what experiences have led you to feel the way you do about reading and writing. 

This assignment asks you to tell your story of literacy, your history as a reader and writer.  What I would like you to show through this essay is how you have arrived at your current attitude towards reading and writing, what experiences have led you to feel the way you do about reading and writing.  Together, in class, we will discuss the effective strategies that the authors of our readings use to make their literacy histories engaging. We’ll think about how you may use those strategies, too, to tell your own stories.  The assignment also requires that you devote at least one paragraph to Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” and explain how it intersects with, resembles, or differs from your own literacy journey.
Here are some guiding questions I want to give you to help you recover memories, get you brainstorming, and come up with a good focus for your narrative.
Think about the following questions and points:
The earliest memories of using language, either written or spoken; why do you think you remember what you remember?
A time when you were either proud or embarrassed by your ability to write or speak well; think about what caused you to feel this way
Talk about a time you wrote something that you were particularly proud of or embarrassed about. (about your writing, that is, not the topic)
People in your life who have influenced—in either a positive or a negative way—the way you felt about yourself as a reader or/and writer; they could be teachers, relatives, friends, etc.
Something that you wrote that was valuable to you;
Your evaluation of your own literacy skills; what do you think about your reading/writing abilities?
Have you had any physical conditions (broken hand, poor eyesight, dyslexia) that challenged your ability to write or read?
A book/story that influenced you in a positive way;
Your access to books at different stages of your life;
Your future as a reader/writer
The ability of reading and writing to change someone; what kind of effect can reading and writing have on a person? Has it had any effect on you? Do you think it may change something about you in the future?

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