Zachary Burnett English 1103 Dr.

Wray 9/25/13

Most of my learned literacy comes from previous events that motivate me to become more knowledgeable with what Im saying and reading. A big component of this is public speaking, because, as I said, I like to know what Im reading and saying. I started young, and I havent stopped since then. I find it interesting to look back at my roots and how far Ive come since I first stepped up to a podium and opened my mouth. When I was in the 2nd grade, I was selected to recite The Present to the entirety of my elementary school. I had no idea I was going to do it. It was just thrust upon me. I was given a week to learn it, and even allowed to have it up on the podium as a cheat sheet. Personally, I was overly confused as to why I had been picked. Nevertheless, I stuck by it. Reading the poem itself was a challenge at first. Although Id been told I was an Advanced Reader by my teachers, this was still a challenge for me. I was lucky that I had my teachers and my mom and dad to help me learn it. As a 2nd grader, reading anything to the school is a big deal. Of course, I stumbled. I had to learn new words and what they meant. I had to learn how to say them so that I didnt sound funny (I still did, but that was because no one else aside from the adults understood what I said). When the day came, I was all dressed up and spiffy in my little suit, with my folder containing

the speech. It was part of some big presentation that the school was putting on, and I had been chosen to read this poem that not everyone knew. It was frightening. I had this big expectation that I had to live up to. The butterflies grew in my stomach as my turn on stage approached. Of course, when I had to go up, they moved the podium from the side of stage to the exact middle so I had to see everyone in the room. Once I stepped onto the stool so I could see over it, I took a deep breath and started off slowly, not even having taken the poem out of the folder. About halfway through the first three lines, I took a breath and whipped out the poem for support. I wasnt forgetting it; I just got uncomfortable and wanted a crutch in case I needed it. I cruised through the rest of the poem with ease and when I ended, the room erupted. The teachers, adults, and other students were all in awe at what I had just done. I just blew the roof off the building and couldnt believe it myself. That was the first step in my journey and I was so happy that I actually had succeeded. I learned so much from that poem that I started reading more things that I could recite to the class. After the 2nd grade, I didnt have to speak again until midway through 3rd grade when I was asked to read from the bible at my aunts church. It was really simple except for the fact I had no preparation. I was literally pulled out of the congregation and told to read four lines from a passage that was outlined in the bible already. I was surprised to be pulled out of the crowd just to read. Even though I wasnt prepared, I still rose to the challenge. There were way more words than I knew how to read; and I struggled, but I was still applauded for my attempt. This then prompted me to read the bible and learn new words, just as Id done with the poem. Granted, I stopped after I realized how many of the words repeated themselves; I still added them to my vocabulary so I could use them later on in life. I still on occasion find new words that I didnt know were in there before. I look them up and use them when it comes time.

I didnt have to use my voice until 6th grade, at the dedication of my dads park. Since he passed away in 2004, and hed been working on this park, we were invited once the city finished it. There was a whole slew of people in attendance, including my two oldest brothers who took off work and drove from Washington D.C. and Miami just to be a part of the ceremony. It was a nice ceremony, with all of his friends from the city speaking of all the good he did for the kids and for his family. I got called up with my mother to give a few words on how we felt about the occasion. I loved getting up and speaking, but it was a solemn moment. I spoke only a few words, keeping it simple so I didnt break down at the podium. I was approached later and asked for a quote, to which I spat out a simple sentence because I couldnt think of anything else to say. I had a lot I couldve told the reporter, but I couldnt call it to tangibility when needed. I didnt argue with it, and just let the entirety of the situation overlap me. During that time, I didnt learn much. I didnt say much. The man who motivated me to learn for all my life was gone and I didnt have much of anything left to learn at that point. It took me a while to find my voice again after that. Once 8th grade hit, I had to do a presentation for my English class. I felt up to the challenge. It was on a book from the library, and we had to do outside research on top of what we got from the book. I ended up deciding on a book about Stone Cold Steve Austin, who I knew literally nothing about other than the fact that he was a pro wrestler; yet I had to come up with a 5 minute presentation on him and come dressed as him for the presentation. I was given 2 weeks to read up on him, which was honestly more than enough time. I learned way more about him than I expected to learn, and put together a presentation that had to cut a lot of what I found out about him out of what I said due to time constraints. The presentation got me into wrestling,

