Amanda Salerno

UWRT 1103- Ms. B

09-07-15
Literacy Memoir
I believe in fairy tales. I believe in magic, in dragons and wicked step mothers, in
knights in shining armor, in fairy god mothers, in happy endings and happily ever after.
Everyone lives their own unique story filled with different characters and adventures. For
me, fairy tales were the base of my literacy upbringing. For the longest time, I believed I
was a princess. Of course youre thinking, well what little girl didnt but I really truly
did. My parents always made me feel extremely loved and important; they read me my
favorite stories every night before bed and I would fall asleep dreaming about living out
those adventures. Even when I was awake, I lived those adventures in my own way on a
day-to-day basis. I had a wild imagination; my mom always tells me that I lived in my
own little world. I saw the world in bright colors and had a million imaginary friends.
The books my parents read to me, greatly affected my outlook on life. These books as a
young girl were mostly fairytales like Cinderella, The Beauty and the Beast, and Peter
Pan. Looking back on my childhood, I remember how happy and carefree I was and I
believe it was because of the imagery that those books had and the good messages and
lessons that they portrayed.
My younger sister and I were very lucky to have parents who always encouraged us
to believe in magic and to play pretend. We had a ridiculous amount of dolls, dress-up
clothes, play-sets, etc.; anything a little girl could want, we had. My aunt Joanne, who
was also my godmother, was a schoolteacher so she understood how important it was to

allow us to create and dream. She spoiled us completely, always finding a way to give us
what our hearts desired. With her though, it was never the physical presents that I liked
the most; it was the fact that my aunt never discouraged any idea I had. She would play
school with us for hours on end, allowing my sister, Elise, and I to set up our own
classroom and give our own lectures. While I cant remember exactly what those lectures
consisted of, what I do remember is always feeling important and a sense of
empowerment. Its rare that a child is able to step into the position of telling an adult what
to do, so my sister and I always loved the fact that my aunt let us show her the world
from our point of view. She helped me to find my voice and develop opinions on topics
like books, movies, subjects in school, and other important things in the life of an
elementary-school-er. This lead to me growing up with the confidence to always speak
my mind and state my opinion, no matter who my audience was. I give her a lot of the
credit for my personal outlook on life because she showed me that all it takes to be happy
in life, is to be happy with who you are as a person and to never let anyone change your
opinion of yourself.
My favorite books included most of the Disney stories like Cinderella, Beauty and
the Beast, and The Little Mermaid. I loved any story involving fantasy and magic, but my
mom, with the influence of my aunt, wanted me to also start reading books that taught me
something educational. She found a segway from fantasy to non-fiction by introducing
me to The Magic School Bus, which had an educational factor to its stories along with
that magical element that I loved. I started to find more of an interest in the non-fictional
part of these stories and began looking for more books about animals, science, and
history. I for some reason found a huge fascination with the book Birds of North

Carolina, and could point out and correctly identify every bird that called NC its home.
I also became widely interested in the National Geographic Magazines and The Magic
Treehouse books. I constantly had a book or magazine in hand at that age and would
often prefer reading rather than participating in social activities during recess.
A huge part of my journey with literacy was influenced by a program that my mom
signed my sister and I up for at our local library. In the summer, the library offered a
program for elementary-school-ers that was a 10-week reading guide. There were about
30 books on a list, and a child would pick 4 to read. With every chapter you read, you
could earn prizes such as a bookmark, candy, or free library book rental. We each got a
reading map and as you read along, you would check off each stop on the map.
Every week, we would meet at the library to discuss the books we were reading. It was
fun and interactive, and the discussions that we had really helped me learn analytical
reading and understanding of a text at a young age. I believe that this was when I learned
how to get more out of a book than just a surface level understanding. There was a
librarian who led our group discussions and would always make sure we were doing that
extra step of talking about the deeper meaning. My communication skills also improved
because of the social aspect of the program.
I was placed in every accelerated reading and writing course in school, thanks to
my solid base of literacy. I was good at communicating and understanding others on a
personal level; I was good at being a people person and teachers/adults noticed this
from a young age. I was always put in positions of leadership because I was first to speak
my mind during discussions and I think this really gave me an advantage. It taught me
confidence and assurance in myself, it taught me to never be afraid to speak my mind and

