Written Language and Literacy Narrative 

   The way we perceive language and literacy comes from our experience. The way we speak, read, and write comes from our experience we have with talking and literature. The way we use language and literacy can come from one particular moment we have from our life. The particular moment I experienced was in high school.

   Every student has experienced moments in school when they didn’t understand what was happening. During these times we would try to pay extra attention, and try to comprehend whatever we can. When I entered high school, I didn’t know what to expect from my English teacher. My English teacher chose a literature story for my class to read. If it was my choice, I would’ve picked a comic book. I did not have any interest in the story that was chosen, but I had to accept this book and really focus in class if I wanted to get a decent grade from that teacher.

   As a class we would take turns reading the pages out loud. As we were reading together, I noticed that my classmates had trouble reading the pages. They would break the sentences up into words, and it didn’t sound appealing. My turn to read was coming up, for 3 minutes I started practicing to read faster and pronounce the words I didn’t recognize. When my turn finally came up, I read my pages at a good pace and didn’t have trouble pronouncing any words. But, after I was done with reading my pages, I realized that I didn’t understand anything I’ve just read. I knew this was going to be an issue for me when I got home and had to do my homework. When I got home, I had to reread all the pages that were read in school, including the pages I didn’t read. It took me a while to get a grasp of the story, and finally finish my homework. Then I was assigned to write an essay that would be due in 2 days about a story that I didn’t have a good understanding of. After this experience, I wanted to be able to instantly get a grasp on whatever I read in the future.

   This moment helped me realize that I had to start developing my language and literacy skills. I wanted to be able to write without taking too much time thinking about what to write next.

One problem I had was with words I wasn’t familiar with. To solve this problem I would search the meaning of the words in the dictionary and practice pronouncing these words. I knew the more I understood what I’m reading, the better and easier it would be for me to write. 

   I developed my literacy skills by reading and comprehending. I started to use the words I was unfamiliar with. My vocabulary was expanded, and the way I wrote was changing. Oftentimes it was challenging for me to write in a formal text, but the more I practiced in my English classes, it was becoming easier for me to write in a way I wasn’t used to. Each day I would become more familiar with reading and writing formal texts.

   My English classes held a big significance in my language and literacy development. My classes forced me to become friendly with formal texts. I had to read and write in a more professional way. I even started to notice a change in the way I speak. 

   I used to mostly talk in a slang manner. I have had this way of speaking ever since I could remember. My way of speaking at first was developed from watching tv and going outside, just talking with different people from different places. Once I entered high school and started my English classes, I noticed my vocabulary was expanding. I used the words I wrote in my writing when I spoke with people. This was a surprise to myself, I never thought that I would talk in a formal way unless I was writing. My experience with language and literacy helped me in different social realities because I could understand people better. From my experience with literacy I could speak to different people in different ways. I also could have an understanding of  texts from all over the world without being too confused.

   Materials that were meaningful to my reading and writing development were the many different literatures I’ve read in high school. I often had to read poems and stories that I had no interest in. There were many times when I wouldn’t understand the meaning of different words, but this helped me become fluent with many different ways words can be used and different ways people speak. 

   There were many disadvantages with my moment in learning language and literacy, but the advantages were greater. The disadvantages I had was reading many different kinds of literature I wasn’t interested in and I would often reread multiple times to have a better understanding of the text. Now I have the advantages of recognizing formal writing and understanding it. I’ve even developed a new way of speaking. 

   I believe the way we perceive language and literacy comes from our experience. The way we speak, read, and write comes from our experience we have with talking and literature. The way we use language and literacy can come from one particular moment we have from our life. The particular moment I experienced was in high school. The moment that I experienced in high school was due to my English class. Each day in class, I would read texts that I had no interest in and had trouble understanding. I would also write many papers on these texts. Slowly, each day I was developing my reading and writing skills. Although it was a challenge for me at first, I eventually became familiar with a new style of understanding different literatures. This was the experience I had in my high school English class. This was the significant moment that contributed to my language and literacy development.