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Madison Martin
Professor Marcum
UWRT 1103-052
Feb. 11th, 2015

Literacy Memoir: I am a Writer

Many things play a role in a persons literacy, whether that is people who sponsor
it, people who try to change it, or people who make you realize what you wanted to say
or write all along. Each person is different, and their literacy history tells their own
unique story about what made them into the person they are today. Some people love to
read, and some people may not, much like in Gerald Graffs Disliking Books, but that
doesnt make their literacy any more or less important than anyone elses. People are
judged everyday because of the way they speak or write, just like in the selection we read
Mother Tongue by Amy Tan. For some, reading, writing, and becoming literate is their
only way of creating a voice for themselves, such as in Malcolm Xs Learning to Read.
Although, all of these things play a role we must learn to accept everyone for who they
are and respect the literacy backgrounds they came from.
When I began writing about myself I struggled to remember what all played a role
in leading up to today, but I as continued to reflect and study my own history it all
became clear. My literacy story would have to start in elementary school at Gaston
Christian. It didnt take me long to discover my love for reading; some of my favorites at
the time were Junie B. Jones, The Magic Tree House books, Judy Moody, Warriors, and
The Boxcar Children. In all honesty the only reason I liked that last selection is because

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my first grade teacher told me I was advanced, and one day every week she would let
me read out loud to the class instead of her. By the summer after fifth grade I started
writing my own short stories; I suppose this is where it all began.
In sixth grade I read the Twilight saga in its entirety in less than a couple weeks,
along with several other novels that I no longer remember. My love for reading and
writing took a turn for the worst in seventh grade when my teacher required us to write
eight different papers on prompted topics, and I was never one to like feeling forced to
write something I didnt care about. In protest I gave the papers little thought, and
received the first F Id ever made in my schooling career. It was short lived, because
Mrs. Harrison called my parents saying she knew I could do better and it was so
unlike me. Long story short, I had to write the papers again. I got an A. I have no idea
what it was about writing the papers again that inspired me to care about what I came to
call school writing, and in fact it was all I cared about. To no surprise to my teachers I
became one of the highest scoring English students in my grade. I had become an essay
writing machine, five paragraphs, thesis statement, introduction, three topics of
discussion, conclusion. I couldnt write any other way, and by that point I realized I had
been stripped of my creativity, and over the course of the next couple years believed I had
lost it completely. It made me angry at not only the school system, but at myself for
letting them control who I was. It was nearly impossible for me to think outside of the
box, because every time I did I forced myself back into it in fear that I may be wrong.
My career as a cheerleader by now had long since taken off, and I begged my
parents to let me go to pubic school in eighth grade. My private school didnt have a
football team, and my dream was no other than cheering under the Friday night-lights at

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Forestview High School. That is where I would go next after I had one year of middle
school under my belt. My parents gave in, and I started my last year of middle school at
Cramerton Middle. The first day I was in what public school deemed as regular classes,
and I felt like I had went back in time at least three years; I was so upset. The next week
the guidance counselor had me take a placement test; administration apologized to my
parents and I was moved to AIG classes the very next day. They were better, but the
science was still a review, and I assumed that it was because Gaston Christian was a
college preparatory school.
After seeing to the fact that my classes were now all in order, and sorted out. I
was finally in classes where I felt at least a bit more like I belonged. I began noticing
other things that were different in my new environment and literacy community. Not only
were my classes different, but also were the kids in them. It seemed like everyone was
split up, and not allowed to converge at any point. Smart, dumb, rich, poor, popular, and
not so much; the lines didnt cross. Except for mine, and so maybe thats why I never had
a group or fit into a mold, some would say. I had already made friends with kids in the
first lower classes I was in; they were gothic or skater or punk or whatever you wanted
to call it. Anyway, they said I was different, that I was the least stuck up preppy person
they had ever met. That term was new to me, because I guess at GCS everyone was
preppy. I didnt like the word. I wore black for a week; I was still preppy, but the
wall was gone. They accepted me regardless, because they said I wasnt the same as the
others. At the same time I was fighting an entirely different battle on the other side of the
tracks, with people like me, but not like me. They were preppy too, but they fit the
stereotype given to them by the other kids. They only talked exclusively to each other,

