Running head: PERSONAL LITERACY HISTORY PAPER
Personal Literacy History Paper
Callie Ellis
University of Montevallo
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PERSONAL LITERACY HISTORY PAPER
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As far back as I can remember I have enjoyed reading. I loved being read to as a child by
my parents and grandparents. At just a year old I would “read” nursery rhymes and children’s
books out loud to myself. I remember an old picture of a bald-headed, toothless Callie sitting on
the floor of the living room surrounded by a huge pile of books and “reading” to myself. That
picture is still an accurate portrayal of me today except I now have hair and teeth.
I don’t remember ever struggling with reading in elementary school. I grew up on the
AR system and never failed to reach my point goal for a given six weeks. I always read above
my grade level and often chose chapter books over picture books. In elementary school we
would have Read-Ins sometimes where we would come to school dressed in our pajamas and
read for the entire day. I loved just relaxing on the rug with a good book. Some of my favorite
series were The Babysitter’s Club and Nancy Drew. My fourth grade teacher really focused on
reading, and she had us reading our AR books for homework every night. We had to keep a log
of how long we read and how many pages. It was in her class that I began to read for pleasure
and to read more than only assigned books.
In my middle school and high school English classes I was always the nerd that actually
read our summer reading books; moreover, I usually enjoyed them. In seventh grade we read
Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and I thought that was the coolest mystery ever.
It was probably the first time a teacher taught me about analyzing the story and digging deeper
into the text. I remember learning vocabulary words and answering comprehension questions
and writing essays about that book. It was my first taste of a real English class, and I enjoyed
most of it except writing essays.
My favorite middle school teacher was my eighth grade English teacher because she
introduced me to my all-time favorite novel Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli. She read it to us out loud
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and it was nice to be read to again. We spent weeks on this book answering discussion questions
about it and writing about it. We discussed the moral of the story which is to put others before
yourself and not to care what other people think; consequently, I try to apply that to my daily life
even today. I reread Stargirl every summer and I even quoted it on my senior page in the
yearbook. I can honestly say that my life has been changed because of a book.
I was involved in high school so I mostly only had time to read the books that were
assigned in my English classes. Although I did enjoy most of the novels my teachers picked for
me, I still liked the freedom to choose a book that interested me. I liked and still like girly
books, ones about a love story or from a young girl’s point of view. I read Meg Cabot a lot in
high school because her books were like romantic comedy films. As far as assigned novels, I
enjoyed The Scarlet Letter, The Great Gatsby, Ender’s Game, Wuthering Heights, A Northern
Light, and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
However, I did not particularly care for writing in high school and even today in college.
My AP English teacher made us write so much and so often that I resented her. We had a five
paragraph essay portion of a test for every novel and short story we read in her class. She taught
us how to do a literary analysis of a book where for each point you make toward a claim you
explain how or why with no “fluff.” I hated doing that in her class, but when I got to college I
could crank them out on autopilot. I prefer the five paragraph essay style today more than a page
number requirement because I simply don’t have that many words to say. I can usually get my
point across in one or two sentences, so having to write five pages really stresses me out.
I still consider myself an avid reader because I am usually reading a book for pleasure. It
may take me a while to finish a book because I am busy with school, but I’ll read a few minutes
before bed every night. Lately I’ve started reading books that are movies, such as The Last Song,
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The Time Traveler’s Wife, and The Hunger Games. Usually I see the previews for the movie and
find out it’s actually a book, so I’ll go buy it and read it before the movie comes out. I am a firm
believer that the book is always better than the movie. I like how you can get inside the
characters’ heads, and I become more emotionally attached to the characters through a book
rather than a movie. A book is all the entertainment I need.