Introduction

             Hello everyone! My name is Kimberly Guarquila. I’m a Psychology major at NJCU. This is my Junior year. My interests are painting, writing, and creating makeup looks. I also love to spend my time at work, I quite enjoy my job. I’m a dog walker and I spend most of my day with dogs and cats. I decided to take this class simply because I was very much interested in the class. I wanted to know more about the educational system in America, seeing as my main goal is to become a school psychologist.

            When I think back about my earliest memories and experiences dealing with literacy, I think back to when I was four years old and I was starting pre-school. In fact, at four years old that was the first time I’ve ever held let alone looked at a book. I had no idea what the book said, not only were the words in English, but I didn’t know how to read. It wasn’t that my parents felt the need not to teach me to read, but that they were always busy with work. They didn’t have time to tuck me into bed and read me a story like most children. They came home from long hour shifts to cooking, cleaning and by the end of the day, they were just exhausted. I also come from immigrant parents that didn’t know any English, meaning they couldn’t read or write in English. That being said all I ever knew was Spanish and going to a school that just spoke English was a very big change that had a very big impact on my development. Not only did I have to learn how to read and write, but I had to learn how to do it in English, which was a very big struggle. I started reading and writing very late at my age. As I got older I noticed that all the other children were ahead of me in their reading skills, while I was reading age or two behind. Although I found read and writing hard, I never gave up. My parents made sure that I never gave up. They didn’t want me to go through what they were going through. Their encouragement is what motivated me to keep going because I saw how my parents were struggling to read simple things like school notes or billing statements. 

            The older I became reading and writing because easier, well the reading did. I still sometimes find myself struggling with the writing part, mostly trying to get my thoughts and ideas on paper. I believe the moment I felt like I was literate was when I was in the second grade. I had finally caught up to everyone and was able to read at my age level. Although, eventually the older I became I grew to hate the thought of reading and writing. The only time I truly enjoyed writing was when we would free write in class. At this point, the only time I spent reading and writing was for school. I found it frustrating because I really wanted to get into books, but I just found them boring. Nothing really caught my attention until I went to high school and we starting reading The Great Gatsby; I fell in love with that book. My high school English teacher at that time would never follow the curriculum, so we ended reading want she found interesting. After the Great Gatsby, we moved on to A Street Car Named Desire, although it was a play, I loved it. My true love for novels came in when I was in my senior year and we read Pride and Prejudices by Jane Austin and I found myself reread that novel so many times. I fell in love with Jane Austin's words and then found myself branching out from Jane Austin to Emily Bronte. I moved away from novels and found poetry through Rupi Kaur. I was in a book shop one day and her cover is what drew me into her poetry book: Milk and Honey. I found her method of writing and impression so beautiful. I ended up related so much to her poems and I found myself writing poetry. She definitely inspired me to write poetry and read other author's poetry like R.H. Sin, who is also a favorite of mines. When I think about the role models that inspired read and writing all have to say it was Jane Austin, Emily Bronte, Scott Fitzgerald, and when it comes to poetry it has to be R.H. Sin and Rupi Kaur. 

            Now at the age of twenty-three, my feelings toward literacy have very much changed since high school, I love reading and writing to me it feels amazing to read a good book and get stuck into the novel. In my personal life, I still continue to use literacy apart from college obviously, I enjoy reading novels and poetry. I also love to write my own poetry based on personal events that happen to me or others and write fictional stories. One day I hope to publish a poetry book with all my poems. Rupi continues to inspire me into continuing to write poetry.  I felt like everything around me inspires me to write. I found that reading and especially writing during a time like this calms me. I very much found it therapeutic.