WRD 103 (Literacy Narrative Draft)

Jean Ho
Professor Nancy LaFever
Composition and Rhetoric I (WRD 103)
19 September 2019

Literacy Narrative Draft
“A C-plus?! Are you kidding me?”
I stared at the marked sheet of paper in front of me, struggling to digest the letter grade
that was about to taint my long-standing track record of As and cause my 7th Grade progress
chart to take a nosedive. Literature hasn’t always been my strong suit, but I could’ve sworn on
my own life that I was going to ace that test. I made sure I pored over the passage repeatedly,
forcing my brain to comprehend and absorb each and every word as though they were the Ten
Commandments themselves. I made sure I answered the literary analysis prompt as thoroughly
as possible, strategically extracting evidence from the text to delicately craft a concrete pillar for
my well-structured thesis to lean on. I even made sure to triple-check every detail perfectly; not a
single component of my literary jigsaw puzzle was to be left out or fixed in the wrong place. The
moment I placed my response on the chipped, weathered oak desk stationed at the corner of the
classroom, I genuinely (and naively) thought I had written the best essay of my entire schooling
life.
Apparently my teacher didn’t share the same sentiment.
“Relax, it’s only the first test of the year,” said my friend Brandon, who was sitting to my
left, “Why are you so hung up about this one?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, this class alone can ruin my overall academic record, which
gives me every reason to get “hung up” over a bad grade like the one right in front of me,” I
retorted, becoming slightly annoyed with his carefree demeanor. “I just don’t get it. I thought I

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Jean Ho
Professor Nancy LaFever
Composition and Rhetoric I (WRD 103)
19 September 2019
crushed that test! What part of the prompt did I not answer?” I grumbled, the gears in my mind
already beginning to turn, forming potential theories about the reasons behind my unanticipated
failure.

“I know you’re new here, but you seem pretty competent to me,” he replied, switching
out his nonchalant attitude for a more serious one. “I don’t think reading and writing has always
been a challenge for you, right?”

Despite being mildly offended by his question at that time, Brandon did have a point.
Reading and writing in English had been a walk in the park for me right up till that period of my
grade school experience, when it turned into a strenuous hike up a seemingly unending
mountain.

For context, let’s trace things back to where they all began, starting with a little snippet
about my heritage: I was born in Malaysia, a miniscule Southeast Asian country sandwiched
between Singapore and Thailand, but am descended from a long line of Chinese ancestry (my
maternal grandfather came into the country as an immigrant from China for economic reasons).
All in all, that makes me ethnically Chinese but Malaysian nationality-wise, which in turn means
having to learn two distinct native and national languages; with Mandarin being the former and
Malay the latter. However, my parents quickly realized the widespread impact of the English
language on both our local society post-colonization and on an international scale, along with its
significance of being a communication bridge that connected a wide range of cultures, providing
them with a common linguistic ground. As a result, they put everything else aside and decided

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Jean Ho
Professor Nancy LaFever
Composition and Rhetoric I (WRD 103)
19 September 2019
that bringing me up in an environment that emphasized the use of English was a top priority.
From the day I said my first words, I treated English like it was my first language. While other
kids were learning the basic mechanics of their own mother tongues, I was immersing myself in
a smooth, crisp paperback copy of ​Clifford the Big Red Dog​, embarking on his adventures by
making my way through the jet-black words printed on the pages. While other kids were trying
to grasp the fundamental concepts of writing symbols in their native language, I began dipping
my toes into the ocean of western works, inscribing my own short stories on scrap paper from
my parents’ office that are now lost to time, never to be found again. Although I did manage to
pack in some decent practice time to refine my Mandarin and Malay skills, English very rapidly
became second nature to me; it became an inseparable part of my identity.

Naturally, English classes were a breeze in elementary school. Because the public
education system taught it to students as a second language, my early exposure to the tongue put
me miles ahead of my peers. I passed my spelling tests with flying colors, and blew through all
of the assigned readings when the rest of the class was only halfway done. While my classmates
were occupied with building basic sentences from simple words like “birthday” and “garden”, I
was penning my own short descriptive essays, turning the scattered ideas from the crevasse of
my mind into structured phrases on paper. The constant dry, scratchy sounds coming from my
sharpened pencil tip made me stand out; I was a distinguishable target for my teachers to pour
endless gallons of praise over, fueling my own ego and a desire to continue my streak of
overachievements.

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Jean Ho
Professor Nancy LaFever
Composition and Rhetoric I (WRD 103)
19 September 2019

However, this living daydream was cut short the moment I transferred to an upper-class
private school in 7th Grade. The institution adhered to the United Kingdom’s education system,
and I was made to take additional English Literature classes on top of my regular courses. I then
realized the stark contrast between the reading and writing standards of the public and private
education sectors. Unlike my new peers, I was only trained to understand a text, memorize its
main message, and regurgitate that information out during tests; I was never taught how to read
between the lines and critically analyze the text’s deeper meanings in response to a prompt.
Getting that C-plus on my first ever Literature paper only made things significantly worse. I
began doubting my own literacy abilities in comparison to my classmates’---why was I doing so
terribly in a class that used the very language I had learnt to master since childhood? Did the
massive effort I put into my early schooling days mean nothing after all? Could I even read and
write properly? For the next four years, I struggled to comprehend the underlying messages of
the works we analyzed in class. The Shakespearean diction used in ​Romeo and Juliet ​and
Macbeth ​all sounded like an ancient, forgotten language of a lost civilization; the themes and
subtexts explored in Arthur Miller’s A​ View from the Bridge w​ ere like rocket science, and the
complex symbolism used in Chinua Achebe’s ​No Longer At Ease ​seemed to make sense to
everyone but me. I scraped by, turning in essays that barely made the passing grade to the
dissatisfaction of my teachers. What was once my favorite subject gradually became my most
dreaded, and I was trapped in an inescapable cycle of underperforming in tests and assignments.

