Personal Literacy Narrative

     I learned how to read in kindergarten. I was a really poor kid and my parents had just gone through a divorce. While they were together, before I turned 5 ½, my grandmother, Nanny, and my older brother, Matt, had tried their best to teach me to read. I remember having Dr. Seuss books, but I was more interested in toys. I wasn’t one of those kids that wanted, or got, to be read bedtime stories. I just didn’t like reading. I don’t remember the first thing I read, or even the second, but I do remember the first book I read all the way through. It was 3^rd or 4^th grade in Mrs. Macomb’s class. The book was Holes, yeah, just like the movie. This might be why I was actually interested in it. At the time I thought the book was huge, the first “big” book I took on reading. I remember the whole class had to read the book, but that had never stopped me from not reading the book before. I had a lot of trouble reading in grade school. I was in LD, Learning Disability (that sounds so horrible when you say it out loud), classes for English until the 6^th grade. I still have trouble reading today. It is one of my biggest fears to read out loud. Today I still do not enjoy reading, just as I did not when I was a toddler. I usually get the summary of an article to read because I am such a slow reader. I could also call this laziness, but I can honestly say I do it because I hate reading. I know, harsh right? But really, I do. There are seldom times when I actually read, and when I do read books, it takes me about a year to get through the whole thing. I think this will be a struggle for me for the rest of my life.

Malcolm X and Alexie Reading Response

Before You Read

Alexie 3. When I was learning to read the texts and events central to my learning were from kindergarten. I learned how to read during kindergarten and the first books I read were from my class room.

Dialectical Notebook for Malcolm X

Response	Quotation
I like this quote because many people can relate and it starts the autobiography off with where he first started to really learn English.	“The impression is due entirely to my prison studies” (354).
I like the emphasis he puts on understand in the quote. It is showing how proud he was of himself.	“No university would ask their student to devour literature as I did when this new world opened to me, of being able to read and understand” (356).
This is a good example. It shows that you should put your background into what you’re actually talking about while writing.	“Often in the years in the streets I had slept less than that” (354).
I picked this quote because I thought it was nice that he described the books he was reading. He put his opinion into the text.	“The world’s most monstrous crime, the sin and the blood on the white man’s hands, are almost impossible to believe” (357).
This shows the thanks Malcolm had to Mr. Muhammad. It is also nice that he broke away from the learning’s he had to put this.	“Mr. Muhammad, to whom I was writing daily, had no idea of what a new world had opened up to me through my efforts to document his teachings in books” (359).
This quote shows that he goes back to where he first learned about books. He doesn’t take it for granted.	“I told the Englishman that my alma mater was books, a good library” (360).

Dialectical Notebook for Alexie

Response	Quotation
This starts at the very beginning. Simple.	“I learned to read with a Superman comic book” (363).
This quote is bringing me in, almost making it emotional.	“I still remember the exact moment when I first understood, with a sudden clarity, the purpose of the paragraph” (363).
He is explaining his thought process about the paragraph. Explanation is good.	“They had some specific reason from being inside the same fence” (364).
He is bringing us into his personal past, childhood.	“As Indian children, we were expected to fail in the non-Indian world” (364).
He is expressing to the reader how important this was to him.	“I read anything that had words and paragraphs” (365).
This is a bold statement and last line. He is putting himself out there.	“I am trying to save our lives” (365).

bell hooks Reading Response

Before You Read

1. I think an autobiography is the written down version of your life/story. Important information in one is major events in that persons life and their main bio. 

Summary

bell hooks explains in the article "Writing Autobiography" the ways to write an autobiography. hooks is directing this information to others writing autobiographies. She explains what needs to be put in them and some of the tools she used while writing. hooks uses examples from he own autobiography to explain her reasoning's. She includes that writing her own autobiography helped her discover things and find closure from her childhood.

Synthesis

bell hook's article "Writing Autobiography" relates to Allen, Malcolm X, and Alexie. In Allen's "The Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer" she explains the difference and discovers pretty much everyone is the "real writer." hook represents the "real writer" very well because she is writing her autobiography for a reason, and it wasn't perfect at first. hook relates to both Malcolm X's "Learning to Read" and Alexie's "The Joy of Reading and Writing:  Superman and Me" because both of these articles are actual autobiographies. You can directly find the tips and examples in hook's article, but you can use Malcolm and Alexie's articles as pure examples of writing.

Question

AE.5. If I were to write an autobiography now I would use the present time discourse community. I am in college and it's the time of my life, why not write about it? I would include examples from my past if need though.

Thoughts

I thought this article was very nice for people seeking information on how to write autobiographies. Though I am not looking to write an autobiography, hook gave great tips/tools to use while writing. hook also gave helpful examples from her own autobiography.

Dialectical Notebook

Response	Quotation
I like this quote because it shows how she was so into the idea of writing her autobiography, how important she thought it was.	“I wanted not to lose the vividness, the recall and felt an urgent need to begin the work and complete it” (177).
This is a good tip showing that you want to write both what you remember and what actually happened.	“There were many incidents that I would talk about with my siblings to see if they recalled them” (178).
I love this because it is her expressing how great it was to let it all out.	“It was the act of making it present, bringing it into the open, so to speak, that was liberating” (179).
This is a meaningful quote because it expresses to the reader how much you can get out of writing. It is kind of a recollection.	“Writing the autobiographical narrative enabled me to look at my past from a different prospective and to use this knowledge as a means of self-growth and change in a practical way” (180).