Anderson 1 DaShaun Anderson Jan Rieman English 1101 February 10, 2014

Self-Assessment: I felt like I captured my story well in my memoir. I structured it to go through my whole life, to show the ups and downs I had throughout my life. I am not sure I like the ending, and I am sure I had a few comma splices in it. I am not sure I wrote it as a memoir, I just started typing. Growing up in the projects of Waterbury, Connecticut nobody really cared for education. I remembering going to school just because I had to; I was in trouble everyday so I barely learned anything. The teachers would just send me to the principals office every day which really prohibited my learning. Back then my mother worked 2 jobs, and at times 3 so she never had time to actually sit down and ensure my homework was done. My father being in prison and my step father driving trucks over the road I had the freedom to do whatever I pleased, and I do not know any kid that would sit down and do homework or read on their own. I would ignore my homework and go outside and play with the rest of the boys and girls in the neighborhood. Since every day I was in trouble the only thing my mother could do was punish me, which consisted of me being in solitary confinement in my room for like 2 weeks. I hated being on punishment, it sucked the life out of me. I used to feel like I was in prison. Normally I would just sit and be mad at the world or play with what little toys I had. It was like that until around the 4th grade when I first learned how to read. I had really late start to learning how to read, but it was not because I was dumb, but rather because I never had a reason to know how to. My first book I remembered reading was
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a book my aunt Tracee gave me for my birthday; Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone. The only reason why I even was interested in it was because I loved the movies. At first it was a struggle to learn without any help but eventually I got it. I basically taught myself how to read. Once I learned I never put that book down. It was a big book, 309 pages, so it took me a while to read it. Once I discovered this amazing gift I went so many years without, I had to catch up. After the first Harry Potter, I immediately read the second. I had to check it out the school library because we had no books in the house. It was like reading was my gateway to escape the pressures of the outside world. It even made being on punishment seem not that bad. I never wanted to stop reading, instead of going outside I now stayed inside to read. My behavior got a little better, but I was just a bad kid; it was not until my junior that I went a year without getting suspended. I stayed up restless nights reading. When it reached bed time I turned off my light, and when my eyes adjusted to the dark continued reading, messing up my eyes in the process. When I finished the Harry Potter series, which is still my favorite to this day, I moved on to the Lemony Snicket series. This was a long series which took even longer than the Harry Potter Series. I read countless book, ranging from the autobiography of Fredrick Douglass to the Twilight series. In middle school I moved to North Carolina, this was a whole different experience. My mother only had one job and my step dad started working locally, I had to adjust to the new living conditions. My mother started checking my homework at night yso I had to start taking school seriously. In school I learned about this new system of reading call Accelerated Reading, AR for short. In elementary I read just for myself but
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now I had an incentive to reach, such as food, free tickets to dances, etc. Me being the competitor I am, I did not just want to the bare minimum and just pass; I wanted to beat the whole school and get the most AR points. Since I moved from Connecticut to North Carolina I had to start all over. To make friends I used to take kids AR test for them. A big sponsor of literacy for me was a program called AVID, Advancement Via Individual Determination. This was a program for kids that were in the middle. It was not for the extremely smart kids or the dumb kids, just average kids. We toured colleges and coming from the projects this was a whole new world to me; a world I wanted to be apart. In AVID we did more than the any other class, we wrote and read a lot, and I realized that I actually enjoyed school. My 7th English teacher Mrs. Bagget was another big sponsor for me. She always pushed me and saw things in me I never would have saw. She never allowed me to do the bare minimum. If I got a bad grade in something she would make me redo the assignment until I got an A on it. I remember in 7th grade the first college I ever visited was Winston Salem State University. I never even heard the word college but I knew that I wanted to go to one day. While we were touring the college the tour guide said to stay in college you needed to maintain a C average, and I said aloud A C, I aint never gonna go to college. Mrs. Bagget overheard me and plucked me in the back of the head, and she told me if I studied hard enough I will. My freshman year I did just that. I studied hard as I could, I took all honor classes and made straight As, and ended up with a 4.0 GPA by the end of the year. Jacksonville, NC is a small military town where Camp Lejeune is at. There is not much to do so there are not a lot of distractions from school. My sophomore year I moved to
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Greensboro NC and this was a big city. Being from up north I was used to a more urban lifestyle, so I adjusted quickly. Greensboro being more ghetto than Jacksonville, I easily found myself with the wrong crowd, once again. The teachers cared about education as much as the students did. My sophomore and junior year I lost sight of my goals, and started to slack off in school. I skipped school a lot and I stopped reading and stopped caring. It was like being a kid in Waterbury again. Education no longer interested me, neither did going to college. I completely stopped doing work. Nothing prevented me from doing the work I just lack the motivation to attempt it. I had a spark at the end of my sophomore and decided to take AP classes my junior year, but when I realized how much work it came with it and gave up. At the end of my junior year I ended up with a 3.3 GPA. My senior I got some sense and realized I wanted to go to college, so I started to pick up in my education. I knew I wanted to go to college and failing high school was going to eventually leave me back on the corner hanging out with people with no aspirations. Not wanting to end up like that I took as much honors and AP classes as I could, and I started to read again, not as much as I used to as a kid but a couple of books here and there. I studied a lot and finally got accepted here. By the end of my senior year my GPA was a 3.8. Another huge sponsor of literacy for me was the military. They literary are sponsors of my education. I joined the National Guard so they can fund my education. Without that decision I probably would not be here typing this memoir now. I did not want to be like 40 years still trying to pay financial aid off. It was not my initial choice to join the military but it was a smart decision. While training I learned a lot of useful information. Although it prevented me from starting school in August it was beneficial.

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When I think about it, I am grateful for the time I was handed that Harry Potter book. Reading opened many doorways in my life. Like when I was chosen to represent my school in reciting President Lincolns Gettysburg Address. I felt like I achieved a goal that was not possible. Now I read for enjoyment if I see a book I find interesting. As I see it reading inspired me to actually try in school and better myself as a person, and I try to better other peoples lives through it. I try to encourage my siblings to read, not just for school but for enjoyment. Reading is a very useful tool to have, and I am glad I found it before it was too late.

DaShaun, This is indeed a memoir! And a very interesting one at that. You leave me with so much to think abouthow place so clearly affects our literacies, how the people we surround ourselves with influence what we pay attention to, how labor issues influence parental involvement (like your mom having to work so many jobs to keep you that she didnt have time/energy to push you in school early on). This is a fabulous draft. Here are some suggestions I have for revision: there are places where you could expand on some of your ideas, where I as a reader wanted to know more. See what you think about my marginal comments for these places; once you revise, Id like you to read your paper aloud, maybe even printing it out, and I think youd hear the places where you are missing a word or have some unconventional grammar or punctuation.