Donald M. Murray has a theory in which he explains how reading and writing are both autobiographical. What might he mean by that you ask, well he believes that each writing someone creates, contains pieces of their past experiences. These experiences influence the way they write, read, and the way they perceive the world. By that logic, everyone’s writing is autobiographical because it contains a piece of themselves within it. All of the things I have experienced throughout my life has had a great impact on the writer I am today.
I’m not much of a reader or a writer, you’ll rarely catch me writing or reading in my free time. It’s not that I don’t like to read or write, it’s just something I don’t really do as much. You might catch me reading maybe a comic book or manga, but that’s about it. As far as writing is concerned, I mostly write when I’m texting. My skills as a writer were mostly honed in school. Ever since I was in Kindergarten, I’ve been honing my literacy skills as a writer and a reader. I remember the teachers would really try and push us to read and write. Every few times week, The teacher would make us choose a book from our classroom library, and we would have to read it and write about what we read. As much as I hated it at the time, each book read and each paper I wrote, all had a positive impact on my literacy skills. The 4th grade Is where I began to receive larger writing assignments such as essays and book reports. The first few essays I wrote were not that great, I hadn’t yet learned the best ways to structure my essays or the techniques that could help create a well-organized essay. These were skills I that I developed over time throughout my middle school and high school years. In high school, I had many writing assignments that all help improve my literacy skills. One of the assignment ps I really enjoyed the most was argumentative essays. A lot to f the topics given were topics related to our everyday lives, some were even political. I enjoyed these essays because they allowed me to voice my opinion. The essays also really help me approve the skill of evaluating text and searching for evidence to support my claim.
Literacy as I understand it is the ability to read and write, but I recently learned that there is more meaning to the word literacy than just reading and writing. Literacy could also be defined as the ability to engage with language, to acquire, construct, and communicate meaning. Language is a socially constructed system of communication, you can have multiple languages depending on the social environment you are in. My literacy skills have been impacted by the environment at school, home, and around my friends. There’s a type of language you develop to adapt to the situation you are in. For example at home, my mother from Haiti, her first language is Creole, this is the language my mother chooses to speak the most, however from time to time she might switch to English, sometimes she even combines the two. For some people that might be confusing but for me it’s normal, I understand her clearly. Another example would be when I text, has also impacted my literacy in a big way. Through texting, I can interact with friends and many people on social media.texting are like my daily dose of writing, I enjoy texting because it’s a way to stay connected with friends, family, and the world, through emojis and abbreviated phrases.
Now, I am a college student and I am currently learning a new way of what I think is a form of literacy. In my Type and Media class, we are learning how to communicate through the artistic arrangements of text, a creative art form that makes the written word beautiful appealing towards the readers. As someone studying to become a graphic designer this form of literacy will be very useful to me in the future. I can’t wait to see what literacy skills I gather through this course.
