My Literacy Experiences
Middle school can be a tough time for a lot of kids. It's a very awkward time in a teenagers' life and we were all just trying to figure out how to get through it alive and in one piece. For me, this was the time in my life when I really started getting into reading for fun. This was when my love of reading started to blossom. I am very grateful to have had Mrs. Conner in the sixth grade. Not only was she an amazing teacher, but she has been a family friend. She was able to see the love and passion I had for reading and writing and nurtured it throughout my time in her classroom. She would invite me to come into class early and we would talk about different books that we had enjoyed reading. I would tell her about how I wanted to be a teacher someday. It was during this school year that Mrs. Conner received Teacher of the Year. Throughout my seventh and eighth grade years, I was continuing to collect different books to read. I remember how I would stay up as late as I possibly could just to finish one more chapter. During my eighth-grade year, I had a teacher who introduced me to books such as The Lovely Bones and Lucky by Alice Seybold. These were two of my favorite books during this time. I was also introduced to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series, which I ended up doing an amazing book report on. I used a pair of old blue jeans and attached different symbols and wrote about all of the different characters and the different pieces of each of their stories on the pants. My teacher was so impressed that she asked if she could keep my pair of pants (the visual for my book report) and hung them up on her classroom wall to use as an example for future students.
Once I entered high school I was very nervous, but I was fortunate enough to have a big brother who was a senior during my freshman year. My favorite class to attend was my English class with Ms. Musselwhite. I ended up having her for two years (both 9th and 10th grade), which I was very excited about because I really liked her. I really continued to grow and learn and my reading still continued to pick up. I would read multiple books in a week if I was able to find the time. Ms. Musselwhite really helped me to improve my writing as well. This is where I think my interests of reading and writing began to come together and boost one another. During my freshman year, I was able to do a book report. I was still reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books and so I did another book report presentation using another pair of old pants as my visual. Ms. Musselwhite kept that pair, (just like my previous English teacher had done before her) and displayed them on the wall behind her desk. Having my teachers show such pride in my efforts to complete these reading and writing assignments gave me the fuel I needed to keep going and to continue reading and writing as much as I possibly could.
It's interesting to look back on these years as I am typing this up. I think that these memories will help me make my own classroom a place where literacy is a good word by encouraging me to do what my teachers did for me. That is, make literacy interesting and turn it into something that is achievable for all of my students. Giving students the opportunity to show you and their classmates what they have learned from reading and writing is going to help them see the positive aspects of learning to read and write.
Once I entered high school I was very nervous, but I was fortunate enough to have a big brother who was a senior during my freshman year. My favorite class to attend was my English class with Ms. Musselwhite. I ended up having her for two years (both 9th and 10th grade), which I was very excited about because I really liked her. I really continued to grow and learn and my reading still continued to pick up. I would read multiple books in a week if I was able to find the time. Ms. Musselwhite really helped me to improve my writing as well. This is where I think my interests of reading and writing began to come together and boost one another. During my freshman year, I was able to do a book report. I was still reading The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants books and so I did another book report presentation using another pair of old pants as my visual. Ms. Musselwhite kept that pair, (just like my previous English teacher had done before her) and displayed them on the wall behind her desk. Having my teachers show such pride in my efforts to complete these reading and writing assignments gave me the fuel I needed to keep going and to continue reading and writing as much as I possibly could.
It's interesting to look back on these years as I am typing this up. I think that these memories will help me make my own classroom a place where literacy is a good word by encouraging me to do what my teachers did for me. That is, make literacy interesting and turn it into something that is achievable for all of my students. Giving students the opportunity to show you and their classmates what they have learned from reading and writing is going to help them see the positive aspects of learning to read and write.
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