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Jean Ho
Professor Nancy LaFever
Composition and Rhetoric I (WRD 103)
19 September 2019

Little did I know then that something momentous was about to alter my tarnished notion
of literary art.

In preparation for the UK-based International General Certificate of Secondary Education
(IGCSE) examination in 11th Grade, we were given an extensive list of poems to analyze for the
standardized paper. Deep down I knew that there was no room for failure; all the hard work you
put in over the course of those four years amounted to this one crucial assessment. Like a video
game, it was in essence the final boss fight, the ultimate trial that would determine your fate---if
the examination board members decided that your responses were not up to par with their
expected caliber, you would be failed on the spot. They were the gatekeepers of the high school
graduation checkpoint, and they served as the entities that eventually dictated who got to
advance to the next level of education and who didn’t. As per usual, I begrudgingly slumped my
way through the List of Literary Works I Didn’t Care About, until a name on the sheet caught
my eye. Amongst the sea of influential Caucasian poets featuring the likes of Robert Browning’s
Meeting At Night​, Wilfred Owen’s ​Anthem For Doomed Youth​, and Philip Larkin’s T​ he Trees,​
my attention was drawn to one particular man by the name of Boey Kim Cheng, a
Singapore-born Australian author of Chinese descent who wrote a poem called R​ eservist​.
Compelled by our similar ancestry and the fact that he was considered a minority within the list,
I shoved away my pre-established negative presumptions and skimmed through the piece.

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Jean Ho
Professor Nancy LaFever
Composition and Rhetoric I (WRD 103)
19 September 2019

What occurred next was remarkable. The poem mocked Singapore’s attempt at
militarization by having citizens participate in annual military training as reserve forces, and
compared the monotonous nature of such practices to those endured by knights in the middle
ages. Having been captivated by stories of warriors since childhood, I was blown away by the
astounding imagery used to vividly portray the experiences of these reservists, and how
creatively combined words like “annual joust” and “active cavalier days” added a glamorized,
fairytale-like tone to the overall poem, as though the reservists themselves were cast under a
delusional spell to always serve their country regardless of the toll it took on them. In retrospect,
one of the main reasons why I was able to understand this poem so easily was because of its
inspiring yet relatable ending. If there was even a slight chance that something good could come
out of the reservists’ seemingly pointless endeavors, perhaps I too could achieve something if I
put in the same effort. Contrary to the poem’s message, I was determined to prove that Sisyphus
was indeed a myth; the results of laboriously pushing the boulder up that mountain would
eventually come to fruition.

From that point on, I spent the next two months in a crash course-like state, vigorously
training myself to learn the ways of interpreting the messages and ideas hidden beneath the
written works we analyzed. There were times where I struggled to keep up with the progress
made by the rest of the class, but that only drove me to push beyond my boundaries and work on
the pieces with every spare second I had. Slowly but surely, I grew to have a newfound
appreciation for the very same poems, plays, and novels I used to disregard. The books that used

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Jean Ho
Professor Nancy LaFever
Composition and Rhetoric I (WRD 103)
19 September 2019
to smell like stale, worthless artifacts now carried a sweet and biblichor scent. Like the substance
that flowed in the veins of ancient Greek gods, my own body had been taken over by the years,
decades, and centuries of wisdom concealed within those pages, provoking an irresistible urge to
read on and immerse myself in realms built by writers I have never even met. I was transported
back to my younger days, turning me into that same young bookworm that wanted to join
Clifford on his adventures. I then took the bold step of attempting to write full-length literary
analyses with set time limits to simulate exam conditions, becoming absorbed in navigating my
way through the labyrinth of words until the shrill, piercing calls of my alarm pulled me back
into reality, signalling the end of yet another test practice. Come 11th Grade finals week, I was
no longer doubting my capabilities. I responded to the prompts with ease and confidence, putting
all the new knowledge I had cultivated over those two months to good use.

“So, how was it for you?” asked Brandon as we exited the exam hall.
“I think I did a decent job,” was my only response.
I did more than just “a decent job” alright. I ended up scoring an A-plus for that paper,
and needless to say, I was over the moon. If it hadn’t been for Boey Kim Cheng’s masterpiece, I
would’ve remained indifferent to literature as a whole and continued unperforming in my
English classes, blind to the influential impact it can have on readers. He is a wordsmith in his
own right, and I will always be inspired by how he, too, treated the language like his own native
tongue and went on to make magical things out of it. Now, whenever I question my own literacy
abilities, I’ll recall the time I got that C-plus, and reflect on how far I have come since then.

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