I believe that every individual has their own staircase to literacy; my first step was learning how to talk, and my last step is still to be determined. You see, so far I have climbed nearly 16 years up this staircase and have encountered multiple variations of ideas and suggestions about literacy. Luckily, my mentors have never failed me and have always done whatever it takes to get me to the next step. My most recent mentor was my twelfth grade English teacher. In the beginning of the year she introduced us to the eight habits of mind. This included: curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition. This eight habits of mind tie together the literacy staircase as a whole.
Let’s think …show more content…
Sure, through elementary school I learned a few things about writing. Things I remember learning from elementary school was: how to write, the parts of speech, and conventions. Besides that I don’t remember most I just remember completion points on my writing assignments. Going into late junior high, even early into high school is when my educators started closing the clamps on being a good writer.
It took a lot of persistence to learn how to be a good writer, and it definitely did not happen overnight. High school was certainly the place where I learned how to write creatively within flexible guidelines. During my four years, I learned that “literacy as a resource becomes available to ordinary people largely through the mediations of more powerful sponsors,” (Brandt). Everyone I have learned from is a powerful sponsor in my life; my parents, teachers, coaches, have all been influential to guiding me up the steps of my personal literacy staircase. In an excerpt written by Malcolm X, he refers feeling “immensely proud” of his accomplishments because now he was not only able to write the words but now, “[he] could remember what many of these words meant,” (Malcolm X, 9). I can relate to Malcolm with this statement because looking back down the steps of literacy, I have come an incredibly long way from my first few steps into the world of
Let’s think …show more content…
Sure, through elementary school I learned a few things about writing. Things I remember learning from elementary school was: how to write, the parts of speech, and conventions. Besides that I don’t remember most I just remember completion points on my writing assignments. Going into late junior high, even early into high school is when my educators started closing the clamps on being a good writer.
It took a lot of persistence to learn how to be a good writer, and it definitely did not happen overnight. High school was certainly the place where I learned how to write creatively within flexible guidelines. During my four years, I learned that “literacy as a resource becomes available to ordinary people largely through the mediations of more powerful sponsors,” (Brandt). Everyone I have learned from is a powerful sponsor in my life; my parents, teachers, coaches, have all been influential to guiding me up the steps of my personal literacy staircase. In an excerpt written by Malcolm X, he refers feeling “immensely proud” of his accomplishments because now he was not only able to write the words but now, “[he] could remember what many of these words meant,” (Malcolm X, 9). I can relate to Malcolm with this statement because looking back down the steps of literacy, I have come an incredibly long way from my first few steps into the world of