Literacy Narrative of the life of Shanna Ngha
This narrative expresses the struggles I had with academic literacy and the knowledge I have
gained thus far. Taking this reading class I have learned how to become a better reader by: underlining
words I don’t know, compare the reading to my life, picking out main ideals, summarizing, taking notes,
and asking questions about what I think that I am about to read. I learned how to write an academic
summary such as: pretending the reader has never read the piece of literacy, writing the authors name,
and analyzing; break apart, think more deeply about the parts of information. Also, I was educated on
how important it is to write subheadings because it can give one an ideal or understanding of each
section, and subheading also forces one to think deeper. Moving on to making inference, which gives
one clues from the text, good readers do, this tool before reading. However, reading is writing because
a person has to read what they or anyone else has written. Reading increases one’s vocabulary which
helps with writing, readers appreciate examples and writers do the same. Writing helps one understand
what one just read. If I would have known this in my younger days I would have put these principles in
use.
Here is in my younger days, I was born in Shelby, N.C. at Shelby Memorial at four twenty in the morning
weighing seven pounds four ounces. Being raised by a single parent working twelve hours shifts a day
my life was great except for the part that my mom was always tired, so she would never be able to play
with me. Turning one I wanted to have a sibling I believed because being lonely was gruesome.
Unfortunately, I never received one, two years of age and I was spoiled this two year old got anything
she wanted. Three I thought I was something, I learned how to tie my shoe and I was jumping in every
car that I could. Four years old wondering when I would attend school, my mom explained, “Baby you
cannot attend school until I was five since my birthday was late.” Finally, I turned five and it was time to
attend school.
First day of school I walked proudly into my kindergarten classroom accompanied by the teacher
Mrs. Green. I was eager to learn and meet new friends. The teacher announced that we would be
broken into groups and we would be participating in centers such as: coloring, reading, writing, kitchen,
words. Happening to be in the word groups, the teacher made sure we pronounced the words before
giving help. First real word I learned was A.P.P.L.E. The students had to spell it and write it three times
each, and also we drew the word. I was so engrossed in learning; wanting to know more and more.
Class was suddenly over the look that creped across my face. Day two the teacher was reading aloud to
us the book The Cat in the Hat, so I laughed and I loved the rhyme scheme Dr. Seuss portrayed. Later,
time for the library, I picked up the book Green Eggs and Ham since I remember this is the same other
from the previous book. Then once again it was time to go home and I was poignant.
Being in elementary my favorite books was Junie B. Jones collection, now I loves love stories and
books because seems like they always have a good life and just so in love which I want to be one day. I
like reading books at night because I read them until my eyes grow heavy, reading at night soothes me.
Reading in high school was decent but I hated reading out loud because once I started reading aloud,
my voice would start crackling, and I started sweating, it sounded like I was crying and it would slow my
reading down even more.
Transitioning to writing, writing was not my forte, the only fixation I was good at was
talking and networking. On the other hand, I had another bad experience with writing since I never
knew where to correctly place commas, and I never sounded professional. High school my twelfth grade
honor English teacher instructed on them to write a paper on the book MacBeth. Read the book, wrote
the paper and I was expecting to get a good grade but I was disappointed to receive a message saying,
“This makes no sense, what is this about.” Patterns I have recognized in writing is there is a thesis,
introduction, body, and conclusion, and five to seven sentences towards a paragraph. I tried practicing
on my writing by writing in my diary until my mom got a hold of it then I stopped. When people have
difficulties they should practice since practice make perfect but I did not think this was implied to
reading and writing. I felt perhaps this is why I am not competent with my writing and reading as I set
out to be.
I could have practice more if I had someone to push me. I was worried about working more than
my education and my family was more into fussing at me about not getting pregnant than education
such as expanding my reading and writing. Sometimes I wondered why I did well because I never got a
praised for my accomplishment.
My attitude towards reading and writing is euphoric because all I want to do is succeed in life.
Why is literacy so important, good question, personally I see it similar to math everything revolves
around these things; in class and home and so forth. The role reading and writing played on my nothing
high-quality, since I have a lot to learn. My strategy is to become a better reader and writer is via. I read
this book How Successful People Think and I took tools that I learned in my reading lab class and implied
it to the reading and I totally understood the book and loved it that I read it more than once. The book
changed my view of life because it taught me how to think deeper about the situations that are going on
in the world and how to work on the struggles that I am faced with and that is reading and writing
because if I want to become a social worker I have to be a good writer.
In my college English class we write papers and I try my hardest to write a good paper but the
highest I have got was an 85 but still that is not good enough, my teacher tells me watch for slang and
cliché use. But like I said previously taking this reading lab has help me a lot to think positive about
reading and writing because if I am not good at something I tend to give up and not like it. However, the
tools I have learned have widened my view of reading and writing to the extent that it’s not so bad after
all. What I have accomplished is to keep trying and imply my tools I have learned but I want say I have
accomplished the goal yet until I do well on the final. Tools that I gave gained that will help me be
successful throughout my college career is taking notes, define words I do not understand, make my
own inference, read with the grain, read against the grain.