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and anyone that strayed outside of that simply wasnt one of them. I was pulled both
ways, the kids who liked me for me saying the preppy people were fake and stuck up,
and them saying that the others were stupid and trashy. I stood in the middle. The rest of
8th grade I gravitated between far more groups that just those too, I looked preppy, but I
didnt act like any of the groups. Ive said ever since then, that Im a group of my own, a
floater. I didnt like the idea of being tagged, so I never let it happen. I never claimed a
group as my own, and not all the groups accepted me either. I had friends from almost all
of them, and they fought their own battles with their friends who didnt think I was
enough like them. It didnt matter though, because I knew at least a few understood.
Needless to say, I had a lot of friends, but not a group of the same cookie cutter people. I
could talk to anyone. Because of where I came from I never saw lines from the start.
Over the summer things began to come back into focus when I tried out for my
future high schools cheer team, and I was almost in tears when I read my name on the
roster that was posted on the outside of the gym door. I cannot think of another time in
my life that I have felt more trilled than I was in that single moment; it was the beginning
of an amazing journey. That was only one of the many things that went into starting high
school though. It was saying goodbye to some middle school friends, and hello to
registering for classes all on my own. I took 9th grade English Honors, where I met on of
my very best friends, Alec Privette. When it came time to review for EOGs, the two of us
argued on nearly every answer; I was usually right, and I thought that was funny. From
there on out we became super competitive grade wise. We also ended up in the same
English class for the next four years.

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I still cant remember what made me decide to sign up for Creative Writing I, with
a teachers name as intimidating as Dr. Griffin. I hadnt yet had time to hear the rumors of
how she was the hardest teacher in the school, and so I walked into my first high school
class completely unbiased. She was intimidating, and outspoken, and sarcastic, and
rebellious, and she was non other that my favorite teacher. She was the type of person
youd never imagine as a teacher, but thats how she had captured my attention. At the
beginning of every class we repeated the mantra I am a writer, and I didnt understand.
Our first assignment was an essay about writing, and I assumed nothing less than a five
paragraph standard paper. When she used my term and said that we werent going to be
doing school writing in her class I was excited and then kind of scared. I couldnt let go
of the structured safety of standard essays, and every class she would tell me I had to find
myself. This confused me, because for so long I had thought school writing was
myself, and I had long forgotten where that younger version of myself had gone.
When picturing a writer I think of several different factors, because I believe that
so much more goes into it than simply putting pen to paper. A writer is someone who
gives up hours of their time to devote themselves to writing, and then rewriting, and then
realizing they hate it and starting completely over again. A writer is someone who can
accept the fact that the writing they do will never be finished, because there is never a
true end to writing. Its someone who doesnt care if anyone ever reads a single word of
what they wrote, but knows that true satisfaction comes with the act of writing itself.
Ive never thought of a writer as someone who got rich doing it; that doesnt mean
Im not a huge fan of people like John Green, because I think hes brilliant. His novel
Looking for Alaska is impeccable, as well as my favorite book. For me, a writer is

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someone who writes for him or herself. They write, because they could not go on if they
didnt; theres just something in true writers, a fire, which never lets them stop. Writers
are people who put onto paper what they cannot put into words, and they say it better and
more gracefully than anyone could have ever said aloud. Theyre the type of people who
want to ignite a flame with what they say, and make them think and wonder. A writer will
make you hang on the end of every sentence, because theyve already drawn you in and
youre feeling exactly what they feel. In my eyes, a writer is someone who isnt willing to
take no for an answer, and who can listen to criticism, but never take it to heart so much
that it makes them quit doing what they love.
The next sections we covered were short stories and poetry. I remember a quote I
brought to class about imagery that she made everyone write down in their day books,
Dont tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass. I started
to notice the walls I built start breaking down with each piece I turned in, and when the
semester came to a close she asked me personally to come back next year for CWII. I did,
in fact I came back the next three years. I came back because she saw in me something
that no other teacher ever had, and she didnt want me in her class because I was good at
grammar; she wanted me there because she knew I was a writer, even though I didnt.
She taught me that being a good writer meant learning all the rules so that you knew how
to break them, and to avoid clichs like the plague. One of my favorite quotes we shared
was Tact is the ability to tell someone to go to hell in such a way that they look forward
to the trip.
My sophomore year I started writing poetry in my free time, but I didnt tell
anyone that except for Alec. He was always who I shared me work with, because I was

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incredibly shy when it came to sharing a piece I had been writing. He was by far one of
my literacy sponsors, because if I didnt have him to read my work and continuously
encourage me that my writing was good I probably wouldnt have written as much as I
did in the first place. He was the best friend I could have had hoped to make in high
school; when other people werent there for me he always was. We shared a locker for
three years, because his was always in a better spot than mine. Half of his stuff didnt fit,
but yet he never got angry or asked me to use my own locker instead. I remember
countless nights we would stay up on the phone or Face Time studying for one of our
classes. Something I probably dont thank him for enough is that I wouldve never passed
a math class if he hadnt dedicated a large sum of his time to tutoring me, because where
every subject was his strong suite, math definitely was not mine.
Mr. Thomason, my honors English teacher at the time, assigned an essay about
something no one knows about you. I wrote about poetry and how I hated that I wrote
it because most people who did were dark and depressed. When I turned it in I got an
A, but my teacher seemed so offended that I didnt take pride in poetry writing. I later
found out that he too wrote poetry, and he asked to read my work. By the end of the
semester he had read almost every poem I had written that year, and he said he was
impressed. He had been one of my favorite teachers that year, and at the end of the year
when he returned all of our papers and projects a note was paper clipped to mine. It said,
You should be in AP, please take it next year. and so I did.
Junior year I worked for the yearbook as one of the copy writers and
photographers as well as editing some of my classmates articles. By now I was in CWIII,
and was given one of the most wonderful opportunities Ive ever had. A group from my

