Draft #1 Literacy Narrative

Justin Cho

English 110, Section SEK

Nargiga Matyabuboua

4 September 2017

Draft 1 of literacy Narrative

My interest in reading and writing would be almost none. I always found it exhausting and more than anything difficult to create an intricate cluster of words as a story. It was so funny teachers in elementary and middle school would always give me a book to read for summer break. That book was never to be seen again until I opened my bookbag again, which was when summer break ended.  The books would be then tossed into the corner of room and would eventually be thrown out because it was using up space. I now regret these decisions of mine as my interest in reading grew later in the future.

It was at high school, when I had an interest in shows called anime and gaming with friends. High school was boring, I would always just sit at my desk spinning my pencil with my two fingers until the bell would ring. I never really cared, studying was never done because once I got home all I did was play games and watch anime. If studying was not an option, then homework was worse, it was always left in my binder until I would do it the next day at class or at lunch. My mother would scold me for always playing games and just watching TV at the night. I did sense a pain of guilt for causing my mother to worry for my well-being but didn’t really try to do anything about it. This all changed at the end of freshmen year in high school, I almost failed half of my classes and that’s when reality hit me like a splash of ice freezing water.

All summer I would play games and anime, but in the back of my mind I was contemplating. That’s when sophomore year started, I told myself I must change. It was hard, my gaming and watching anime in the night after school was an addiction. Some improvement was that every day, at school I would give my complete attention to the teacher and left my pencil right on my desk. But, once I came home, I would eventually be on my computer playing games and watching anime. One day, me and my friends were playing League of Legends, while also talking about our core passions known as anime when he mentions how he loves to read manga as well and recommended me to try to read some as well. I have always heard of the term “manga” as most of my favorite anime shows such as “Death Note” were beautifully crafted first as a book, then into a comic which is called manga, and finally as a TV show called anime. But, I never read any manga because I hated reading and it was such a chore for the brain as well because it was basically reading but with less words. However, my friend kept persisting me to try at least one. I eventually fell into his requests and picked up one online, it was a complete eye-opening experience. There was so much more detail and depth, also the stories were told in a pace that well fitted the stories, while in anime some stories had to quicken the pace because some production teams had limited time as well as budget fees to worry about than their concern if an anime represented the creator’s work appropriately. This caused me to phase away from anime and gaming to spend more time on reading manga. After school, I would always just read manga until I was yawning on every page because of how late it would become. My interest in manga than further branched out into other things such as actually reading some of the text passages my English teacher would pass out in class and as well as the books. Therefore, since I would read the passages, I would always just do the homework as well because they were usually connected. This habit of doing my English homework caused me to also finish my other homework as well. Manga has changed me into appreciating reading and has made writing easier, because as I read more my vocabulary increased making it easier to write sentences. At the end of senior year my grade rose moderately, except for one class my English grades were my highest, which made me feel as all this manga was very helpful for me. Now, I don’t just read manga but as well as books online because they really do expand your imaginations more. Because, when we read books, we create the characters and basically making a little TV show in our brains. Manga has helped me in school and replaced some of the negative hobbies that I was unwilling to part with.