and I learned so much about wresting and who the wrestlers were not only on stage but as people outside of their jobs. I picked up a different kind of literacy, but literacy nonetheless. About this same time, I got into cars. I attribute this mostly to my uncles 67 Mustang, but that was a scratch on the surface. It went from one classic muscle car to a number of exotics, modern muscle cars and modern imports. Eventually, it all jumbled together and I started to look at all the cars just around my physical person. Wikipedia was my main source, but after a while, I stopped paying attention and started asking questions to people who owned the cars or worked around the cars I was looking at. After a few years, once I got my license and had the freedom of moving about, I decided it was time to delve deeper into my literacy and learn how cars worked. So Boyd, my best friend at the time, and I both started playing around with our cars in his driveway. He ended up learning about collision repair so that whenever my Jeep had something physically wrong with it, I would take it to him and we would tinker until we fixed it. It was a learning experience for both of us, especially considering how much time we put into learning how to do what we were doing. Ive been working on cars since I was 16, and Im still learning things to this day. And considering that the world of cars keeps changing, I still have a lot to learn as the years go on. I had no formal presentations again until sophomore year, wherein I had a research project on someone famous who died thirty years or more prior to that year. I had to write a paper and prepare a 6-8 minute speech on my subject. This was taxing to me. I barely did research on anyone who had been born twenty years prior. How was I going to select a dead celebrity? With ease, I might add. After googling Celebrities That Have Been Dead Thirty+ Years, I was rewarded with Sid Vicious, the bassist of the Sex Pistols, a UK punk rock band. It didnt take much research to make a presentation long enough or to make the paper good and

chocked full of Sids life achievements. Naturally, I felt confident enough in my ability that I didnt practice and just made notecards with specific points on them from the paper that I could expand upon. I stuttered a few times and stumbled on some names, but otherwise it went off with no problems. I was pleasantly surprised by my ability to get up and spew on a subject I had never considered or even heard of before. Mostly because I felt like I got up and bullshitted my way through the presentation. Yet, I still learned from the experience, and that is what counts. As stated in previous classes, I participated in the English Speaking Unions National Shakespeare Speaking Competition. Id read Shakespeare before, but never recited it or acted it out. This probably was the biggest challenge for me. It wasnt because I didnt know the material, but because I was being asked to do something different altogether with the material. I went through two levels of the competition, my school and my region. Personally speaking, the school was much easier, because I was one of five students, and I had a simple monologue from Othello. After much practice with my English teacher, friends, and other teachers that had previously taught drama or been in plays, I felt confident in my ability to not only recite the monologue, but also in my ability to add in the emotion Iago was trying to display in the heat of that moment. Of the five students that participated, I was selected to move on to the next part of the competition. I was ecstatic. I didnt expect to win, or to even come close to winning. I was congratulated and given many compliments on my style and approach. I st ill couldnt believe I won. I was told when the next part of the competition would take place, and that I needed to add a Sonnet to my repertoire to compete. I quickly selected Sonnet 23 and began practicing at home and under the same circumstances. I didnt feel as confident in my ability because I hadnt practiced around the people I was competing against. Upon arriving at the location where I would be competing, I was astonished to learn that I was now one of ten, and two other

competitors were from the same school. The other contestants all looked as if they had been preparing for this for months instead of two weeks, and it occurred to me that they must have been drama kids at their respective schools. Nevertheless, I marched on into what would surely be a fun morning listening to and reciting Shakespeare for the many qualified people around the room. I had many people motivate me to learn and to be calm and collected in this situation. And I cant thank them enough because they motivated me to become more literate and more open to the things that were able to be learned. I look back and see how far Ive come, and I realize that I still have so much farther to go. I think itll be a good year for me, and I think itll be an even better life for me.