For my English 101 projects 1 and 2, I was asked to reflect back on my literacy and consider a time in which I was guided by a sponsor. I then was partnered with Joshua Leiper to take both of our narratives and transform it into a collage of our choosing.

Literacy Narrative

“Sponsorship forces us to consider.. how one social group’s literacy practices may differ from another’s”

 

He read the way I wish I could. He was Lincoln, or Dr. Martin Luther King, reading about the divorce of his parents. I had watched Collin give enough public speeches to expect this kind of performance from him, though.

“I was known as the smart kid,” Collin then read aloud. How accurate, I thought, remembering back to sophomore year when I was his partner in history. I knew nothing about history, but Collin knew everything. Wiping the second hand embarrassment from my palms, I listened to him. He often made broad gestures and pauses that sunk the air. He enunciated his words at times nearly inappropriate. His audience was constantly at anticipation, uncomfortable, some even giggled. He was someone I felt intimidated near. Yet there I was, thinking to myself, his essay is shit. It wasn’t his techniques that I envied, nor the story he told. It was that he always owned the floor. Collin was just one of the many students of my AP Literature class. A room of students I had known since kindergarten. We had watched one another grow up, and were now watching one another read aloud their lives in a single college essay.

Collin sat down as climatic as he started, and then there was the kid sitting next to me, Cody.

“Are you ready to read yours?” he whispered to me.

“I didn’t write anything, actually.” I let out a bitter chuckle. I’m not sure why, maybe out of shame. I didn’t expect anyone to expect anything from me. It was this comment, that made me question myself. Why didn’t I write one? So often Cody did this, expected the best version of myself. He was different. In the way he walked, his build, and witt were in all aspects unique and because of that, the class referred to him as a “gem.” He walked to the podium and layed out his pages.

“I used to love to play with Legos,” he read. He made a comparison of his life with Lego pieces, and in turn, so did I. Throughout all the essays I listened to, I tried to find a piece of myself within what they said. Could I have been the smart kid? The outcast? the person battling depression in secret? Sonder: the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own. They each shared a part of themselves the class never anticipated. Maybe that’s why they chose to read themselves so vulnerably. It was their chance to shake a frame we so rigidly set for them, a chance I had missed out on.

Cody finished, allowing the rest of us to pick up our jaws from the floor and applaud. He was the last person to present that day. With what time we had left, we continued to work on a homework packet handed to us from the previous class. I, however, lied.

“I’m sorry Mr. Voigt, I forgot my packet at home.”

“Oh that’s alright. You could share with the person sitting next to you,” he said.

“Actually, I’d rather work on my college essay if that’s okay. I feel kind of, I don’t know, disappointed that I didn’t-”

“Say no more,” he interrupted. “And when you’re done, I’d be more than grateful to read it.”

 

Literacy Collage

 

 

“We chose the yin-&-yang symbol as a representation of our different literacy narratives. Jaiden’s was about an assignment that had wish she had done, and the regret she felt. Mine was about an aversion to reading that I eventually overcame. These stories were about very different topics, and we came to this project with different life experiences. That being said, they still had a lot of commonalities. We each had a bump in the road of literacy, and we both have overcome those obstacles”

–Joshua Leiper