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Don Smith

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1103

February 8th, 2011

I feel that if I typed this paper to be four pages or so like my peers, I’d stretch out the main

message and I’d abate the quality of my writing. Writing the longest paper doesn’t necessarily

make it the best and I firmly believe in content not extent. I believe I typed an acceptable paper

for this assignment and it wasn’t made explicit exactly how long you wanted my paper to be so I

relied on instinct instead. The length of my paper raises no concern to me but it may to you and

that is something that I’m unsure of. Length may be the weakest trait of my paper and my

strength is more than likely the flow of my paper.

The Literacies of My Life

The term “literacy” is most commonly known as the ability to read and write efficiently.

“Literacy” in an academic perspective can also mean to be skilled in a number of other given

abilities such as music, digital media, gaming, and etcetera. I myself view “literacy” as a skill

that’s procured and emanates some sort of productivity. Some sponsors that have greatly

influenced the literacies of my life are my parents, teachers, and even the school as a whole.

Firstly, my teachers have helped me improve my literacy in a vast number of classes such as

English, Science, and Math. Without people like my Science teacher Mrs. Williams and my

English teacher Mrs. Scott, I wouldn’t have as much experience with cellular respiration or

writing an annotated bibliography. Not just certain teachers but primary and secondary school as

a whole can be recognized as a sponsor of mine. Whether it was teaching me certain skills I need

to succeed in my academic career (such as being socially active with faculty and peers), teaching
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me how to be competitive with my class ranking (which may be needed due to competitiveness

in the work force), or even just teaching me how inept some teachers can be, primary and

secondary school have definitely given me some of the skills I needed to developed for college.

School has also indirectly improved my literacy in art. I mostly practiced during times of

extreme boredom because my mind has a resolute desire to wonder off and doodle. I developed

this habit in 4th grade and its always distracted me from doing well in my classes; eventually by

the time I started high school I learned to control it more but it was still a big problem and still is

to this day. Even though my bad habit of drawing during times of inadvertence has been

detrimental to my grades, I probably wouldn’t be so adept in visual art without it. A few

examples would be when I drew an egg on a wall and won 1st place in nationals, or when I won

the Superintendent’s Choice Award for students with honors in art, or even when my teachers

would praise my work by giving me complements such as “you’re one of the greatest of artists

I’ve ever met;” truly an honorable statement.

My parents were definitely sponsors in a good extent of literacies as well. My favorite

literacy they sponsored me in is definitely my literacy in music. My dad had this old acoustic

guitar manufactured by Yamaha that would just sit around and never be played. One day I picked

it up and played around with it. I’d play every day trying to figure out what notes worked well

with others. As time went by they noticed how dedicated I was to learning how to play, so they

chipped in and bought me a Fender Stratocaster. This guitar and I shared so many memories; it

was like my best friend. I even noticed over the years that when I played different guitars I’d

have a slightly different style of playing. It’s almost as if guitars have their own souls and they

sing their song when I play them; like a personification but more so to the spiritual level.
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Another sponsorship given by my parents is that they got me into the water at a very

young age. When I was three my father and I would ride jet skis, and go swimming without the

support of floats. If it wasn’t for that I more than likely wouldn’t have been as interested in

swimming and have all these years of experience in lifeguarding. The payback to lifeguarding

for my parents is probably so they can be proud they raised a child of good responsibility; or

even so they may boast of their child saving lives. It could have been something as simple as just

wanting me to know how to swim so my risk of drowning would greatly diminish. Whatever the

case may be my literacy in swimming has become something of great value to me.

Literacy in reading and writing are essential to becoming a productive adult. Literacy in

swimming allows me to make a good income over the summer and hone my skills in leadership

and responsibility; but what about my literacy in visual art and music? So far they’ve only

entertained people and my parents and I hardly reap any benefits. Sure there is the option to sell

my artwork and make profit but I haven’t really gained anything but skill in visual art and music,

perhaps in due time I will.

Don,

You do a good job here of thinking about the idea of sponsors as both providers of access

to literacy and as beneficiaries, and you might want to think about how all of your sponsors

benefit. I also like how you raise this idea of how we benefit from the various literacies we

posses. As you can see from my marginal comments, one area to think about in revision is

paragraph development. How do you want this essay organized? How do you want to move your
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reader through the paper. This link has some resources that may be helpful to you in this work:

http://wrc.uncc.edu/Resources-for-Students/

Please let me know what questions you have.