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creative writing class was asked to volunteer at an under privileged elementary school,
Forest Heights. While at the elementary school we would be assigned children, and we
would teach our own writing groups. We would always have the same group of kids each
week, and as a result they would always be looking forward to seeing and learning from
us specifically. Ill never forget my group of all little girls called me Miss Madison and
constantly asking for my approval of their writing, but more importantly than that I will
remember how I watched their skills improve each week that I saw them. I feel so blessed
that I was able to inspire a love for writing and a passion to learn in those girls. I tried to
teach them as much as I could about writing and my experiences with writing as I could
in the time that I had. One day I took them to the play ground to write poems about
nature, and one of the more shy girls sat next to me on a bench the entire time asking me
questions about rhyming words how to spell certain things. I was so happy that she had
become so interested in it. At the end of the day that same girl handed me a folded up
piece of paper, and inside it said Someday I want to be just like you. At that moment I
knew I had greatly impacted someones life through writing, and Im so grateful for that.
Senior year, and my last year in CW, Dr. Griffin challenged me to participate in
NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which takes place the month of
November. We didnt have to participate, but I was one of the few who did. She told us
that we probably wouldnt finish an entire novel in one month, but the idea was to be
devoted to a piece and to extending it further throughout the semester. I worked diligently
the whole month, and realized along the way that it was a lot harder than I first thought. I
learned that having an entire plot in your head, and having it on paper were two
completely different things. I struggled greatly with connecting point A to point B; Dr.

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Griffin called it The Middle. She said it was always like that at first, and that not every
page had to be a masterpiece. Eventually, November came to a close; I didnt finish the
novel, but my take away was far more valuable than the story would have ever been. I
owe that experience for teaching me diligence, trust in my self, and the knowledge that
everything doesnt always come all at once. I remembered the mantra I repeated three
years ago, and now I finally believed it. I was a writer.
Not only was Dr. Griffin my CW teacher that year, but she was also my AP
English 12 teacher. I thought that in an English class she would be different, but I was
pleased to discover that even in that class she encouraged her students to write outside of
the boundaries set by previous courses. She involved us in several hands on projects
where we transformed literature into art, and she also held seminar in her room where we
discussed and debated on a piece. I had never felt so engaged in a school reading. This
activity gave us the opportunity to engage in a community discussion about a piece of
literature where everyones opinions were acknowledged. She would trace the discussion
by drawing lines between people who talked, and the arguments that arose from it. She
was such an influence on me throughout high school.
That same year I was also given many other opportunities brought on by writing
and furthering my literacy. I was asked to attend poetry readings and write for events
hosted by my school, write short stories or spoken word poems for writing contests, write
a graduation poem, and lastly, receiving the CW award out of all four levels for that year.
Another big thing in my life at the time is that I also began dating my four yearlong best
friend, Alec, and was a captain on our varsity cheerleading squad.

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That brings me to today. I still write all the time, including poetry, journaling, free
form essays, occasional short stories, being the author of two blogs, and proudly having
an entire Pinterst board called Writer Anonymous. I dont cheer anymore, but I am
currently looking for coaching opportunities with young girls. I keep in touch with Dr.
Griffin on Facebook (she is also a University Writing professor here at UNC Charlotte),
and I hope to visit my high school and other former teachers soon. Alec and I have been
together for over a year now and are still going strong; I guess the saying is true that
Relationships are always stronger when you are best friends first, and a couple second.
Im glad that I have been look back at my life in order to study my literacy and see how
much Ive grown as a reader and writer over time. I am now a lot more aware of who and
what shaped my literacy into what it has become today. I will end with a quote by Maya
Angelou, You cant use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.

Works Cited:

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Graff, Gerald. Disliking Books. From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A
Text and Reader. 3rd Ed. Eds. Stuart Greene and April Lidinsky.
Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2015. 23-28.
X, Malcolm. Learning to Read From Writing about Writing: A college
reader. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Bedford/St. Martins,
2011
Tan, Amy. Mother Tongue From Home is Where the Heart Dwells,
2008