Carly Bryan Wray English 1103 September 2013 Literacy Narrative Every night before I went to bed, my mother

would read the same book to me. She would let me trace over the words as she read and the simple act of tracing my fingers was my first step to my literacy path. I traced each letter with my fingertip over the smooth paper of the childrens book as I listened to the comforting and gentle voice of my mother. The simple bedtime stories and my mothers soft voice will always be a major factor in my language past. My small, inexperienced hands that once traced words in the comfort of my bedroom now held a pencil in my first real learning environment. I was no longer depicting the letters with my fingertips; I was making my own markings with a writing utensil. My kindergarten teacher would write her large, perfect letters on the board and I would try to mimic them between the big dotted lines on the white paper. I erased and erased until I thought my letters were perfect and that is where one of my struggles began. I lost my creativity trying to create the perfect markings and forgot what I was writing about. The habit never died and I always focused on the beauty of my handwriting and wanted to create a perfect piece with perfect structure. I was a perfectionist and lost the meaning and myself behind my writings. My best friend Brooke sparked my interest in giving my pieces meaning because she was wrote beautiful poems and stories. She used words like art and was an exceptional writer. I experienced difficulties with my family during my high school career and she encouraged me to channel my emotions by writing poetry and creating a world through the art of literature. I went to a place far away in my writings and lose myself and it made everything better for a while. This was a huge change in my literacy path. I no longer focused on the beauty of the words but the beauty of the language. We both decided to take AP English our junior year and our teacher was truly one of a kind. She encouraged me to let my thoughts be messy because

she said a scrambled mind could create a beautiful piece. Mrs. Culver taught out class not to write the average, mechanical essay. She wanted us to incorporate our voice and our personalities when we wrote. I was genuinely confused by what she meant about voice, I had no idea how to put my personality into writing about analyzing a short story. I was just so used to breaking down the authors way of writing and creating a boring essay. Every essay we turned in, she would always say it was fluff and there were no real emotions behind what we meant. She would always write MORE VOICE on the top of my essays when I got them back and for some reason, that upset me and frustrated me to no end. My best friend Brooke was the star of the class and Mrs. Culver always used her as a prime example as a student who found her voice. I felt like Malcolm X when he tried to mimic Bimbis intelligence and he found that the words just came out wrong and sloppy. This encouraged me to dig through the deepest parts of my mind and find who I was when I wrote. By he end of my junior year, Mrs. Culver wrote me a letter about how much I had grown as a writer and I that I finally incorporated myself in my writings. She was a huge impact in how I write today and pushed me further down my literacy path and made my journey easier. From moving to AP English junior year to an honors class my senior year, I thought the workload would be easier, but I was wrong. My teacher was Mrs. Sloan and she was notoriously hated through out the school. She assigned a ridiculous amount of work and the class was writing about three essays per week. I hated her at first because it was my predetermined mindset but grew to love her by the end of the year. My understanding of literature grew immensely because she was such a great teacher. We read the works such as Grendel and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. The book Grendel was a story about a highly complex character and we had to analyze the emotions behind his language and actions. By understanding the complexity of his character, I learned how to interpret the authors use of language and that help my literature awareness grow as well. With reading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, I learned about the philosophies such as existentialism and nihilism. The book was in the format of a play and Mrs. Sloan would have students stand in front of the class and pretend to be the characters. I was assigned to be Rosencrantz one day and I had to talk in his English accent and do the motions of his actions. It was an interesting experience because I felt the language of the character and that the literature came to life. One of our other assignments was to write an identity paper, and that is one of the only pieces that I fully exposed my pain and my true self. Mrs. Sloan made

me feel comfortable with who I was as a writer and was the only person to read that writing. I felt like she truly understood my way of language and I still appreciate her for that. Mrs. Sloans harsh curriculum and intricate assignments made my love for English grow and she was an amazing instructor. My literacy path began with tracing my small fingertips on the books my mother read to me before bedtime to the mimicking of the letters on the board in kindergarten. I struggled with the mind of a perfectionist and had a lack of creativity but my best friend Brooke and my high school teachers helped me overcome those obstacles. I remember writing poetry with Brooke in her room surrounded by posters of the Beatles and Bon Iver playing in the background. Her house was a safe haven when my family was having problems and she was a strong influence over the emotional pieces that I created. I would not have such an attachment to poetry and writing as a hobby if it was not for her and she was a very supportive friend. My mothers voice and Brooke gave me emotional attachment to my literacy path, but Lake Norman High School was the place where I reached true understanding. Mrs. Culver introduced me to rhetorical analysis and how authors appeal to the readers through the use of pathos, logos, and ethos. I never knew the depth behind writing and I loved it. I loved how you could manipulate your writing and analyze the authors intention. I am excited to see how I will grow as a writer in English 1103 and UNCC Charlotte.