Literacy Narrative

Greg Warman   

10-2-12

English 1510

Literacy Narrative

                The first point in my life that started to mold my literacy was in 8^th grade when my 60 year old teacher, Mrs. James taught me how to diagram sentences.  She would stand there in front of the class in a floral dress that ranged from pink, to purple, to blue, to red, and back to pink.  She had your typical white, poofy/curly “old-lady-hair.”  Mrs. James always seemed to have an intimidating smile on her face that was accompanied by two grey glaring eyes; two eyes that gawked directly into your soul if you were to ever act up. The combination of her smile and eyes turned her into a villain-like being.  Every day, we all dreaded going over our homework.  Person after person would get called on to go up to the chalkboard to diagram the sentence she had assigned you.  Everyone knew to work diligently and effectively, setting off the subject and verb with the correct line.  At the same time, everyone feared screwing up.  Anyone who would mess up would face the heart-sinking, face-melting, degrading noise from Mrs. James: “Uh, uh, uhh… Something’s not right there…” As soon as you would turn around from the board, your eyes would meet hers.  The room would be screaming with absolute silence. Her eyes laughed in your face at the mistake you had just made, no matter how trivial it might have been.  The worst part about the confrontation about to take place was not only that you made a mistake, not only were those soul-less eyes staring at you, but that deviant smile was always on her face, almost as if it was the only thing that kept her from chewing off your face.  She would then go on to correct your mistake in an almost ridiculously polite way, but her voice was devastating and shrill.

                Basically, I learned how to diagram sentences out of pure fear of making a mistake and dealing with the wrath of Mrs. Fels.