LiteracyFinal

Marisol Arriola Page 1
English 1121
Kim Liao
02/05/2019

Living in The United States
Growing up in a Spanish house hold, it being my first spoken language. At such a young age I realized the power of understanding and using words. Both of my parents immigrated from Mexico at a young age, no clue or idea of how speak English they managed to start from nothing to something in New York. My parents at a very young age thought me that education is the way you express yourself with words are the key to a successful future.

Being able to read and understand Spanish made it difficult at first to learn the language English, it wasn’t as easy for me as it was for other kids to be able to sound out a word and spell it with no problem. At a young age in the United States every kid in school was thought to read, write, and talk English, I mean it’s the number one language spoken in this country. It was around second grade when I started to understand and read longer words helping me increase my vocabulary use and imagination. However, as I grew older and became more fluent in both English and Spanish, fluent enough I was able to translate for my parents around age six. From English to Spanish I’ve realized how gifted I am to be bilingual.

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As I grew older, I automatically knew I was supposed to translate for my parents everywhere we go. From the doctor’s office, to parent teacher conference, meeting, and appointments I was always prepared. Literacy to me means the ability to read and write, it means that you have gain enough skills that you could teach it to someone else or at least translate. When I tell you, I was prepared for any situation where I had to translate, I mean it. In compression with Amy Tan essay “Mother Tongue” she tells her readers about how growing up most people used to make fun of her mother’s broken English “some say they understand none of it, as if she was speaking pure Chinese. But to me my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural”. My mom herself kind of understood English but couldn’t speak it fluently, in my middle school parent teacher conference I would always translate but in the process of translating to my mom I would make myself sound like the most hardworking students. I mean my grades were never that bad, but my attendance was not the best.
Probably not the nicest thing to do to your mom but after this scenario I’ve realized my choice of words and the way I use them to explain myself is the perfect way to communicate with anyone. Growing up in New York city being bilingual is a bonus, you’ll most definitely get the job, understand better, and have many more

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Opportunities all because you can speak both English and Spanish. Language is an example of literacy. It uses all the requirements literacy requires, not as easy to learn but it’s okay because no one learns overnight. It takes time, patience, and dedication to want to learn and understand a new language. However the beauty of language is that as soon as you get the hang of it it’s like being introduced to a different category of people. The more you expand the more you will understand different cultures, English is pretty hard language at first but afterwards you tend to realize it’s pretty simple language that’s has a wide variety of words .

In conclusion literacy has played a huge role in my life. Learning how to speak, read , and write both English and Spanish at the same time wasn’t as easy as it sounds . Nothing that’s not impossible thought, I gained the necessary literal skills in school at a young to help me master this language. This was a huge advantage for my parents because I was able to translate for them and help them understand what others were saying. My parents will always tell me that learning a new language will open many doors for me in the future, communication is the key to success .

LiteracyFinal

Alanis Harris 

Prof. Kim Liao

English 1121-Section D447 

2-5-19

                                                            My literacy journey

         I use literacy everyday in my life, especially being a college student. I’m introduced to new pieces of writing almost everyday, and I use literacy to understand and properly respond to what I just read. Literacy also greatly plays into how we communicate with one another, Such as texting a friend, reading something from the media on our phones, and writing a status. Being apart of todays youth, with most of us only staying in touch with cellphones or other forms of technology, without literacy it would be hard to stay connected.

                  Literacy is a extremely important skill to obtain. It is Important because it also can hinder your chances of going far in life. Most likely nobody would want to hire a person who can’t write a proper report much less read or write.Nobody wants some who carry out orders, comprehend and just all around do their job. More opportunities would be available to someone who’s literate because what they can accomplish and achieve. If two people are pinning for the same job position, the one who’s literate would defiantly get it over the other who not literate, and that person would defiantly go farther. With literacy it helps your ability to comprehend and therefore learn more. We as humans need literacy because thats how we stay connected, share and express our thoughts and feelings.

