first computer I used, in 1999, was
shared between all of my family members. That desktop was not connected to the
internet, because the required network box was not available in our area, so usually I
played games or write and print. A year later, we finally were able to connect to the
Internet, and to be honest; it took me another year to know how to create an email.
Habitually, you would hear many rumors about such technology. For examples, I
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heard that there were spies who could see me through the screen! I also have heard
many stories about hackers and their skills, most of them were fake. How ever, I
started using the Internet just for chat with people, and to play a card game online.
With time, I discovered features and services such as eBay, and the Messenger, where
I could reach friends and relatives tidily.
One moment, I would feel very excited to describe, is the moment when I
bought the first smartphone I have ever had, the iPhone 2G. After carrying many sell
phones, with no features at all (except for the classic snake game, If you know what I
mean), it would feel very great to have a phone with that package of features,
figuratively I was able to carry my laptop, but in my pocket.
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I was born in the l987, and there in my home, they think that those who were
born in the 80s are lucky, because they have witnessed two different eras, and saw the
difference between two generations. The first used to use wired telephones,
typewriters, mailboxes and cassette, while the second has iPhone, emails, laser
printers, and MP3 players.
I am positive, that my parents have been my biggest sponsors. I
remember that they specifically chose the schools I had attended. Most of the books
and novel I have read in my childhood and teen ages were taken from my mother’s
library. Eventually, they are the reason that I am here in the US to complete my
education instead of the job I had.
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Fahad,
You have so many great ideas here! And you are a very astute critic of your
own work. You recognize in your self assessment that “The transitions were weak,
and sometimes they feel that each paragraph is independent.” I agree. What’s lacking
for me as a reader is s sense of connection between ideas and a larger point that you
are making. What do you want your reader to take away from your memoir?
As you revise for your portfolio, think about a center of gravity for this paper.
Keep in mind that you don’t need to give a chronological account. You could focus
just on school literacies or digital literacies, or your parents’ role in your literacy
development or do a comparison of your literacy development in Arabic (both spoken
and more formal written) and English. I’m happy to meet with you in person to talk
through some revision ideas. This is a great first draft!
What I didn’t make in this draft were any sentence-level issues that appear.
There was nothing that interfered with my understanding of your writing, but there
are some phrasings that you’ll want to standardize in later drafts (and this all comes
with practice). Once you revise this again, we can focus more on those issues.
Please write me a talk back responding to my comments and asking any
questions that you have.
Professor Rieman,
In addition of what I wrote in the top, it takes me along time to decide what
structure I should follow in such articles. For example, in this article, I was confused
if I should take a specific path such as Education literacy, Internet literacy or
entertaining literacy. I also usually cannot decide what are the parts that need to have
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more details. I think these are two weaknesses of mine that I have to pay more
attention to.
Thank you
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