Literacy Narrative RD

Literacy Narrative
I sat there patiently while I anxiously waited for it to be my turn to read the story I
wrote. The cool breeze in the airtight classroom felt a little relieving on my sweaty palms as I
held up my book for all the other children and parents to see. There I was, at the big writing
conference that I had strived to attend all year in my third-grade writing class. The story that I
wrote was a huge hit in my class of about twenty students back at Greenwood Elementary and
Mrs. Nelson, my teacher, was very impressed with how funny and creative it was. All this
success boosted my confidence with writing immensely and eventually led me to accept the
class nomination as the writer who would get to attend the … Writing Conference. At this
conference were many other young, great writers who, like me, were voted by their classmates
to share their writing pieces with other young authors. There were also real authors at the
conference that would come and give us tips and pointers on how to take our writing to the
next level. I was very excited, but also very nervous to go share my writing with almost one-
hundred other students.
I showed up to a very small high school with my mom as we navigated through it looking
desperately for other kids and parents as we eventually found the packed room of strangers. A
leader split us up into ten groups with ten writers and one author, which made some of the
butterflies leave my stomach as we circled up. I was the last one in my group to share and as
each reader shared, the less confident I got about my story. “Why am I here Mom, all these kids
have way better stories than me” I nervously whispered to my mom. “Sweetie, you are a great
writer too, you are here for a reason”, she calmly replied. “Thanks mom, I didn’t see that
coming” I sarcastically replied. Finally, it was my turn as I stood up holding my book out, shaking
very slightly. I presented my story to the group and the author, Jeff Stone, and at the end
received a loud round of applause, which I was very surprised about. I eventually met with the
author after the other writers did and with the reaction I received after my story, I was excited
to see what Stone had to say. Stone began to throw out a few positives, such as the comedy
and plot of my story but then shocked me when he began to bash on my flow and lack of detail
within my story. This devastated me at first and discouraged me from writing more stories on
my own for fun. I choked up describing to my mom what Mr. Stone told me in our meeting and
supposedly exclaimed that “I hate writing”!
At an early stage of life, I was fascinated with many different types of stories. I was
constantly begging my mom to buy me new books so she could read them to me. My favorite
book that my mom read to me when I was younger was The Giving Tree, by Shel Silverstein.
That was the first book I learned how to read cover to cover. When I was five, my kindergarten
teacher told me I used to read chapter books to the class occasionally and was at a higher
reading level than most for my age. In early elementary school, I loved to read many different
chapter book series, such as The Magic Tree House, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and my personal
favorite, The Hardy Boys. I was a big fan of suspense and mystery books and tried to read as
many different books as I could. In second grade, we did a reading program that offered free
pizza to any kid who would read five books and would start over after you read five. This
program helped me become a better reader because initially, it gave me a good reason to start
reading more, but eventually, I truly enjoyed reading more new books. This enhanced my

reading ability as my teachers challenged me to read tougher books and helped me to admire
reading and literature in general.