            From the second a child is born, they use a form of  literacy. I first was introduced to literacy as  a child first from my mother, hearing her speak and others around me. As a baby I was already using some forms of literacy in order to explain to her my needs, if I was hungry, tired or  wanted attention. My mother wanted me to be ahead of the other kids so she would always talk to me and as a baby and read me books. When I first entered school my ability to read was slightly higher than my peers due to my mother being a teacher and her starting my love for reading. Growing up I loved to read “diary of a wimpy kid books”, they kept my attention because they had little interesting doodles on the side and as a child that was very helpful. It was interesting and helpful because the doodles would act out and explain what the text was saying. If the text said the main chart “hopped and skipped” it would have that exact drawing right next to the text. It helped me comprehend and understand it better, I didn’t know it yet but even that was a form of rhetoric. 

              Earlier within in my school years, a couple of friends of mine introduced me to a children’s card game named “Yu-Gi-oh”, this is a game that requires immense reading comprehension skills from each player, as for each card contains an advance level of vocabulary. The words at the time were advance for my age. This helped my vocabulary grow because of the complex card description for each card used in every came. As a 4th grader my friends and I were ahead of  our grade, as we knew the definitions of words such as “ adjacent, banish, archetype, equipped, consistency” and many more. This game helped with my strategizing, word choosing and thinking skill. The game was all about defeating your opponent so I had to constantly think of way to get the upper hand, over do them while using the right words and remembering the definition of them at the same time.  In order to keep up with my friends who were already established in the game I had to make sure I always was one step ahead of them, fueling my need to read and understand more.

            Eventually graduated from doodle books to wattpad a site where people can upload stories that they wrote, share and read other peoples stories. This site also helped broadened my vocabulary because there was very talented people on there and I couldn’t understand most of the words they were using so I had to search up mostly everything. I soon felt inclined to write my own story and add to the website. I began writing my own stories and constantly thinking about more ideas for books I can write. Unfortunately my author career was short lived because I lost interest in the site. My English teachers throughout the years encouraged me to look into the meaning of an authors words so they introduced me to literature. Literature in my opinion, at least then was just very confusing and hard to understand writing. It took a lot of practicing and time to understand what the writers were even saying. I’m much better at understanding now but it will take some time before I hone that skill.

            I aspire to be in the medical field when I get older and although I’m still not so sure what branch I want to be in, no matter what branch I pick I know I will be using literacy. Communication between doctor and patient is a very crucial part of the health process. In order to understand what the patient is trying to communicate to you, in surgery when the surgeon abbreviates something to you, at the pharmacy when the pharmacist scribbles your prescription. Those are all forms of literacy and it is a extremely big part of the medical field.

                   Without literacy it would be generally impossible to get anything done. Literacy has a big role in our understanding of each other and us understanding whatever’s going on around us. I use literacy in order to communicate with my peers. I use literally to ask them a question or to ask them for help if I need it. I also use it in order to communicate with my professors.Over the years I have adopted new methods to help me succeed. These methods include annotation, my understanding of foreshadowing and many more.

                  In the past I wasn’t challenged as much due to my love of English and my want to always be ahead, however coming to college has been a new ball game , its very competitive, everyone has the same want to be the best there its and the best they can be. So far I have been given extremely long texts to read where the meaning isn’t so clear which means you have to think a whole lot harder. Also making me dig down inside myself to dig a little deeper.It also heightened my exploration and has made me want to learn, read, and understand more.

