Literacy Experience

I have always loved reading, from as early as I can remember books have been a big part of my life. As a child my mother would read books to me and I would follow along and pretend that I could read the words. I was four when I learned to read on my own and I was reading chapter books by the end of Kindergarten.

My love for reading does not carry over to writing. I have always been a horrible speller and I find writing to have too many rules and to be boring. I have always hated turning in papers and then having them handed back with red marks all over them. My most positive (but also negative) experience with writing was in an English class I took last semester. The professor would have us read a poem or story; we would then have to write a paper about a word or theme from the reading. Instead of just turning the papers in, we had to read them aloud to the class. My classmates where then able to give feedback on my paper and the professor would tell his opinions and the grade aloud. The first time I presented one of my papers, the professor told me I was an idiot and that I wrote like an eighth grader. Hearing that killed my confidence and made my dislike for writing stronger. However it also made me put a lot more time and effort into my writing. I found that by having to read my papers aloud and by having a classroom full of people tell me their opinions I actually grew as a writer. I started off hating it but as the semester progressed I began looking forward to getting all of the feedback. I basically had 38 people to revise every paper I wrote and to help me realize the mistakes I was making in my writing.