Taraboulous 1 Michael Taraboulous Ms.

Leslie Wolcott ENC 1102 28 August 2013 My Literary Narrative Reading has never been one of my favorite things to do. I never really understood why, because I love to learn, but for some reason it was always a challenge for me. It seemed to take me longer than most to read something. Turns out, which I found out later in my life, my eyes tend to jump around and I lose my place when I read. I never thought much of my writing abilities. I always dreaded that research paper and all English classes that required so many words written in a semester. I constantly would be checking the word count to make sure I would get the grade. Now that I look back, I have always voiced my opinion and have been able to express myself verbally, but it took time to express myself on paper. I think my first expression of my feelings came from drawing. I loved to draw. Even at three years old I would draw pictures for my mom. I can remember I was only four years old when I drew a picture for my moms birthday, and then drew her treasure map for her to find it. I had insisted on burying it outside in the ground. My babysitter tried to tell me it was going to rain, but I would not settle on hiding it anywhere else. When my mom came home she found the muddy picture buried in the ground and I proceeded to cry that the picture was ruined. The picture was of a tree and house with grass. My mom proceeded to tell me how clever I was to have added earth tones to the picture and how realistic it looked. At that moment, I think when I realized no matter how you express yourself, someone can find joy in the writing you do. Lets

Taraboulous 2 face it. In prehistoric days, writing was done in the form of pictures. My mom and my babysitter were my first sponsors in my journey for literary expression. My first true writing was for a contest I had entered at Publix for Mothers day. The contest asked why you thought your mother was special and deserved a nice mothers day gift? I was only six at the time and I started to write down the special things about my mom. I talked about how she was always doing things for me like taking me to cool places. I ended my paragraph with the most special thing she did was teach me how to fish. I said, She even puts the worms on the hook for me, and takes the fish I catch off. I think I hooked the judges with that sentence and I won my first contest. She received a bouquet of flowers and a $50.00 gift certificate. At that moment I realized the importance of words and how it can influence others and can have a positive effect on your life. So, Just as Brant described different sponsors that influence your writing, Publix became one of my first institutional sponsors by encouraging me to write and express my feelings on paper. As I told you previously, my mother was a huge sponsor of my literary progression in life. She always was writing her feelings down on paper, mostly in the form of poems. I admired that she was able to do this so easily. She told me it was easy, as long as your heart was in it. She said it made her feel better when she would write her sadness or joyful times on paper. I was amazed when my grandmother died and she was able to write a poem about my grandmothers life and read to everyone at the funeral. I was very sad about her death and I drew a picture to say goodbye to my grandmother. The words were simple, I love you and will miss you, but the picture was soothing to both my parents. I actually walked up and placed it in the casket so my grandmother would have it forever. Doing this actually made me feel better. At that moment I

Taraboulous 3 realized whether a person expresses their feelings as a picture or in words it can have a similar effect on people. So as I grew up I started to express myself more on paper. According to Brandt, sponsors in literary development dont necessarily come from teachers and school environment, but I feel my opportunity to attend private school definitely helped me grow in this area. I attended private school from elementary school all the way through high school. So I honestly believe that my education and schools I attended growing up seemed to act as more of a sponsor to me than if I gone to public schools. I know that I was exposed to some materials from the schools I attended that really helped me to practice my literacy skills. From young the private school I went to really pushed us to learn at a faster pace than the public school system. Not to mention all of the materials that my private school had allocated me in order to help me practice literacy. This in return seemed to have helped push me to learn more and actually want to improve on my literacy skills. One of the areas I continued to improve on was my ability to write poems. Poem writing always seemed easier to me and every time there was a chapter on poems, I seemed to excel and completed the poems very easily. It actually made me feel good and I amazed myself how well I was able to express myself in a poem. I know that poems do not have to rhyme, but I was able to find that rhyming poems were the ones that I enjoyed the most. I wrote several poems to loved ones and seeing how happy it made each of them was a really great feeling. I believe a good writer is one who can open their heart and pour out their emotions on paper. I have to admit, I actually was dreading this class because I heard there would be a research paper. I am glad to see that at this time there arent any word requirements. This class

Taraboulous 4 has made me realize that through my life I have had many literary sponsors who have encouraged and improved my ability to express myself on paper. I am looking forward to improving my writing skills and adding this class as another sponsor in improving my writing ability.

Taraboulous 5 Works Cited Brandt, Deborah. Sponsors of Literacy. College Composition and Communication, Vol. 49, No. 2. (May, 1998), pp. 165-185. Print.