Harris 1

Benjamin Harris
Mrs. Knudson
UWRT 1103
8 September 2014
Literary Memoir
My earliest experience with reading came as a toddler, through short Biblical stories
designed for children. My mother would read the heroic tales such as David slaying the giant
Goliath, against all odds, with his sling shot and three smooth stones; Noah escaping the flood
with his massive ark and bevy of animal companions; and the life of Jesus, performing miracles
and inspiring multitudes of people through his parables and life. My mother served as my very
first literary sponsor in sharing these stories with me, reading the childrens Bible to me daily,
and sparking in me a fascination with Biblical literature and in stories in general. As Deborah
Brandt. professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, states, Sponsors, as I have come to
think of them, are any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach,
model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy- and gain advantage by it in
some way,( Brandt 46). My mother not only introduced me to literacy, she more specifically
introduced to me Biblical text, with the motive of leaving an impress on me at an early age. As a
toddler I was oblivious to her motivations or the true implications of these stories and their
religious nature, but rather simply thought of them as fun, exciting stories. My mother, along
with my father, on the other hand, were trying to instill the values and principles of these stories
in me from a very young age and utilize these stories to encourage our families beliefs. Exposing
me to the Bible was important to my parents because they wanted to create a Christian

Harris 2
environment for our home and Biblical literature served as the mechanism they used to
accomplish their goal.
At the age of five years old, I began attending a small, Christian school, named Word of
God, which is where I formally learned how to read and write and encountered my second
literary sponsor, Ms. Williams. She was my Kindergarten teacher and taught reading and writing
to the class as a whole, then she would test every one in the class individually, in order to assess
our literacy skills further. I recall having a particularly difficult time advancing my reading, so
much so that reading became something that I began to dread. Reading with my classmates
during class time was a real struggle, as I fumbled over words and desperately tried to keep up
my reading pace with the other students, who while they struggled as well and by no means were
the most astute readers, made me feel in comparison slow, and quite frankly incompetent.
Fortunately, Ms. Williams did not quit on me or make me feel bad because I was not
progressing like the other kids, instead she inspired me to work harder and spent extra time with
me to make sure I achieved my reading and writing goals. She suggested in addition to the short
reading and writing assignments that I had to do for her class, to write and read my own short
stories of two or three sentences and any cool ideas I came up with in a journal. By encouraging
me to write for myself and for my own satisfaction, with my own ideas, I gained a greater
appreciation and respect for reading and writing skills. I now wanted to read and write out of my
own intrinsic motivation, as opposed to just because the assignments were graded. In Emily
Strassers piece, Writing What Matters: A Students Struggle to Bridge the Academic/Personal
Divide, she brings to the forefront, the importance of teachers and tutors who nurture students
intelligence and personal emotional well being, versus the view of Professor Stanley Fish, who
advocates that the emphasis on writing should be placed on its sentence structure, or syntax, as

Harris 3
well as principles of logical reasoning(199). Strasser states, Yet I would argue that writing can
and should be much more than sophisticated sentence structure and nuanced word choice. The
devices of grammar and rhetoric remains superficial skills until a writer employs them to express
important and powerful feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Students leaving Fish;s course will never
love what they are writing, and so their abilities to construct complicated grammatical structures
will not be put to meaningful purposes. Other writers do advocate, in marked contrast to Fishs
grammar-centered approach, methods centered on students experiences, interests and
ideas,(200). I definitely agree with Emily Strasser writing ideology because it was proven
effective in my case. Ms. Williams diligence in working with me, which led to me becoming a
more proficient reader and incited an appreciation within me for literacy, was definitely a
defining literary event in my life, as it allowed me to advance my reading skills and to begin to
read more difficult texts. The one year I had Ms.Williams and attended Word of God, I believed
changed my literary destiny, as I am unsure if attending any other school or having any other
teacher would have been nearly as beneficial in advancing and inspiring my literary curiosity and
development.
The first more challenging text that I can recall beginning to read was the King James
Version of the Holy Bible. This presented all types of difficulties for me still being a young
reader, as I started dabbling into reading the less child-friendly, authentic Biblical text. From the
use of the old english writing style to its length, and quite honestly, I just found it plain boring
and vastly different from the exciting, full color short Bible tales that my mother used to read to
me. Regardless, my parents encouraged me to read it daily, for just a few minutes in the
morning. Initially making me read it caused me not enjoy reading it, but over time as reading it
became habitual, it became something that I did because I wanted to and not just because they

