Literacy Narrative Essays Examples

When it comes to my development of my own sense of literacy, I had my own particular set of challenges to overcome. From childhood to now, I have struggled with delayed introductions to literacy, as well as my own unique challenges learning how to write. Thankfully, I have been able to get to a great place in my writing thanks to a number of great people who supported me, in addition to my own hard work and perseverance. Despite having had to play catch-up in many ways in my own literacy journey, I feel I have come a long way in my short career, and think I have a lot more to do.
Growing up, my parents were never huge readers; they were very practically minded, and focused mostly on making sure I was entertained and fed, and otherwise taken care of. We always had TV, so that was the default entertainment venue for us – my parents could read and write, of course, but probably didn’t see much utility in reading or writing for pleasure. To that end, I was never really given a head start in literacy before I came to school. During that time, I felt a little left behind; the other kids in my kindergarten were easily able to spell and write rudimentary sentences, whereas I had to start from scratch. While I don’t think my teachers thought I was illiterate, my frustration was palpable.
One day, in the middle of class, I was asked to read out a poem from a book in front of the class. I was absolutely frozen stiff, staring at the teacher slack-jawed as she held out the book for me to take. I immediately started crying – I couldn’t take it, I didn’t know what the words were! Tears streamed down my face as the teacher sat down next to me and the other kids alternated between giggling, talking to themselves, and staring in silence. I felt so embarrassed, but the teacher put her arm around me and said, “Don’t worry, you can do it. I know you can. You never know if you don’t try.” For some reason, that worked, and I wiped my nose and picked up the book. It probably took me a good 15 minutes, with a lot of coaching from the teacher, but I got through the whole poem – the class clapped, and we moved on.
That moment was a breakthrough for me in my own literacy; I knew that I could get through one story, so why not take on more? I begged my parents to buy children’s books for me, which is what started to replace my TV time. As I got through first and second grades, I started to write as well, and I took my notebooks home and would re-write some of my favorite children’s books. Sometimes, I would give them the endings that I wanted them to have; the tale of Ferdinand the Bull, for example, didn’t have him avoid fighting the matador, but actually defeat the matador by knocking him down and escaping the bull ring. Granted, I didn’t get the meaning of The Story of Ferdinand when I was a kid, but even those exercises in creativity meant a lot to me. I would even just rewrite my own homework assignments over and over again to make sure I got them right; I went through a whole big notebook a week, I think, writing until my wrists hurt.
In middle school, I started to write little short stories on my own between assignments; they were nothing special, just silly little narratives about characters I saw in television shows. I suppose you’d call them fanfiction now – I would write short story versions of imaginary future seasons of television shows I liked, taking old characters and giving them new stories. They were far from creative, but I started to understand the nuances of character, story, plot and dialogue, and would craft these intricate, parsed-out plots that would take place over that next season. This really got my creative juices flowing, and I would show them to my relatives and teachers. While I’m sure they would have preferred I do completely original stories (which I did do when the assignments came), something in me just loved exploring these characters I adored through my own lens. Looking back on it now, I guess I was adapting them in my own way, which is a great skill for a writer to practice.
I think my greatest writing challenge to date was my senior year of high school, when I decided to try writing an original story – a tale of a young woman who had gotten viral video stardom, but was starting to feel the pressure of it. I didn’t give the story a title, but I already had the story worked out; she would be the Youtube equivalent of a failed child star, someone clinging to childhood fame and letting it overwhelm her. I had the idea of making the twist of the book a reveal that the Youtube video was something tragic, but had trouble figuring out how to work that into the rest of the story without making it too heavy handed or tip my hand too easily. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I chose eventually to scrap the story after I had it halfway written; I just wrote all the stuff I could in order, thinking that I would just put it in the specific order I wanted after the writing busy work was done. However, by the time I got really into writing it, my life got busy with other things (like finishing high school), and I just stopped writing. It disappoints me from time to time, but I think I might be able to get back to it. That story is still somewhere; maybe I can finish it sometime. Despite this failure, it showed me that I was willing to think big, approach a piece of writing analytically and not be afraid to take chances, which is something I very much value.
The journey from crying in kindergarten to trying to write my own short stories was an interesting one, and I look forward to the advances I will make in my writing as time goes on. I felt like I started out way behind my peers, but I chose to make up for that with sheer will and love of reading and writing. While I know my ultimate goal is to successfully write compelling original fiction, I appreciate the place I’m in now, and look forward to the lessons I still have to learn.