I was thinking this morning what I might want to say on tape to be archived in the Digital Literacy Narrative file at Ohio State. Here is what I came up with, although I suspect I will be much briefer on tape.
Certainly, literacy is multi-faceted, so when I start a literacy narrative, I could go plenty of ways with it – reading, writing, computers, blogs, video. The list might extend very far. But I think the place I keep coming back to is reading, maybe the most traditional “literacy.”In so many ways, reading started it all for me.
I grew up in a family of readers. After supper at night, the television certainly came on, but mom was more often than not on the couch reading one of her many magazines and dad was across the room with a book – either a spy novel or a western, usually. Sis would be in her room, reading and listening to music. (Another type of literacy?) I was often the only one watching the TV when I was younger. To be sure, I had learned to read with Dick and Jane in first grade. Kindergarten was all private where I grew up and we couldn’t afford it, so first grade was, well, first for everything. I enjoyed reading, and for those first few years “Reading” was my favorite subject in school. I even enjoyed the “Think and Do” workbooks. I was always in the highest reading group, but I remember doing very little reading outside of class. I had a library card, and I loved going to the imposing old Carnegie Library downtown – so mysterious! I took part in the summer reading programs, too, logging those books I read. But I don’t remember reading as a passion.
All that changed for me in fourth grade. The 1963-64 school year. Momentous. Kennedy assassination. New best friend – who would remain so until he moved away years later. Braces. The tornado. And “The Book.” There was one book that year, a new one in our school library, that became such a hot item there was a waiting list to check it out. I waited weeks to get it, and once I did, I remember being so captivated by it that I devoured it. I think I read it again that year, and I know full well I checked it out every year from fourth until eighth grade to read it again.
From that point onward, I remember being a reader. In the summer, I would spend all day in my room, window wide open, fan on (because we didn’t have central air, so shutting my bedroom door meant not getting the benefits of the huge window-unit AC ), radio tuned to the local Top 40 station. I would read until late in the afternoon when it cooled off enough for all the kids to come out and play until long after dark. Next day the same.
I have remained a passionate reader since. When I finally convinced myself I could write – which came much later, in college – I switched my major to English and never looked back. I believe all the myriad literacies I could list stem from that one conscious-altering encounter.
And the book that launched my reading career? Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.
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