Revising Literacy Narrative
My experiences with reading and writing may seem similar to others. The typical young student who had a strong disliking for one of their former childhood english classes. However, this is only partially correct. I actually used to love reading, that is until I was forced to read boring books with mediocre plots. These books made me nauseated to even think about let alone read. As a child not only was I not interested in spending my time inside reading books. I was also not interested in the books I was forced to read. After being forced to read and log I thought I would never like reading again, but that wasn’t necessarily the case.
The start of my negative encounters with reading dates back to when I was in third grade. Most students probably have some recollection of being assigned a book or having one of your choice that you are forced to read and log. These were commonly known as “reading logs”. Reading a book of my choice perhaps wouldn’t have caused me to take a disliking to them. Except I was never allowed to read a book of my choice. In my english class we were always required to read the same book that the school recommends. These assignments became called “reading logs”. Usually how reading logs worked were that you were either assigned a certain amount of time to read or a certain number of pages to read each day. I was not a fan of being forced to read two hours a night then write a small paragraph about what I had read. Most of the time I was assigned a boring book with a confusing plot that was too hard to understand, let alone to write about it after. After that I thought I was never going to like reading again, so I gave up the interest all together. Thankfully my outlook on reading all changed in fifth grade.
In fifth grade I was in Mrs. Carpenters class at George E. Jack elementary. It began as any other english class. Our class was split into three groups to read a book based on our reading ability and lexile score. I remember dreaming of the day that I would enter middle school, so I would no longer have to do this tedious assignment. Since I was always a strong reader my teacher put in the more advance of the three group to read a book called “The Penderwicks”. It started as any other reading assignment. This assignment began like the kind you brush off, and partially skim through the first few pages in order to cough up a big enough blurb to satisfy your reading requirements. I soon after found myself taking a real interest in the book. I remember being so intrigued with the characters and the story that I would read more than I was assigned because I actually wanted to. I took my assigned book home and read more than my assigned amount. I proudly finished “The Penderwicks” before anyone else in my group. That’s when I realized it’s not that I hated reading, I just never liked that the books I was previously assigned. Although I am still not an avid fan of reading, I have learned to at least give it a real chance. I now give reading a real shot thanks to that one book I read in Mrs. Carpenters fifth grade class.
Having been a child who loved reading and writing I was disappointed to have my interests ruined by one simple assignment. In conclusion I believe that everything can change based on one experience. I have also learned not to let that one bad experience ruin many potential good ones. Just because it doesn’t work out the first few times doesn’t mean it won’t ever work. I now know not to judge a book by its cover. Just because something doesn’t seem appealing and interesting on the outside doesn’t mean it doesn’t contain the best story on the inside. Sometimes the best books have the most simple covers.
