Literary Autobiography

The Screen Door

I don’t remember much about my first five years of life. My earliest memory is staring intently at the front door to the apartment we lived in when I was younger. Gray in color, with zig zag lines of wire each way. Cool to the touch when I ran my fingers against it. And, when swung correctly, that sturdy door was perfectly capable of making the satisfying "crash" that all younger children love to elicit attention. All of these are perfectly good reasons in my opinion for a screen door to be my first recollection of life, but Mom says it’s the first thing I remember  because I was always trying to escape. That’s probably not too far from the truth. As new homeschooling parents, Mom and Dad were terrified I would end up as one of those homeschoolers who couldn’t read and write in high school. As a result, I learned to read with the phonics program Sing, Spell, Read, and Write at four years old. If I think hard enough I can still hear the cassette tape ending the pronunciation of the alphabet with, “If you sing these well indeed, then it’s time for us to read!” And read I did. Turns out I never really got out the habit of escaping, I just learned to visit far off places while still behind the screen door. 

There are many things that stick out from these earlier memories for me. First off, my unpopular belief in phonics reading and distrust for sight words, simply because it is how I learned to read. As a teacher, I must realize that there are many different ways students learn to read. I must have a variety of options to offer my students who struggle to read. Second, in homeschooling I had the most differentiated lesson plan known to man. I often wonder how very different my life would be if I hadn’t had the one-on-one instruction I was given so early in life. It leads me to the belief that students do need time when it is just them and the teacher. Even if I can’t give my students one-on-one time everyday, conferences and check-ins with my students, even for five minutes is imperative to setting my students up for success. Finally, my parents belief that reading and writing was the key to everything. They believed that the most important area of education was learning to read and write properly and nothing else could be taught until that point. Equipping my students to read, even as a science teacher, is the most important job I can do and should take center stage, even at the cost of test scores. 

Sneaking Around

"Shh! Be quiet or you'll wake Mom and Dad!" I say to my four siblings. The plan had worked perfectly. We had said goodnight to our parents, climbed into our beds and pretended to be sleep, our air coming in gasps as we tried in vain to slow down our breathing. When the house was quiet, I crept out to make sure my parents were safely in their room, cringing each time the old hardwood floors groaned under my weight. I racked my mind for an excuse if they were to wake up. The door was closed! Good! I think as I watch the tiny slither of light escape my parents' haven. Stealthily I alert the others in hushed tones, not-so-gently shaking my little sister awake from her deep slumber. She looks at me for a second confused, then a big grin takes precedence. It's time. What could five youngsters between the ages of four and eleven be doing without the permission of our parents? Reading Superfudge. Thinking back, I'm sure our parents would have been okay with me reading aloud to my siblings, but it was so much more fun to feel like we were doing something bad, stifling our giggles under pillows as we let Judy Blume spin the story of a lifetime.

Again, there are quite a few things that strike me from this memory. First, our obvious love of reading. Kids sneak around for many things, but I can't think of any kids other than my brothers and sisters who snuck around to read. It is imperative that we teach kids to enjoy reading at an early age. This comes by allowing some books to be read that aren't on the test. Every book does not have to be a life altering event. Every book should not be a lesson on symbolism. Some books are just good because they're fun and relate to students' every day lives. The second point is that students can help other students learn to read. As a homeschool family, my youngest brother is seven years under me, and yet, we were all able to enjoy Superfudge and learn together because of it. I got to practice my fluency skills, my other three siblings practiced reading comprehension, and my littlest brother was introduced to the joys of reading. Finally, it enforces my belief in the power of reading aloud. Often times we ask students to read aloud a text that they have never seen, much less read before. Though it's important to help struggling readers, read alouds are often not the time. When struggling readers read aloud they are often too focused on reading correctly to really comprehend the text, while the students who are listening can not engage in the text as they listen to a classmate painstakingly read in monotone. It is no wonder our students learn to hate reading at an early age! I feel the first book a class reads should be read aloud by the teacher, students should be able to laugh, cry, and truly engage with the text. As the school year goes on, students should be given more and more responsibility reading, but have the alternative to read only to the teacher if they so choose. Often we are so focused on the actual mechanisms of reading aloud, that we forget the power of listening.

Testing, Testing.....

I turn the page, intrigued by the story. I want to know what happens next. What will become of the children? Finally I reach the end of the passage and snap out of it. I'm in my high school's cafeteria, taking the ACT, the most important test of my life, and I am sitting here, enjoying the reading portion. I quickly look up to see how much time I have left listening to the "tick-tock" of the clock and begin filling in bubbles with the soft #2 lead of my school issued pencil. As I finish the section, I'm not worried about my score, I'm not even anxious about the math section that's likely to follow next, all I can think is, that was a really good story.

