When I started thinking about the upbringings of my literacy I realized that for a descent chunk of

my life I had false motivations pushing me to become literate. I found that after mulling over my
memories, I started reading and writing because I thought that I would be rewarded for it. Which now that
I am older and I actually enjoy both of these acts I find the act of doing this completely absurd. There
were three specific milestones in my literacy evolution, which can conveniently be broken up into
elementary, middle, and high school. These milestones came from the different biases, factors, and
experiences that were surrounding me during the development of my literacy skills.
In Florida we have this list of books that comes out every year that is branded the Sunshine State
Young Readers list, which consists of specific books that have been given the Sunshine State Young
Readers Award. In my elementary school we were not required to read them, but it was known to us that
if we read a certain number of the books, and wrote a short essay on each we would be rewarded at the
end of the year, and if we did this for all of the books we would we awarded with metals. Now when I
was thinking back on this event that I took part in every year, I actually remembered hating about half of
the books on the list because they just served no interest to me, however I still read them due to this
somewhat competitive challenge the school had thrown at me. In hindsight, reading fifteen books in a
year is not that difficult, but to my elementary school aged self it seemed quite daunting as well as
difficult, and that it why I pushed myself to read through, and write about books that I absolutely could
not stand. I find this event important because I realized the different factors and motivations that go along
with the act of becoming literate. In a way you could consider my literacy sponsor (Brandt, 1998) a
combination of the Sunshine program and my elementary school itself for incentivizing us. These books
however were definitely intended for a specific type of audience, so naturally they are filled with biases
and simpler messages intended for younger readers.
The most interesting point in Deborah Brandts Sponsors of Literacy to me was her section on
biases, and how they affect our literacy. As I talked about before the Sunshine books were specifically
picked for kids so they obviously are not going to have life-altering themes in them. They are mostly

going to have nice messages that try not to stray too far into any controversial territory. When I was
thinking back to the messages that were implemented into those books I hardly remember anything
worthwhile. I can only recall one book clearly that had mature themes such as death and racism which
was an interesting book about the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. I find the fact that I read and wrote
about these books in a competitive context quite perplexing now that I am looking back on them and
remembering how much I disliked most of them. I think the biases associated with literacy upbringing are
fascinating because the biases no matter how small are affecting someones opinions and attachment to
the concept of literacy. When you hand pick a book for anyone or any age group there will always be
biases in your choices, which is why for the longest time I thought that these pre-selected books was all
there were.
The next milestone that appeared in my literacy journey happened the first week of middle
school. I was sitting at the bus stop and my friend was holding a book that I had never heard of. When I
asked her what it was she said it was called Twilight, and before head bashing ensues, no I do not think
the Twilight Saga is the greatest string of literature to ever exist, but when I was ten it pretty much
changed the way I looked at reading forever. If you had told my younger self before reading Twilight that
I would willingly one day read four books that were five-hundred plus pages each in the span of less than
a month for fun I would have called you crazy, but I did do that and it didnt stop there. After reading
Twilight it shaped my love for reading, every week I would go to a book store and force my mom to buy
me a new young adult novel that I hadnt read yet. Due to my love for this specific genre I actually started
writing little short stories about dystopian societies, and I found myself having fun with the act of writing.
By the end of middle school I had over two-hundred books that I had willingly bought on my own just
because I enjoyed it. It was so strange that up until that point I hadnt been reading or writing for myself
but mainly for others. I believe that finding a reason to read and write for yourself and not because
someone is telling you to do it is essential. That is why finding a major or profession that you enjoy

learning about is so important because once you find an area you are actually interested in everything just
seems easier.
My third and most recent milestone of literacy came in high school, when I realized that you
dont always have time for the things you love to do. My freshman year of high school I made the varsity
softball team and that replaced my free time that was set aside for reading and writing. When school gets
out at one-thirty, practice is from two-thirty to six, and then add in homework, it was inevitable that things
like reading and writing for fun had to take a backseat. I did find that not reading and writing every day
like I had for the past three years steadily dropped my literacy development. I do wonder how much more
literate I would be today if I had continued on my incline of reading harder books as I grew older. Instead
I moved to comic books and manga in order to get a good story without it being time consuming. I find
this shift from being able to do something I really enjoyed all the time, to being able to read and write for
fun rarely.
I find the act of becoming literate quite interesting because everyone has different factors that
affect their ability to become literate that are sometimes out of their control (Brandt, 1998). Just because
you have the desire to become literate doesnt always necessarily mean you can, you have to have a
certain level of motivation that drives you, for instance when Malcolm X spoke about his need to become
literate so he could express his ideas in a more intelligent manner (X & Haley, 1965). My literacy
upbringing when I started to think about it was somewhat depressing, I didnt read or write for fun in the
beginning years of my life, and then once I finally realized the joy of it I had to stop because of something
else I loved. Thinking back on how you learn to become a literate person allows you to realize what you
need to do in order to enhance your literacy further, and not just stop because you have become a
somewhat literate human being. Literacy is endless, you can never reach the end of this concept because
we are always learning and developing into different people as we learn what we need to have in order to
obtain what we want and who we want to be.

References
Brandt, D. (1998). Sponsors of Literacy. College of Composition and Communication,
165-185.
X, M., & Haley, A. (1965). Autobiography of Malcolm X .