5th Grade Experience
Guerra, Theron

>>THERON: Alright, hi, my name is Theron Guerra, I'm a freshman at DU [Inaudible] multi-modal writing. Here is my literacy narrative. In fifth grade I began to be more familiar with the computer. I remember always typing stuff on the computer and not really paying too much attention to it because we had stuff like spell check and grammar check so I always thought I could get away with not really editing my papers that much. I was only in fifth grade but I really had a problem with run on sentences. I never liked to put periods so I kind of got a head start on complex sentences I guess. It actually hindered me because I would just never put periods until I finished my thought. I always got marked down for it but I never understood why because of my spell check I was perfect and there was no mistake so what's wrong with my grammar? They were like, "It doesn't flow." That's what my fifth grade teacher said, Mr. Hughes, I'll never forget Mr. Hughes. He is a balding man with big glasses and very eccentric about writing. Fifth grade was the first year that we switched classes for subjects because before then we just had one home room that we stayed in. In fifth grade I had a different teacher for math, a different teacher for writing; it was intense and each class was divided and basically I was in the "smarter" class. We had harder texts to read. We had classics like "Where the Red Fern Grows" and things like that. I just remember going to the computer lab a lot and not understanding that I always kept writing run on sentences. Finally I figured out that spell check doesn't work and he had to point it out to me because he could be a very intimidating teacher at times especially when you're only in fifth grade. One thing that I do remember about computers is that it taught me how to save time. Even during fifth grade we had to take the CSAP which was the Colorado standardized test for public schools in Colorado up until tenth grade and since third grade. I remember Mr. Hughes saying, "Why don't they just make the CSAP on the computer?" It would take a lot less time because for the writing part of the test we had to hand-write our essay twice, once for the rough draft and then we had to rewrite the entire essay for our final draft for the test instead of just using the computer to correct our mistakes and then resubmitting it; it was a lot longer process. So that was two of my insights into my literacy beginnings and now I've furthered my literacy as of today and tomorrow and every other day.