Sage Hewett
Ms. Sanchez
Literacy Narrative
30 November 2010
A Change of Heart
Honestly, I thought reading was a waste of time. It never struck me as
interesting when I was in the first through sixth grade. It was dull, tedious, tiring,
and all of the above. Reading was the type of subject that made me think of funerals.
It was a sad event that made me cry and had one of those dull long-winded
preachers who’d make a person wish they were in that casket instead. Now as my
first semester in Reading Lab is coming to a close, I see my reading interest
increasing. Writing on the other hand was something I liked to how to do. But is now
one of my least favorite things to do in school. On the other hand I s still like it
because nobody writes the same, everyone stands out. That’s one thing I like to
stand out when it comes to my work. All the same, reading and writing coincide so
how was I to make both of them work for me? Now I see how.
During my years in elementary school I was the one that was left behind in
reading. I surely felt that way to. While everybody was in the left lane I was stuck in
the right lane by myself. The books we read looked like they were written in
Japanese. Now when I look back on it I say to myself, “Why are they trying to make
us first graders read these complicated books?” I remember when Hooked on
Phonics was the big advertisement attraction on TV during the nineties and the new
millennium. It swept the schools away! The school I went to, Julia Brown Montessori
School depended on that product. Because I was behind in school, my parents
bought the Hooked on Phonics set and made sure I read every book in there and
wrote the material I was suppose to write in that kit. I hated every second of it but I
got further and further to where I was suppose to be in my class.
Third grade and my whole career of high school are the only grades are the
only grades I have any type of recollection that have to do with my writing skills. My
teacher in third grade told us one week that we were going to be learning cursive
and I just thought OH DEAR. Cursive writing wasn’t as bad as I thought. We had the
dotted letter placed in front of and we were to trace over it about four times then do
it without. I love writing in cursive now because it is a very and sleek and elegant
form of writing. Cursive writing stayed with me up until high school. My high school
had a nice writing lab with people willing to help all the time, from what I heard. I
never stepped foot in there because I thought I really didn’t need it. With all the
editing, essays, peer editing, and research I had to do I felt secure in my writing
abilities. Regardless of what I thought before I still think I’m subjected to take heed
in the writing lab here at college to enhance my writing.
The years passed, books were read, reports were written, and the boredom
of reading let up some. In seventh grade I saw how my sister Keisha (who is not my
blood sister) loved to read books such as Zane, anything that had an African
American girl posing on the cover looking like she’s up to no good, and romance
novels. Till this day, I still question some of them books that she read. I needed
something that caught my interest. There was a library up the street from my
father’s house and I would peruse through the bookshelves only to find nothing. The
books my sister was reading and the other people looked so pointless and a waste of
printer paper. I refused to read books unless I was told to do so when in school. At
this point no book in the word could satisfy my empty bookless soul.
In the year of 2006 there was a new store in the mall called Karibu. It was a
bookstore that sold African American based book. They were the ones that
referenced to earlier about the African American girl/ man who looks like they may
be up to no good. I saw that there were books beyond that, some that didn’t have
that man or woman but had the same content in the book. Books such as Girls in the
Hood, A Gangsta’s Girl (saga), Caged Innocence, The Bluford High series, or The
Payton Skky series are some stories that caught my attention. All of those books
evoked drama. When the reader really thought they knew what was going on here
comes another unexpected hurdle. Not expecting what happens next is the way to
enjoy your reading. Those stories bought joy and pain to my heart. Finally I found
something that made me not want to put the book down. I found something that I
could relate to or something I knew somebody that I knew could relate to.
College reading and writing also has impacted the way I feel about the two
subjects. The short stories I read in Arts and Humanities II and in Reading Lab have
broaden my reading horizon. In Arts and Humanities II we always read stories
about the African American community back in the 1920’s-1940’s, W.E.B. DuBois,
and Booker T. Washington. Stories such as Like a Winding Sheet and Soul Gone
Home really can make a person change their perspective on the way authors write
their stories. In those stories it more likely that you will be reading against the
grain. The author never leaves the reader with a concrete ending; you need to
imagine what may happen next. That’s the only downside of reading. In my Reading
Lab class I feel as though we read a lot of biographies about different people. This is
the one class that has expanded my mind on reading and writing. Looking at other
people such as Fredrick Douglass and Ben Carson learning experience made me
think back to mine. I was not as willing as Douglass but proved my intelligence in
the end like Carson. Writing summaries or analysis on the stories was very tedious
but was worth the lesson in the end. Writing is not just to help you as a reader but it
helps gather your thoughts on what you read and proves that you can analyze and
enhance your critical thinking skills. I haven’t realized that until these few days of
my last first semester of college.
Now a day you won’t catch me without a book in my purse or near by me.
Reading has turned into a habit that have I grown to like. I’ll read on a long bus ride,
when I’m going on a trip whether by plane, train, bus, or car, and even when I’m in
the bathroom. Sometimes I’ll just close the door sit on the floor and get into the
world that I’m reading about. That might sound silly but it’s the truth because that’s
the only place I have the most peace. All the reading that I do does not make me a
fast reader. I’m still a slow and steady reader. I rather take the time to enjoy what
I’m reading.
After all that I finally made the connection between reading and writing. Both
are intertwined and without either one of them I couldn’t have typed or written this
narrative successfully.