Reading Response- Literacy Behind Bars

Literacy Behind Bars was one of the literacy narratives I read in NORTON. I really liked this literacy narrative. It really helped me understand the format and idea of a literacy narrative. For those of you who didn't read it, it is a story about a man who basically taught himself how to read and write when he was in jail. He went to school up until 8th grade, but when he went to prison he decided that he wanted to improve his reading, writing, and penmanship. He began to write words from the dictionary page by page. To me, its really inspirational how he didn't just mope around in prison or spend his time being mad or sad, but instead he spent it learning and thriving.

I noticed a lot of things about this piece while I was reading it. The first thing I noticed was that the first paragraph was very strong and pulled the reader in. It talked about how people who read his works may think he learned it all from school, but instead it was all from his prison studies. The next thing I noticed was that it was his choice and he really WANTED to improve his reading and writing. He had to request a dictionary in order to do what he did and he came up with an argument and got the supplies he needed because he WANTED to learn. The next note I have is that even though the piece was written about a story that happened in the past there are still present tense references for example when he talks about how he remembers "aardvark"from the first page of the dictionary. The last thing I noticed was that the way he wrote the story was very vivid and gave me a good image in my head. I really liked this piece.

Literacy Behind Bars, NORTON
8-27-13-  20 minutes