support my opinions, and it also taught me how to be a good listener. I used these skills as
I grew, not only in a strictly educational way, but for other social parts of life as I got
older. I was captain of my cheerleading and basketball teams all through high school, and
I was a class representative for Student Government, and even Student Body president
my senior year of high school. I also used these skills in my passion for the arts and I can
remember back to elementary school when I used those talents the most on a daily basis.
For all of elementary school, and most of middle school, I attended a charter school
that strongly believed in exposing children to the arts. Every day, the students attended at
least one art class (chorus, band, painting, drawing, theater, etc.), and every year students
were involved in at least 4 productions. We were able to create our own pieces when it
came to these productions; in the fifth grade, my classmates and I, with the help of our
teachers, wrote and performed an entire opera based off of a book that we had been
studying that year called Ashes of Roses. I remember how exciting it was getting to
write the script, the music, designing the set and costumes, and then seeing all of our hard
work come together the night of the performance. All of the elements that we were taught
and that we used to create the performance were all elements of literacy. Music, visual
art, scripting, costume designing, and group work were all incorporated through this
production. With out being able to communicate our ideas to one another through talking
and writing, the whole thing would have been a disaster. There were times where we all
werent working on things at the same time and we would often have to leave instructions
for the next group coming in to work on it so that they could understand what our visions
were and complete the task to make those ideas come true. It ended up turning out
exactly how we wanted it to, and its a memory that I will never forget no matter my age.

As I grew, I found reading, writing, and creating my own works of art to be an

amazing outlet from anything that was stressful in life. Through reading, I was able to
explore other worlds, become other people, and take a break from my own life to escape
reality whenever I chose. Writing allowed me to express my thoughts and feelings in a
way that wasnt always possible by physical dialogue. I journaled a lot and found this to
be my own sort of personal therapy to deal with whatever was going on in my life. I had a
really hard time with being bullied my freshman year of high school, and instead of
lashing out in the same way the bullies were at me, I would write about it and write about
how I could find happiness through that tough situation. I was involved in a Slam Poetry
Club that would meet weekly and share our latest pieces with our group. At the end of
the year, we had a performance in front of the whole school. I had been working on a
special piece that was directed, but not in a particularly noticeable way, at the girl that
was giving me the hardest time. I remember standing on the stage, looking her dead in the
eyes as she sat in the front row, and reading my poem. She, and the rest of our peers,
caught on very quickly to the meaning behind all of my metaphors because we were a
very small school and everyone was aware of the situation. Ill never forget my final line
as I delivered it to her in a forum where she no longer had control over me, and I finally
was able to stick up for myself in a way that was not nearly as severe as how she had
been treating me. My final line was and all youre ever going to be, is MEAN. Now
whether or not my principle ended up talking to her after she wrote things about me on
the bathroom walls, or she actually got the message from my poem, I was able to find
some sort of comfort in my own personal way from a situation that I couldnt seem to

change on my own. That poem, and my love for poetry till this day remain unchanged
and will always be important to me.
I will forever love writing and reading because of the many joys they bring to my
life. I will have a diary till the day I die and I am not ashamed of that, because that is how
I have found ways to cope with the stresses of daily life, or to celebrate the joys and
memories of life. I use so many literacy forums in all aspects of my world, whether it be
for school, personal, or social interactions. I am thankful that I found my passion so early
on and was able to cultivate it and grow with it. I dont believe that I am the best writer;
my grammar isnt perfect, my spelling is mediocre, and I think that I connect well with
my audience, but I am not the audience so how could I ever truly know? My point is, I
am thankful for literacy because of how much it has abled me to do in my world and I
cant wait to look back years from now on this paper when Im an even more experienced
writer and compare my work over the years. I would not be who I am today with out all
of my encounters with literacy and I hope that I will be able to teach my children and
young kids in general about not only the importance that comes from literacy, but the also
the passion.