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April 22, 2008 Mu Block
From Pictures to Words
As a child I always loved pronouncing words because it made me feel smart. I was always
the best at pronunciation in my family, and my mother would often ask me to pronounce a word
for her so that she would know how to say it. It was also because the other people in my family
had a clear Chinese accent when they spoke English that made me proud of my ability to read
and speak English correctly. My childhood experience relates to the story in “Silence” from
Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston when the mother cuts the tongue of her daughter in
order to make it easier for her daughter to learn different languages. “‘I cut it so that you would
not be tonguetied. Your tongue would be able to move in any language… You’ll be able to
pronounce anything’” (Fielding, 60). Although I didn’t have my tongue cut like the girl had in the
story, I feel came out of my cultural shell and exposed myself to new sounds and characters that
come from the English language as a child. Now that I think back on what made me feel that way
when I was young, I realize how much I’ve changed and how much I remain the same. First of
all, I have gained many new skills in literature: learning how to analyze, searching for hidden
messages, criticizing works, writing my own pieces and digging for deeper meanings. These new
skills are what reflect the past years of my life. They also show how I’ve grown as an English
student from being able to sound like I knew the text to speaking and writing about the text’s
meaning. Besides this there have also been obstacles that blocked my education path in English.
The transition from being read short picture books to independent reading with huge
ESGP Literacy Reflection Sheryl Soo
April 22, 2008 Mu Block
wordy books was really hard for me. Similar to the boy in “Superman and Me” from The Most
Wonderful Books: Writers on Discovering the Pleasures of Reading by Sherman Alexie, I’ve also
grown up being exposed to images rather than words. “I cannot read the words, but I assume it
tells me that Superman is breaking down the door” (Fielding, 176). Instead of focusing on what
the characters in the book might have said like the Native American boy did, I would focus on
how the characters looked and how appealing the pictures were as a whole. I believe that’s how
most kids must have grown to read. It’s fun to learn from picture books, but it’s also hard to
change and read more challenging books later on. When you get to the age when you’re not
supposed to build your literacy off of pictures, the transition is difficult.
I still remember the beginning of my second grade year in the school library. When
everyone had to pick a book to check out and read, I was still picking my favorite large picture
book about an insect stuck in a little boy’s body. The librarian looked at me as I placed the large
picture book on the counter and told me with a sarcastic smile, “You know, Sheryl, I think it’s
time for you to choose a harder book.” Everything I heard after my name became piercing arrows
that aimed at my childhood love for reading. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t able to choose
what I wanted to read, but had to pick something else in order to meet the standards. As I grew
older I carried the scars left behind from the words of my librarian, but instead of complaining,
I’d come to embrace the experience. If it wasn’t for that experience I wouldn’t have been able to
move on; I might have delayed my advancement in reading. The transitioning process began
when I picked up a slightly bigger book with only a simple picture cover and started my new type
ESGP Literacy Reflection Sheryl Soo
April 22, 2008 Mu Block
of reading experience. The redundant appearance of the alphabet lost my interest completely after
a few pages. Ever since then, my library periods at school were only times for me to stare at the
book. There was a stubborn side of me that wouldn’t stop thinking “books are boring unless they
are full of interesting pictures.”
Now I would occasionally laugh at myself because of how ignorant I was. My lack of the
ability to feel engaged in a book of text was because I couldn’t translate those words to my own
pictures. In other words, I was too illiterate to understand the true world that words portrayed.
Unlike picture books, books with text allow you to use your artistic skills and draw your own
pictures to depict the described scenes. They don’t limit you to only one way of visualizing the
story by showing you an illustration, they allow you to explore your imaginary realms, enlighten
yourself with different ideas, information, and sometimes they just provide a good quiet time.
It is because of knowing how to read and write that our society has gotten so far, so
diverse, and so creative. In the past, education was not easily accessible, but now it is required
even though many people do not value it as much as they should. Why is reading and writing so
important? If you could communicate without a common language, that would be amazing, but
it’s not very feasible. So in order to communicate, share and inspire, we must have a universal
language, and in many different places there are these languages that connect different people
together. In my personal experience, whenever I do a written assignment I am aware of how I am
using words to build up into a bigger piece that will convey my viewpoints on a specific topic.
Being able to write something and have others understand it is a powerful ability.
ESGP Literacy Reflection Sheryl Soo
April 22, 2008 Mu Block
Reading has never been as interesting as it had been when I was a child until I came to
high school. The thing that had brought my interest back up is the exposure of different kinds of
literature that I had at CAT. Reading about race, struggles, cultures and people’s views on reading
itself has really given me a new look on the world and myself as an individual. I have never been
that exposed to the issue of race until I read the Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane, and after
reading Night by Elie Wiesel I realized how serious racial issues could be. Then this year after
reading a book by an international author (my book being Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata),
I was exposed to the culture and life of someone from a different country. These books have
given me a new outlook on the world I live in and the people I meet. If it wasn’t because I had the
ability and access to read those books, my life would have been blinded from reality. I think I
would be living in a world full of hidden truths.
The skills I’ve learned from my English classes at CAT have really given me the ability to
write essays where I learn more and more about the book during my writing process than I would
have reading on my own. I’ve also learned that in order to write a good paper, it is required to do
good research on the setting of the book I’m analyzing. In my Native Son essay, I included
information on the setting, “The Black Belt community of Chicago, Illinois in the 1930s had
developed its own stereotypes and also drew a distinct line between the black and white races.
This environment gave Bigger the impression that his actions were limited to an extreme.” Using
the information I had about the environment the character lived in, I was able to explain the
actions of the character.
ESGP Literacy Reflection Sheryl Soo
April 22, 2008 Mu Block
Using my ability to connect social issues with stories, I was able to analyze this quote
from “The Lesson” by Toni Cade Bambara, “So me and Sugar turn the corner to where the
entrance is, but when we get there I kinda hang back. Not that I’m scared, what’s there to be
afraid of, just a toy store. But I feel funny, shame. But what I got to be shamed about? Got as
much right to go in as anybody” (Bambara, 93). I had related it to the major gap in social classes
because the girl was poor and suddenly after stepping into a rich toy store, she felt like she was
intruding into a territory where she does not belong. This type of gap between the groups society
divided its people into is seen everywhere. It can be as simple as stepping into a freshman’s
classroom when I’m a senior, or when I went up to the third floor when I was a freshman. I felt
like I was stepping into foreign territory and the unfamiliarity of the place made me feel insecure.
I feel that being able to analyze better when I read gives me more than I could get from reading a
book with an inactive mind. What I gain then become words that I write and use as tools to create
a whole piece where I input my thoughts along with the ideas of the book I read. Completing the
literary analysis essays was a tedious process but what I’ve gained in return made it worthwhile.