Writing a Literacy Autobiography challenges you to connect with your early literacy experiences. Try and put into words your present literacy habits based on those early experiences. How does your personal literacy “history” affect you as you will become a literacy teacher? In everything you teach, even math, you should be encouraging children to read and write. Usually how we were taught to read and write becomes our own model of literacy. This task will provide you with a concrete example of your own writing, a prompt for literacy conversations with adult learners, and a baseline from which you can set your own personal literacy goals.
If you think about the quote, “If you don’t know where you have been, how will you know where you are going?” it shows how we as educators have to retrace our literacy heritage in order to meet our students where they are and go forward with them. Every experience you have had with reading and writing influences your attitude toward those skills, colors your attitudes, and in part, determines how effective you will be in helping your students become the best readers and writers (listeners, speakers, viewers, and users of technology) that they can be.
Step back in time and connect to the child that was “us” when we first dabbled with reading and writing. This trip might involve talking to relatives, past teachers, friends, etc., who remember you and your experiences at that time in your life.
