Personal Literacy Narrative Draft 2

* If you could please, when peer reviewing my paper- at the bottom there's a link to google doc where you can input your feedback. I'd love to hear your feedback as to how I can improve on my transitions and if I need any more information about any of my topics.

            My name is Randee Lee. Yes, Randee like a boy’s name, but spelled differently. My major is Kinesiology with an emphasis on physical education to become a high school P.E. teacher and basketball coach. I chose Sac State because it was the next farthest from home aside from SoCal. I’m from San Leandro, which is near Oakland. I grew up with two older siblings, a brother who’s ten years older than me and an older sister who’s seven years older than me as well. As being the youngest, you always strive to beat your older siblings whether it be in school or sports. I believe I beat them both in both categories. I’ve played basketball since I was five, which influenced my favorite movie, Love and Basketball. Playing basketball lead to my participation in organized Asian league called Eden Athletics, where I became captain and became a part of the Eden Community Service group.  Aside from sports, reading was never really my thing. I always had a hard time pronouncing words and was a slow and still am a slow reader. My favorite books are from the Inkheart series and the I Am Number Four series because they had fantasy and adventure.  I’ve always liked writing, but I believed I wasn't that great at it up until my senior year of high school is where I built up my confidence. I’m a very driven person, once a task is put in front of me I'll put all 105 pounds of me into my work.

            At the beginning of my senior year of high school, I became president of the Japanese American Citizens League Eden Youth Group community service group. At the EYG’s installation dinner, which is where the officers are sworn into their positions, I was put on the spot to make a speech about what EYG meant to me. I wasn’t nervous about speaking, moreover I wasn’t expecting to have to come up with something to say with such short notice. Although being a senior, it was my first time being president of anything in my high school career and above all a community service group but I kind of grew up in EYG. Both my brother and sister did EYG, and as the little sister I had to tag along to all of the events. So I felt that I had already went through EYG and didn’t need to do it again. But as I was writing out the speech, things just flowed into my head and onto my phone, thanks to notepad. Making sure I got the history of JACL right and acknowledging the diversity of my audience, I spoke about how EYG used to be and that I felt the need to revitalize it back to when it had twenty or so members. With experiencing having to make a speech on the spot, it helped me quickly prepare myself and stand in front of people I do and do not know. And after the installation dinner was over, one of the chairman came up to me and said thank you and that I did a good job. This event helped boost my confidence in public speaking and helped me establish responsibility as president at the time.

            Throughout my English class, my senior year we had Active Reading Guides to keep us engaged in books we read in class. As we read we had four specific charts to fill out; a character chart to describe each character, where they were first introduced and their importance to the book. Second, to look for specific scenes of examples and describe them in how it’s an example of the themes throughout the book. Third, state two important quotes per chapter and write a reflection on it. Lastly, write any questions or statements for every chapter about the plot, characters, any confusion, or relations. While doing the active reading guides, it kept me from just reading the book, just to read it. I had to really think about what I was reading and make sure to fill out the charts. ARGs helped me by making me become an active reader. I highlight, underline and summarize a lot of my books now, especially for school purposes. Learning how to annotate has helped my reading habits change dramatically.

            Writing personal papers have always came easy to me, except for the personal statement paper towards the end of my senior year. The assignment was to write about something that has really shaped you whether it was a good or bad experience. I wrote about the day I got jumped my sophomore year in 2011, by these five girls. Although writing out all of the details were hard, my main points weren’t to receive pity for the incident but why is it that kids turn to this type of violence for and how someone can get right back up from it. Those girls simply took me down to take my phone and run. The police officer stated that they probably will sell it to someone for pocket change. By writing about the incident, it helped me build back up my confidence and made me realize that some people feel the need that they have to turn to such violence to get money because they may be having a hard time at home. The incident shaped me to think differently about the outside world, but overall by writing the paper, it became a great outlet for me even though I wrote about it for a grade. It was so much more bigger and better than that for me.

            Reading and writing has definitely helped be in school because I had to read and write to pass. But it also broadened my perspective of the world outside of my own. I read things and wrote about topics I wouldn’t have never came across or thought of doing outside of school. Writing has always been interesting because you tell a story with your words. I like poems for their insight on a person’s life, whether it’s intentional or accidental or it pertains to your own life. Like listening to music, I like to look up the song lyrics to really understand the meaning of the songs. Active reading guides have unquestionably helped me improve my reading skills indefinitely. After I graduate, I highly doubt that I will have to write any essays or read much except for my own personal doing. But I learned that with the right type of books that I like I won’t put it down unless I’m too tired to continue or it’s too dark to see. I believe I will continue to write because I like writing down memories and poems and being creative with words. Reading and writing has become an outlet and a form of therapy for me and even for some as well.