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Leah Bullock

Professor Raymond

URWT 1104

25 January 2017

A Journey of Reading and Writing WP#1

I begin my literacy journey as a four or five-year-old writer, sitting at the kitchen table

practicing the letters of my name, the alphabet, and my penmanship. As my mother lectured and

demanded I practice my writing skills every day, I learned that writing pretty was important

for school and for those who needed to read the thoughts I put on paper. By the time, I started

kindergarten, I was six and knew how to write some of the letters of the alphabet in cursive,

which no other kid in my class knew how to do. At the time, I remember being placed in higher

writing classes because my teachers believed my writing needed to be challenged. So not only

did my mothers persistent teaching influence me to write better, but also my grade school

teachers helped push my writing past just knowing my ABCs and font styles.

As I grew older and moved from elementary to middle school I found it harder for me to

interact with English class. Because there was more reading involved and our writing usually

correlated with these reading, it was always analysis based. Although I do like voicing my

opinions and my own understandings of what I read, it never interests me to voice them on

paper. It wasnt until 7th grade that I realized I could express myself in shorter writings like

poetry. Poetry helped me grow in m literacy because I found a way to describe how I was feeling

without obviously stating what Im thinking about, instead I would make people discover what I

believe and the things Im passionate about. When I wrote, most of the time it was for the fun of
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it or if someone had hurt me; for example, like a school boy crush. As I matured in my writing I

began to talk about those around me and the issued I would come face to face with. Also, when I

got to 8th grade I started to show my English teacher my poems and she would critique and tell

me how my poem could be better or fix any grammar mistakes I had. She then encouraged me to

enter a poetry contest called the American Library of Poetry Contest. Although I didnt when my

poem was published with the contest book, so officially it made me feel like an author at the

time.

On my second literacy journey reading wasnt always my strong suit. Do you like green

eggs and ham? I like eggs and ham, but Im not sure if I should eat them green! Dr. Seuss is

probably one of the most famous and well known children books author around the world, but

its also one of my earliest memories of reading. Even though I prefer writing over reading; it

been said a person who doesnt read cannot be the greatest writer. When I younger I enjoyed

Shel Silverstein (most likely where the love of poetry came from), and Dr. Seuss more than any

other books. As I got into middle school and high school I was always afraid to read out loud in

class because I feared I would mess up, stutter or get stuck on words I didnt know. I also felt

like when I read to myself I could read clearly better than I did to others out loud. To this day I

still have trouble reading out loud but I try to encourage myself to do it more so I wont get as

nervous or jittery the next time around.

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Leah Bullock

Professor Raymond

URWT 1104

2 February 2017

The Art of Pen, Brush and Paper WP#2

I was never good with heartbreak when I got to middle school, even though I barely knew

what it meant to love someone. Now, as I look back on these situations I think of them as middle

crushes that were not actually real. Though I believed they were at the time, controlling the

outcome emotions that came after a break up werent always peaceful. I always thought poems

and love mixed, but never imagined it to cope with how I felt.

It all started in science class and I caught my best friend, Taylor writing; which pencils

tend to stay in her hand at all times because she liked to doodle during lessons, but I read over

her shoulder and noticed she was writing about love. She then explained to me that she was

writing a poem to help clear head space and stress. Not that anything had happened recently, but

I decided to try it out and realized it wasnt as hard I thought. Some nights I thought long and

hard about how I felt when I decided to write on my own time; taking examples from Maya

Angelou and Langston Hughes as they would describe the meanings of their poems with words

that made you picture what they were talking about. In other cases, I learned that many poets

dont say exactly what theyre thinking until the very end of theirs works and sometimes they

never do. According to Literacy Devices Research, its an example of the term, prose. Prose is a

form of language with no formal or specific structure, which means to basically to take words

and arranges them in ordinary descriptions that depicts what the author is talking about. In many
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of the poems I write now because Im older and Ive been writing for over six years, my grasp of

vocabulary has grown, Ive become wiser in choices of guys a pick to date, and Ive grown in my

experiences.

Not only have I written poems about love, but I also write about social concepts such as

race, for example African Americans in society, and political issues like the poor vs. the rich or

slavery. I even right about specific people, maybe not on the concept of love, but what theyve

accomplished as a person and what makes them so inspiring. And finally I have simple

engouement poems for example:

The mission

to burn me down is a pursuit never to be accomplished

Never shall I bow down to you

I stand tall, knowing my statue never falls

When broken down, the pieces are pushed aside

But my soul is never moved

As I stand tall among my enemy

I am not Fragile

I am Strong

If I stand before you very tall

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Then my statue never falls.

This poem is called Mission, it the one poem I come back to when I need some

engouement and its the one I memorize inside-out. It was the end of 8th grade when I wrote this

as an end of year positive note for high school. And since then constantly kept writing, but I

dont really share them unless its with friends. Ive always been interested in poetry out loud,

but never had the guts to stand on stage and recite them for an audience. I feel like poetry has

definitely made it easier to explain my feelings to others and help me help others get into

feelings with their literacy.

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Work Cited

Literary Devices Editors. Prose LiteraryDevices.net. 2013. Web. 1 Feb. 2017.

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Leah Bullock

Professor Raymond

URWT 1104

6 February 2017

Technology and Literacy WP#3

For as long as I can remember we always had a computer in our house, whether it was a

desktop or laptop. Because my dad was a computer technician and has always worked with

computers it the reason weve kept up with the changes of technology. My sister and I shared a

roomed for most of our childhood so we shared a desktop and took turns on it. If it was a good

day we would play games, like Poptropica, Disney channel and Fun Brain website games

together. Poptropica is a fun digital world where you could create and avatar and go on

adventures and decide what kind of hero you wanted to be. Once you completed an adventure

you could open a new one and update your avatar wardrobe. The Disney games were all related

to the Disney channel shows and Fun Brain was educational learning related. I feel that because I

played games on the computer it helped me to read more and develop faster reading skills as well

as develop good comprehension skills. For example, if I wanted directions on how to play the

game learning how to use the keyboard provided the answers on how to make the character move

and talk.

Learning to use the computer became a helpful resource for school when I had to

use Microsoft word, save documents, and create projects. In middle school, it was required that

all students took keyboarding class before they graduated. It was important to know how to use

keyboard because it was taught that writing papers for class were to be typed and printed for high
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school and college. Keyboarding improved my literacy by providing an easier way to record

notes, information and to type sentences under less than a minute. Now that I am older and

technology has grown into social media and smartphones the way Ive learned literacy has

changed constantly. I did not grow up with a cell phone until I started 7th grade. I remember

when I first received my phone and the thing I wanted to know were text abbreviations slang. I

learned gtg, meant Got to go; and omw, meant On my way and memorized each one of

them while placing them into language and vocabulary. In some ways, it affected the way I typed

over time because I was use to shortening the spelling of words. Eventually it got to the point

where writing in slang wasnt that cool anymore so I went back to texting in full. It annoying

when my testing interfered with my writing so I gave up on text abbreviation and occasionally I

use them to this day.

Finally, since Ive become dependent on a cell phone for about seven years Ive adapted

to the social media changes such a Facebook to Twitter to Instagram. Social media has

influenced my literacy because it teaches to you write your thoughts in characters especially

Twitter. Although Facebook and Instagram persuade user to think outside the box and post

pictures on how they feel or to portray a message, social media had a strong impact on how I

read and write to this day. Social media can either tell you facts or make up lies. It helps us look

up information and read about it and create our own conclusions on a situation or hot topic.

Therefore, technology had a positive and negative influences on my literacy and will continue as

it advances.