One of the most important books that I have read was probably a book about self-discovery. The book is called "The Alchemist" by Paolo Cohelo and initially I was drawn to the book because he talked about a personal journey that we must all follow in order to find ourselves. It sounds kind of spacey but when you are in college, your full-time job is to study and find out who you are. In any case this book really helped me understand things in ways that I never would have thought of. I find books like this interesting because I like looking at situations in different ways. I like to discover interesting ways to figure out problems. I like looking at a situation from a different perspective. I like to be very cognizant of all possible outcomes so that I can expect everything at anytime. I think that's why I am so excited about this class because I hope to open my view of text and literature to a whole new world.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Self as Informant
Well honestly I can't remember the first encounter with a book. In all honesty I don't recall reading that much as a child. I think this is because my parents were immigrants from El Salvador and they had little to no education. They could barely print their own names let a lone read a book to me. I do remember that my grandfather would read from this book of fables from El Salvador. He wasn't very educated either but these simple fables were taught to children as life lessons and were used as phonics lessons. It sounds absurd to think that a story like "The tortoise and the Hare" could be used to teach phonics but Spanish is a very phonemic language. Sorry, I forgot to mention that we were reading in Spanish. I didn't have any contact with English language books or writing until I reached kindergarten. In any case this book of fables and tales was so important because I remember thinking that I could learn how to read using this little book and behold I did learn how to read and write in Spanish. I think those building blocks were the strong base that helped me learn how to read and write in English.
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2 comments:
Ande-I found your experience about learning how to read really great. It made me think about how, although you probably faced challenges in kindergarten when learning how to read in a different language than you were exposed to, you probably had the drive to read because of your experience reading with your grandfather. What I try to give my students is that love for reading. I think that when you have a desire to read and view it as a positive experience, you can face challenges well equipped.
Danielle Serie
Andy, I like your post about your grandfather telling you fables as a young child, because it points out the idea that a text is not just a book-- children encounter so many "texts" in their lives, from stories, to signs, to images, to commercials... anything that conveys a message can be a text. Also, even parents who are non-reading can help their children with elements of literacy by telling stories. Hearing stories can help students understand how narrative works, even if they are not read to them from a printed page.
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