Self Education and Changing Life
Bosley, Ryan (2009-02-26)

>>Ryan Bosley: 

	My name is Ryan Bosley, and I'm going to tell you about my literary narrative of growing up till now for childhood to being an adult.  My first experience with literature came when I was in elementary school I went to [Britain Hill?] Montessori Elementary, and I had a lot of teachers that believed in me, and principals as well, that took the to help build up my reading skills, my writing skills, and would help me perfect now what I'm trying to do with life.

	Growing up, always been a big reader, with literature, just reading different types of books.  Guess I grew up reading more of a Goosebumps books, and as a child, reading whatever I could my hands on.  My mother and grandmother always bought me some type of book to read, and then when I became the age of seven or eight, I really started to begin more reading of bigger books, novels, started reading more books about different people, different authors, biographies, when I started getting interested more in it, and I started to get it fourth or fifth grade.  And later on in that same time period, Mom always raised me in church, so I started to read the Bible.  I took the time from being seven and eight and nine years old, all those years of my life to really sit there and read the bible, study the bible and really get a good concept of it myself so I could have a better teaching of religion and how it affected my life now, and for the past, and for the future.

	But my real impact with literacy is when I got to high school. Basically had a cumulative GPA of 0.8. Going to high school, just really didn't focus like I should've, but then, between my junior and senior year I went to summer school and took an English class. And with this English class, during the whole summer, I wanted to be able to achieve of getting a good grade, because I had a professor or a teacher before that told me I wouldn't achieve nothing. She even told me I was bad at literature skills and everything, and I knew I wasn't. So that motivated me to not only succeed in life but kinda prove to her that I'm not what she thought, that she shouldn't have judged me. So between that summer, I sat there and I picked up the book, and the book I picked up was the autobiography of Malcom X, as told to Alex Haley.

	I studied the book, I read it. It had a major impact on my life from that time on til now, and after I read that book, I did basically the same- I saw what Malcolm X done- I copied out every word single word in the dictionary throughout that whole summer. I took the time to isolate myself, to start reading more books. I start reading of different books from..."[From] Slavery to Freedom" is one I read, I read "Sula" from Toni Morrison, I just started reading more books about my culture, because I wanted to be able to have a better understanding of where I came from, where I originated from, and how it ties into my religion, and then my politics in general. 

	Basically, I went back to high school my senior year. Had to make up 10 different classes, from my junior, sophomore, and freshman year, from failing them. I took what was called credit recovery, and passed basically all my English classes, except the one my junior year with the teacher that doubted me. So, when I went to my senior year I focused myself on reading, I did a lot of reading, did a lot of writing. Actually wrote a speech, the first speech I wrote is called, "How Can We Change?" Because, at that moment, it came to me where I used Bible scriptures as well, inside the speech. I didn't approach it just from my personal reasons, but what I see in religion, and what I saw into the world, and what politics. So it really embraced what, I felt, meant for me and the word of God.  But that whole time of reading and focusing on my grades and everything, I ended up making Honor Roll, had perfect attendance, ended up getting a Future Community award for a Future Community Leader. I actually had different professors and teachers helping me out in high school, different people believing in me. 

	I just kept trying to stay focused, kept trying to read more books, and by time the end of the year came...I noticed I wasn't able to do activities in the beginning, wasn't able to do senior activities, because I wasn't at senior status, I was at sophomore status my senior year. Later on, they saw a change in me where teachers started letting me do the activities later on in the year, and I started passing my classes for Credit Recovery as well. After realizing what was going on, I went back to that teacher, and I showed her what I did, and the improvement, and how I had an "A" in the same class over the summer which she had taught in the school year in my junior year. Next thing I know, she gets up, hugs me, says she's proud, because she wanted to use that to motivate me, to help me get more in tune with my literature practices and my writing skills. From that moment there, I had teachers that read the speech I wrote and they wanted to enter it into national contests, just because of how emotional it was. Had teachers come and tell me that it made them cry, made them change their life, look back in their past about things they have done. So I really put an impact not just in my life, but with other people's lives as well. 

	Later on, became a mentor to some of the younger grades in my high school, because I felt I was seeing them going to a life of crime or I saw them just selling drugs and I telled them how to stop, and where their life would be at if they didn't began to make a change in their life, and they did take approach to that. But after I graduated, I noticed I still struggled with proficiency test, just the math portion, and I went ahead and passed that over the summer after my senior year, but I did graduate with some of my class members at a different ceremony over the summer. I didn't get to graduate with my class, but that there, as graduating, I had a cumulative of 3.7 for the year. 

	So just reading the book of Malcolm X had changed my life dramatically, not only help raise my GPA, but it helped me see the practices of what I wanted to do as a future leader, and what I want to help the community with and I just want to help tell my story the way I want it to be told. It also encouraged me to start writing my book about my life. I want to write an autobiography, which I have started. I've been starting it since my senior year of high school, and it will still have to be worked on, completed, but what I want to do with my book is...I saw if Malcolm X's book had changed my life, it can reach one person, hopefully mines can reach somebody else's.