Hannah Niara Selders

English 101: Written Communication I

Project #1: Literacy Narrative
Dr. Elizabeth Cuddy

A moment in my life when reading and writing had a profound impact on me.

As the daughter of both an elementary educator and a psychologist, reading and writing

played a major role in my life. My mom began to teach me to read and write when I was 5 years

old, and at that age, I never fully understood the importance of it. Knowing to read at that age

made entering elementary school extremely easy. Although I knew how to read better than some,

I didn't enjoy it as much as the others and I constantly thought it was due to my parents forcing

me to practice reading for so long. To my surprise, reading and writing turned out to be one of

the absolute best things that ever happened to me.

Sitting on a rug with 13 other 6-year-old's and listening to a teacher run through a book

became boring for me and I always felt like something was missing. It wasn't until the 2nd grade

when we were able to have actual library time with our school librarian, Miss. Williams.

Entering the library full of books, I had my mindset on picking a book to read, finding a corner,

and being in peace; turns out I had the wrong idea of what I was going to get out of this class.

My librarian called everyone in the class to the oval rug for "reading time" and I immediately

chose to sit far in the back and prepared myself for another boring story time. This story was one

I'd never read before; "The Hungry Caterpillar", by Eric Carle. When Miss. Williams opened the

book, everything came to life. Just when I thought the pictures itself were amazing, Miss.
Williams began to read aloud each page and had a different voice for each character. I'd never

felt so in love with listening to reading and seeing the energy that could be brought out of a story.

Experiencing this created a need for more reading and instilled a desire to begin writing my own

stories. That same night, I gathered all my thoughts from my amazing reading experience that

day and told my parents that I wanted to write a book.

Although it took some time, my parents believed in my capabilities and began helping me

write my very first book. We began with finding my "big idea" as some would say, I had to

figure out what I wanted to talk about to my readers. Trying to make up an interesting story

became hard, therefore my parents suggested I talk about something personal to me. I began to

think of all the things I could talk to others about, and after days of thinking, I finally realized

what perfect story I could tell; "how I rock my hair chemical-free". In elementary school, I had a

reputation for embracing my natural hair. When I first began school, I noticed that I looked a lot

different than the other African American girls around me. Some girls had parents who allowed

them to straighten their hair or even have extensions, but mine did not. I often wondered why my

hair was not as "pretty" as the other girls around me and constantly asked my mom to press my

hair, but she consisted to keep my hair natural. To make me happy, we began to try new natural

styles in my hair, from Bantu knots to two puffs, there was a different hairstyle for each day of

the week. To my surprise, not only did I love rocking my new styles, so did the other girls and

their parents. Thinking about all the compliments I received over the years and the questions

asked about how my mother does my hair, I decided to write a book on how I achieved all my

creative styles. Taking it one step at a time, I began to piece everything together for my book. I

included the names of the hairstyles, pictures of each style from every angle, tutorials, and facts
on why keeping your hair natural is healthy. After various edits by multiple authors and many

prayers, I launched my first book "Happy To Be Chemical Free" in 2010.

After launching my book, I began to get so many words of gratitude and wisdom from

people I knew and some that I'd never met before. Knowing that I created a reading that had such

an impact on my generation as well as other generations created a different connection for me

with reading and writing. Since then, I've continued to read books of different genres such as

history, biography, fictional, non-fictional, business, and more. I have learned that reading not

only makes me happy, but it also builds up my brain, vocabulary, and speech. It is for these

reasons and more that reading and writing have not only had an impact on my life, but a positive

change in my personal development and advancement.