Huang 1

Shunyou Huang

English 5M

December 13 2017

The Staircase to My Literacy

The journey began when someone asked Do you speak English? I replied ah-lee-toe-bet.
That was the conversation I had so many times back in fifth grade when I first arrived at
Sacramento after flying thousands of miles from mainland China. I couldnt understand what my
classmates were speaking and vise versa. To manage for survival, there were few English words
that I learned: China, California, Sacramento, Caroline Wenzel, Mrs. Russell (my fifth grade
teacher), excuse me, and a little bit. I was amazed how twenty-six letters make up so many
words. As a bilingual student, English language is also make up my identity today. The transition
to United States and experiences of adopting English Language has significantly impacting my
literacy today.

In elementary school, I was a toddler attempting to speak. Mrs. Russell, my fifth grade
teacher, commented that I was staring around and not paying attention, but I was able to learn
something new. Math was my strongest subject. I was proud to finish my math homework with
the help of my aunts. Aunts were my sponsors of literacy according to Deborah Brandts
definition: sponsors seemed a fitting term for the figures who turned up most typically in
peoples memories of literacy learning: older relatives, teachers, priests, supervisors (3). My
aunts were some of the influencers of my literacy. That is, they were a bridge for me to meet the
English language. Matching in of the sponsor category, my aunts, the older relatives, translated
mathematical terms to Chinese so I can better understand the context. For example, I learned
words like: calculate, sum, mean, median and mode. I was able to apply mathematical terms
when working on test. However, little progress was made for English writing.

The transition to sixth grade was interesting in English class. I used too many Is in essays
and in conversations. For instance, I like to eat cheesecake, I am going to school, and I
have a tree were the simple sentence structure I commonly used. One hilarious recall was how I
pronounced girl incorrectly, like girrrrr, until my friend corrected me to curl my tongue and
say girl. I was taking baby steps in writing with the help of my aunties correcting my grammar
whenever I wrote. My aunt would read my sentences one by one and tell me where my mistakes
where. By making corrections, I was able to learn about grammatical rules and errors. At that
time, I couldnt catch up to the information in history book. I still relied heavily on my sponsors
for translation of contexts. It was when I realized writing and reading come hand in hand
together.

Being worrisome of having a bad grade was my motivation to read. Because of that, I gained
a boost in reading. I began in childrens books: Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss and Junie B. Jones by
Barbara Park. These infantile fictions were guest tickets for me to enjoy a tour in English
museum. As Malcolm X explained, Anyone who has read a great deal can imagine the new
world that opened (190). I found a door to the English world. These terms within the stories
inflated my vocabulary bank. At that time, I used word like: destination, illustrate, and potential
etc. The Pocket-Greenhaven library became a sponsor for me when I started borrowing books.
As Deborah Brandt mentioned, literacy as a resource becomes available to ordinary people
(10). I had an advantage of the library because it is easy to access. Aside from reading, I also
listened to conversations instead of being involved in speaking; I rarely talked and some of my
classmates thought I was muted. This was because I was trying to listen and pick up some new
vocabularies.

High school was a broad community which equaled chance of reading and writing. I joined
the PACE (Program in America California Exploration) program for four years in high school,
which was similar to GATE program in middle school. During freshmen year, we formed book
clubs for discussions. For example, we read Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman. This involved both
reading and speaking, which were great practice for me to understand English. With the addition
to tons of perspective narratives and other formats of writing in geography class, I received
teacher comments for correction. One was through learning from mistakes Ive made from
grammatical errors. Another was the redundant commentary of using better dictions. I had
vocabulary quizzes weekly to demonstrate my understanding of them. From there, I utilized
these vocabularies in writing. Leader Malcolm X mentioned, I woke up the next morning,
thinking about those words (190). Utilizing terms into writing and speaking is the optimum
practice for improvement in literacy.

The first taste of college style writing arrived at my last year of high school. The Writing
formats were to analyze (isolation, repetition), see big picture, and find authors purposes of
texts. Having to read more advanced writing like The Odyssey by Homer, Macbeth by
Shakespeare, and other texts were an eye opening experience for me. The skills of dissecting a
text had greatly contributed to how I should understand the authors purpose. I learned statement
needs to be supported by evidence. For example, when I have a claim, I need to have evidence
and connection to my claim: I always think about evidence whenever I write. I am able to utilize
the reading skills in college.

Words are important; they build up a whole story. My transition from Chinese to a bilingual
takes effort and time as shown by my school experiences. Learning about vocabularies offered
me a gateway to reading. Reading is the most essential element to have in forming my literacy.
Even Malcolm X claimed he would spend any spare minute to reading because he was learning.
(126) It may be hard to learn something new. Climbing up the stairs is difficult, but its a good
practice, and I will learn more.