Literacy Narrative

Literacy Narrative

by Kevin Bowie

I grew up in a small town in Southwestern Michigan. It was one half of a "twin cities" area, with the cities feeling much more like small towns than anything else. Both cities rested along the shoreline of Lake Michigan, split by a relatively wide, but mostly calm river. On the North side of the river was Benton Harbor. A run-down, mostly poor community. By comparison, the other side of the river hosted a "rich" community called St. Joseph. Still to this day, it amazes me how it's possible to have these striking contrasts right next to each other. Although my family was far from rich, my parents did just enough to scrape by, so we could be lower-class citizens in the higher-end community.

This was important to them because these communities had vastly different reputations, and so did their school districts. Benton Harbor was known for its high crime rates and low graduation rates. St. Joseph was just the opposite, with a 98% graduation rate and education ranking within the top 10% of all schools in the state. It certainly was a blessing for me to be in the better school district, as I performed well there for many years. By middle school, my district as a whole was operating each class at multiple grade levels above what other schools were doing. And at that, I was still taking some advanced classes. I remember the struggles some kids had when they transferred in from out of town, and how they needed time and extra attention to catch up.

I can tell you for certain that there was nothing special about the water there (although it was delicious, and fresh from Lake Michigan) that made us better students. People will always adapt to their environment. Given the right opportunity, I believe most students in this country can and should be operating at a higher level than they are.

My first core memory revolving around learning to read and write goes back to first grade. I distinctly remember Mrs. Hahn, who seemed like she was about 470 years old. She was so mean, I went home and told my mom I thought she was a witch. We used a Phonics book, which had the starter letters already printed in them, and the lines to guide us on how we formed our letters.  Cat, dog, desk, duck... for each vocabulary word, there was a place to write it, with a picture of it above that space. 

Being the practical guy I am, even in first grade, I was eager to write out all of my vocabulary in the designated spaces. However, I had absolutely zero interest in coloring. Not because I was boycotting Crayola, but because I couldn't see how coloring pictures served my purpose of learning how to read and write. This was probably the beginning of my realization that I am not your average person. Somehow, I was not able to get any less weird as time went on.

Throughout elementary school, I wouldn't say I was an avid reader. However, I did benefit from a book-reading program sponsored by Pizza Hut. The 'BOOK IT!' program still exists today, and offers personal pan pizzas as an incentive for kids to read books. 

I remember getting sucked into fictional writing like H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, and the Redwall series by Brian Jacques. I loved the way that something as simple as printed words could activate my imagination, transporting me to another time and place, a different reality from the one I knew. Alien invaders and talking animals were driving storylines that had me emotionally invested in the outcome. The outcome of a reality that only exists on paper, in my mind, and originally, in the mind of the author. These printed words on paper were like a direct connection between my mind and the mind of the author. Someone I had never met and would never meet had been able to download into my mind something that had been completely fabricated by their mind. The realization of the power of writing was intriguing!

The next step was the advancement of writing through technology. My grandpa had a Commodore 64. It was a home computer from the 1980's and he had an external 51/4" floppy disk drive and some joysticks. With a case full of disks with different games on them, my brother and I loved to play them when we went to visit. Most of the games operated using the computer's 8-bit graphics capabilities. But one of my favorite games had no graphics whatsoever. It was called Zork, and it was one of the original role-playing games for the computer. Text would roll out on the screen, painting a picture of what your character could see. Then by typing in command prompts, you could interact with this text-based interactive computer world. Tell the character to look left or right, and you'd get a new screen describing what's over there. Instruct the character to move in that direction, and you'd get new details about what's surrounding you. You could pick objects up, open doors, find hidden passages, and explore dungeons. A goblin might appear out of nowhere, and you better make the right decision and type it in quickly or it would be game over!! The realization that a game that relied only on words could be as fun or better than the games that had moving pictures and sounds was astounding to me!

My last educational stop on this literacy narrative journey will be in 5th grade. My school had two 5th-grade teachers, and one of them was my friend's dad! I remember being disappointed when I didn't get his class. Although I'm sure he was a great teacher, I ended up loving Mrs. Stabalaar. Hindsight being 20/20, I think she had a writer's heart. A big portion of her class focused on writing. I remember one time when she told me a poem I had written was the best she'd ever seen from one of her students, and she had been teaching for decades. I believe she was being genuine when she said that, and it meant a lot to me. I also remember having time to collaborate with my classmates to write stories. I bonded with 2 of my friends over our shared love for peanut butter. We called ourselves the Peanut Butter Freaks, and wrote stories under this name. They were the most outlandish, ridiculous stories we could come up with. We had so much fun writing them, we'd be rolling on the ground laughing, with tears falling to the ground. I can only imagine what Mrs. Stabalaar thought when she reviewed our work, I hope it brought her joy as well. I think it did. And this is when I fully discovered the joy of writing.

So by 5th grade, I had come to understand the power of writing and how it can harness our imagination. I discovered the art of using it creatively, and empowering it with technology. I also learned that writing as an expression of yourself, whether creatively, intellectually, or emotionally, is one of the greatest joys. When I speak, I can be slow and methodical. I like to take the time to organize my thoughts and be intentional about my verbiage before conveying my message, because it's important to me that I am not misunderstood. People tell me that I am a gifted speaker, but my preferred method of communication is writing. Probably because I have much more time to be intentional about crafting my message. Over the years, whether by reading or listening, I have instinctively found patterns and qualities of communication that I find pleasing. As I write, I process through my internal monologue, bringing forth those same qualities I've learned I like. Typically the output is well received, as I've often been told how much people enjoy my writing.

I'm so grateful that the Lord has brought me here to TKU and orchestrated this English Comp class to be my very first one! Not long ago, a mentor told me it's better to work on improving your strengths than your weaknesses. It's a blessing that I have taken a class that has pushed me to write and create this website. I will be inspired to continue writing more!