Harris 4
told me too. My exposure to biblical text was more than many other children my age, even
among those who identified as Christians along with my family. In addition to reading the Bible
daily every morning, my family and I went to church every Sunday, every Wednesday, and my
family conducted a Bible study of our own every Saturday morning. This much exposure to
Biblical text, was in my parents mind, essential for creating a Christian home, and living a
Christian lifestyle, and with not a shadow of a doubt, helped progress my reading and writing
proficiency.
Throughout elementary school at my new school, Franklin Academy, and even into
middle school there were times where my homes literary environment conflicted with my
schools literary environment. There were several instances, I can recall, in school where my
parents didnt want me to read an assigned book because it did not agree with our Biblical beliefs
and they talked to administrators to prevent me from being required to read the books. This was
quite frankly embarrassing as a young kid, to have to read a different book than the other kids
because my literary sponsors told me to. I hated having to constantly answer questions from the
other kids as to why I wasnt reading the books they were reading and at times it made me feel
like an outcast. I wanted badly to read their books in spite of what my parents told me, but I
knew better than that and refrained. Along with being limited in reading certain assigned books, I
was also limited in my leisure book selection. This became particularly difficult when the Harry
Potter books came out. Everyone was reading Harry Potter, everyone. Everyone except me. This
was deeply troubling to me as a young kid because I felt so conflicted. There was my parents
telling me not to read it, then there were my friends and teachers encouraging the reading of this
book series and showering it with praise. I could not yet comprehend how the Harry Potter books
could be viewed as magnificent literary works, and regarded as the best literature out by some of

Harris 5
my literary sponsors, my teachers and friends, and then at the same time viewed by my other
literary sponsors, my parents, as the last thing that I should be reading.
While at times my parents were somewhat restrictive and particular with what I could
read there were still plenty of school books that I enjoyed reading. The first series of books that I
seriously got into was The Series of Unfortunate Events, by Lemony Snickett. The series
followed the tragic life of three orphaned children and their struggle to escape the evade the
ruthless villain out to get their inheritance. At this stage in my literary development I had not yet
divulged into lengthy novels and reading books like this was very uncharacteristic of me, but
after a friend recommended one of the books to me in the fifth grade I got hooked. This series of
thirteen books were the first really to challenge my vocabulary, as I was always writing down the
words I didnt understand, so that I could look them up in the dictionary and use them in writing
assignments to impress my teachers. While the storyline of all of the books were sad and rather
grim, especially for books geared toward children, the conclusion of each novel left me wanting
more and more, which was something that I had never experienced while reading a novel before.
This series broaden my literary horizons, because prior to these books I had never been exposed
to such perilous works of literature.
Throughout the course of high I remained rather dormant in my literary development. I
no longer read books for fun and reading became more of a burden. I only read whatever was
assigned in my classes, as I didnt have the time to casually read. I longed to once again achieve
a new literary curiosity and fascination and it was my senior year when I decided that I wanted to
push myself in my literary development. I chose to do this by decided to challenge myself and
take AP English IV,(prior to this I had only been taking honors English courses). I had taken
other AP courses before, such as AP Physics, and additionally AP Psychology, so I wasnt too

Harris 6
concerned about how difficult the course would be for me. I learned quickly into the year that I
would have to get out of my comfort zone as a writer if I wanted to succeed in the course. When
it comes to writing essays, I typically need ample time to figure out how I am going to write and
a topic that I clearly understand to present my best writing, but writing in class essays in AP
English forced me too adapt how I write. The very first in class essay made me feel like I didnt
even belong in the class. I had been struggling to write for 45 minutes straight and had only
came up with a page and a half of an incoherent essay, while others in the class, more familiar
with how an AP English course works, had 2 to 3 pages of solid work. I felt as if I was doomed
for the class, but with my instructors help, more practice, and better preparation timed writing
became less of a struggle and something that I thoroughly enjoyed doing. By the end of the year
my writing had improved by leaps and bounds and I felt as if my writing could withstand
scrutiny nearly as well as the other top writers in my class.
My journey with literacy up to high school was heavily influenced by my parents and
their and their emphasis on the importance of Biblical text in everyday life. Ms. Williams was
outside of my parents, the most instrumental person in my literary development, as she instilled
in me a personal connection with reading and writing, at a young age, that still has an impact on
me even to this day. While being somewhat limited in what books I could assimilate into my
literary repertoire due to my literary sponsors wishes, I still was able to remain passionate about
reading through the elementary and middle school years. As I continue to development in my
literacy skills I am thankful to them for setting that foundation, however, my hope is to continue
to expand and test my literacy skills through a variety of avenues to have a more well-rounded
literary perspective.

Harris 7
Works Cited
Brandt, Deborah. Sponsors of Literacy, College Composition. (1998). 165-85. Print.
Strasser, Emily. Writing What Matters: A Students Struggle to Bridge the Academic/Personal
Divide, Young Scholars in Writing. Web