Personal Literacy

Reading and Writing: Understanding the World

Reading and writing help you understand the world around you better. It provides a means to richly improve the consistency of one’s actions against one’s surroundings. Reading and writing both produce tangible behavior that represents one’s worldview and perception. The act of understanding things begins at birth and lasts until the end of one’s life. It gives rise to interactions that define a person’s very identity, which he or she will carry with him or her throughout his or her life. Such encounters help to form stronger narratives that represent our view of the world around us. My own story reflects the same philosophy about my learned and acquired perceptions through the process of reading and writing right from childhood.

The Complexity of Language

It seems very simple when we say ‘language’ but, it is actually a very complex process. The language itself enables us to represent ourselves through words either spoken or written. Thus, it forms a basic entity of communication to make mutual understandings regarding the world we inhabit. Reading has always had a very huge impact on my mind, and it somehow shaped my personality to understand the world. I remember how I was fascinated when I first started reading Harry Potter. Even the presence of the book in my hands was itself a very strange feeling. The cover of the book fascinated me to greater levels and offered me a sense of maturity and excitement. I am quite sure that literary works affect greatly to the people who do take it as a part of their life either past, present, or future. However, I did try to write the similar stuff but, I wanted creative understanding of the world I live in which I was not able to put forward. The level of writing in Harry Potter is very high that clearly reflects the levels of imagination of the author, J.K. Rowling (A Whited 25). Honestly speaking, Rowling’s Harry Potter initiated a spark within me to write inventive stories full of imagination and inspiration.

The Evolution of Reading

My appetite for reading has started right from my childhood. I remember comics and cartoons that were a part of my life once. I never thought beyond such assets at that time. All I know was my understanding of the comical stories. As the time passed I changed both physically and mentally and so did my taste. I started reading stories that were mostly text-based or some may have an image or a painting included for better engagement. Such transition was quite natural but, I wanted to live those stories. I started imagining things the way the authors do. I even started writing and at most of the times I just finished the beginning of most of the stories. Such attempts were the direct result of my engagement with the literature and my interest in reading that developed a very keen curiosity of writing.

The Influence of Language

It would be very interesting to mention that most of friends would go under the similar phase. The conception of reading and writing initiated a developmental process of our individual personalities. For instance, the influence of language has a greater impact on the perception of the immediate surroundings around us. It offered better inspiration that could lead to improved reading and writing qualities. Sometimes I discuss certain things with my friends like how would have the author begun to imagine so and so. We were fascinated by the energy and accuracy of the authors to illustrate in a way making us believe that there exists such place. Reading such stuff really invoked rugged imaginations within my own small mind. I began to imitate the authors pick and come up with similar characters or situations. Such engagement was an evolution that resulted in my present perception towards the world before me.

The Impact of Teachers and Mentors

Parents, teachers, mentors, and friends do have a very good impact on my reading and writing choices and capabilities. I remember one of my teachers who did prepare me for healthier learning. She shaped my ideas and imaginations for better. It is because of her increasing care that I was able to write my first full story based on my own childhood. The story was about me being a superchild (like superman) who helps needy children. It was very fascinating because I learned a lot from it. It fashioned my insight towards being a good learner. One of the important lessons I learned from it was that ’producing something’ means ’learning something’. It is not like only when you know something then only you will be able to produce something. For me, it worked the other way. A teacher can invoke the best from the students provided he or she believes in all the stakeholders that impart real education.

The Challenge of Access to Books

It has not been that easy always. I was not able to get every book I wanted to read. Such constraints do have a very important impact on my reading abilities. It is because either the book was not present in the library or I was not able to rent or buy it. This is also one of the important phases of the reading behavior that is associated with the increasing thirst of going through the rich text of the book. It happened to me when I decided to read Harry Potter. Thus, it is very vital to have access to every book at the different stages of life. Such stages directly affected my reading and writing behavior. At times I would be very much confident to write a very good story because the book was accessible to me but, sometimes I would be very upset as the book I wanted to read seemed to do not exist anywhere on earth.

The Joy of Writing and Creative Interpretation

Besides the story about the superchild, I do write about other stuff. I am always excited about the imaginative stories that I do read regularly. Such quality has helped me to develop an enhanced understanding of the impact and importance of language and communication within the domain of human knowledge. Because of the consistent learning process, I am now able to creatively interpret the realities. I used to like fiction but along the way, I really like non-fiction stories because they do illustrate realities effectively. My changed perception is directly reflected through my emerging interests of writing things.

Changing Perceptions and Developing Personalities

Right from childhood, reading and writing shape the perception of the people. It is kind of an evolution that what people began to like at the start and after sometime they give that up and start liking something else. Such transitions directly reflect the complex behavior of the people who do want to learn about the world around them either in reality or in the imaginations. But, what is important is the consistent bombardment of the new ideas that do affect their personalities. May it be a new book or a new story, people start to enter into the skin of the author through reading and they create their own skin for others to come in through writing. Thus, it is a process of changing perceptions and developing personalities.

Reading and Writing: Expressing Existence

Reading and writing create rich narratives that do reflect the very existence of the people. I started to shape my own perceptions through consistent reading and writing that landed me with the present perception. Although it has been a big journey so far but, I learned important things regarding the language and communication. I started to experience introspection, intra-communication, and inter-communication to start with a difference. All such attributes came into being because of my exposure to diverse literary works including Harry Potter that shaped my perception towards reading and writing itself.

Works cited

A Whited, Lana. The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon. University of Missouri Press. 2004. p: 23-27