I chose this memory because it always strikes me as odd that I would find enjoyment in the middle of a standardized test. As a person who tutors students with test anxiety and struggles with anxiety herself, I have often wondered how I can remember such a critical moment with fondness. First and foremost, it is because I learned the joy of reading without the fear of testing. As shown in my previous moments, I was able to read without thinking that there would be a quiz at the end of the day. My family often talked of the books we were reading, but I wasn't graded on this exercise until later on. Books became a safe haven for me, and as a result, when faced with a test, the very experience that terrifies most 21st century adolescents became a reprieve from the storm. As a teacher I need to teach my students that reading is nothing to fear. I need to teach my students the joy of learning something new, of trying to connect the dots before the author finishes filling out the picture. If I teach my kids to enjoy reading, then I have nothing to fear on state mandated assessments. My children will perform well simply because they enjoy what they have been asked to do.

Writing Like A Writer

"When I was little, my uncle Pete had a necktie with a porcupine painted on it. I thought that necktie was just about the neatest thing in the world."

I'm intrigued, what in the world does a porcupine neck-tie have to do with Stargirl? I continue to read, turning over in my chair, and then, it happens -- My first teacher epiphany. I race to my writing journal hastily forming words as if any minute it will all disappear into thin air. "I like how he starts out with the porcupine neck-tie. It's just odd enough to make you interested. Suddenly I can see whole lessons and students modeling this technique. Then I think of my own short story without a beginning. Perhaps….

"I always wanted to know the difference between kangaroos, wallabies, and joeys. When I finally got the nerve to ask while I was in Australia, my professor told me it had to do with their size. That's it? I thought. I felt it was a bunch of hoopla over nothing. Turns out there's a lot of things like that in this world. I imagine if an alien landed on Earth and got up the nerve to ask the difference between Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, Aboriginals, well, you get the picture, and we were to say the color of their skin, I'm pretty sure they'd echo my thoughts on kangaroos -- a bunch of hoopla over nothing."

I finish writing, almost surprised at what is etched on the page. I've done it, I've crafted the perfect beginning.

Oftentimes as teachers we make writing seem like this mystical talent that you either have or you don't. We create rubrics with lifeless language concerned more with sentence structure and grammar than anything else, but we never examine the practices of good writers. This experience enforces my belief in mentor texts. Grammar and sentence structure should very rarely be taught without a context. Students need to learn why components of writing are important and how it connects to their audience. Students should also realize that the best authors read, not only for information, but for different ways of writing. That it's okay to play around with different structures, because that is how you learn. Finally, students should feel like writers. In the moment I mirrored Jerry Spinelli, I felt as if I could write a short story that I could be proud of. I scaffolded my own experience by reading what I felt were the best authors for my project, and as a result, set myself up for success. What better way to feel like a writer than actually writing like one.

Fish in a Tree

"Reading for me is like when I drop something and my fingers scramble to catch it and just when I think I've got it, I don't. If trying to read helped, I'd be a genius."

 I'm shocked, people actually feel this way about reading? Well, of course they do, but is this how it feels? Does it hurt this much? I quickly read on as I sink into a pair of shoes I've never been in. I feel like crying with frustration as I struggle to read the words on the page, my heart beating faster, mixing up letters as I go along, my cheeks burning with shame as the rest of the class whispers at what a loser I am. And nobody stops them, not even the teacher.


I'll never forget the day I met Ally. After slaving away at my first week of assignments for TED 535, Approaches to Critical Study and ENG 252, I was prepared to throw in the towel and call it quits. Then I picked up Fish in a Tree and met a sixth grader who told me all about how hard it was to read, how she took the blame for things she didn't do just so no one would call her dumb, and how she hoped that someone, anyone, would see through her masquerade. Then she tells the story about someone who did and how it changed everything. So far I've read several great articles and books about the importance of reading, but none as life changing as Fish in a Tree. Ally let me take a walk in her shoes for a while. She let me be someone I've never been, a struggling reader.

I chose this last memory from a few weeks ago because I think it's important to showcase my most recent hurtle -- my inability to identify with struggling readers.  I will never understand what it's like to be a struggling reader, to feel the sickening thud of dread when I'm called on to read next, or the fingers of panic as I frantically attempt to decode the text in front of me to pass my next exam. But just because I don't understand does not mean I am not responsible. As I stepped into the shoes of Ally, every excuse that I had for not teaching literacy in my science classroom faded away. Nothing is more important than teaching students how to read and read well. There's an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Maybe, if we all made reading our first priority, every struggling reader would have a Fish in a Tree experience. It's certainly worth a try.