Renaldo Stevens
ENG 1121
Professor Kim Liao
Literacy Narrative

What is literacy? I believe everyone has an idea of what literacy is even without having the official definition. I am not an English scholar but I do know how significant literacy is to our everyday life, our growth and our society. To put it simply, literacy is what allows me to understand how important literacy is for my personal development and how much it means to society. According to the official definition from google of literacy: Literacy is the ability to read and write. I believe literacy is a lot more than just reading and writing. In my opinion, literacy is the ability to read, write, speak, listen and understand at a level that enables people to communicate and be understood easily in society. Therefore without literacy, the world as we know it today would’ve never been possible if it wasn’t for inventions and experiments in the past which we study and understand in order to build on it to make our society better. Throughout my life, I’ve encountered a lot of different experiences with literacy. I have experience with literacy conversing with my family and friends in Jamaica where I was born and where I started school and learn my version of English. I also used literacy when I started developing my love for cars and cooking. Also when I moved to the United States the literacy was somewhat different but similar at the same time compared to what I was accustomed to.
Growing up in Jamaica the dialect and the diction used around the country is a bit different. I grew up in the rural area of the country which 100% of the people will speak a broken form of English which we call Patois while in the urban areas the residents there speak more of a mixture half proper English and half Patois. Most of the people in the rural area where I live couldn’t read or write so most times I had to help them complete forms for doctor etc. I went to one of the highest rated school in the country located in the urban area where I learned all about English and how literacy is important. We spoke in half English half Patois but we had to write incomplete proper English. I believe that from those moments my literacy was at a high point because I could speak and understand Patois, half and half English then write in proper English. In those times I use to believe that every English is completely the same but at one point I realize that the English we use in Jamaica is the British English and that the American English is a little different.
My love for cooking started when I got a chef book for my 9th birthday in which I discovered a lot of beautiful looking dishes. Reading the book understanding the measurements of ingredients and timing of how long each food should take in order for it not to burn. I read, understood and analyze what it would take to make each dish. With the help of my grandmother after a few tries sometimes I learned how to make complete dishes. None of this would’ve been possible if I wasn’t able to understand what was being described in the book. My love for cars developed because I was always around my uncle’s mechanic shop working on numerous cars learning about the engine drivetrain and how the car runs. While being in the shop I handled most of the paperwork and sometimes explain what the customers from the urban areas or from foreign English speaking countries are saying wrong with the car to him because he mostly only understood Patois and wasn’t good with reading and writing at all.

When I moved to the United States, New York City I realize how completely different literacy was and how people react to each other. I saw signs with a lot of different languages I have never seen before, people communicating in different languages at first it was very uncomfortable because I wasn’t used to it but I was very confident in my English. When I started school I realize that the pronunciation and the spelling of words I knew was a lot different from what I was accustomed to. I always hated reading in school because I know I would’ve been judged therefore I started researching the difference between the English I knew and the English that was being used here. I started reading a lot and watching interviews and learned a lot about how to pronounce, read and write in the English being used. overtime completely understood and was even able to speak thoroughly without even an accent. On the streets of New York City walking with my father, he speaks good enough English he reads well also but some people once they hear an accent they automatically decide to judge instead of trying to understand. I do stand up for him sometimes but he tries his best to get his point across and it is delivered good enough for anyone to understand. Sometimes I do speak up for him to clearly explain certain things. The way we communicate with each other is in Patois which is our native language but in public when speaking to others, we use proper English because we believe it is more appropriate. Throughout my daily life, I’ve seen a lot of others struggle with speaking and reading and how judgemental people are towards them.
With all these experience I had with literacy it helped me a lot today in school with my writing, speaking, and understanding of the English language. I believed that as a result of my brilliance of literacy it helped me a lot to understand and pass the majority of the Spanish courses in school which I can speak and understand somewhat. Throughout high school and college, I’ve learned a lot more about literacy, it’s concepts and what makes it so important to our everyday life. With the literacy skills I have developed over the years, it made me a lot more confident in my writing and each time conversing with other people hearing how they talk to each other gives me a different perspective of what life could be like if literacy was nonexistent. I one day hope to write a book about my life experiences or instructions in order to use a product I will invent one day. Also using all the aspects of literacy I have learned in order to deliver one of the best pieces of writing or maybe one day to motivate people with an accent or who is afraid to speak up because they will be judged, in order to show them that without them the world would not be the same therefore they should try and be more open with their diction and vocabulary because we can all learn a lot from each other.

Literacy Narrative Final Draft