Language & Literacy Narrative Brainstorms Worksheet
Your name: Kritan Baniya
Instructions: Please respond to the questions that follow with as much detail and description that you can. The more you put into reflecting now on the complexities of your language and literacy development, the better off you’ll be in completing our major assignment for our first phase of this course. Take as much space as you need.
When it comes to your experiences with language (speaking and listening) and literacy (reading and writing), what specific moments in your life can you recall that are particularly vivid or that emerge as being significant to you? Yes, it could be an example from your earliest memories of learning to speak, read, and write (in school or elsewhere), but it doesn’t have to be. It could be a memorable encounter—a moment of tension, confusion, or triumph. It could be about experiences developing additional dialects/languages and advanced literacies (i.e., learning to speak/write in different peer groups, at school, at work, with family, online, in different locations across the nation or world, etc. Please select 3 moments to describe. Then, explain why each is interesting or significant.
1. When I was in 3rd grade and lived in Nepal, I didn’t know much English. Our teacher had made a rule that we could only speak English in the school building, and we would be punished if we spoke Nepali (our native language). However, the teacher didn’t speak English themselves and I was very confused and frustrated why they would make a rule for the students that they wouldn’t follow themselves.
2. After a few years of living in the US and going to school here, I realized that for the past few years I’ve only dealt with English Literature and haven’t touched Nepali literature in years. In the summer of my 7th or 8th grade, I volunteered to teach other Nepali kids in NYC their native language. That’s when I realized that I had basically forgotten how to read or write in Nepali, and could only speak it.
3. When I first moved to US, I used to watch a lot of anime, which was in Japanese. Thankfully they have English Subtitles, so I was forced to read. This is how I learned a lot of English when I was first learning the language.
What specific materials or artifacts (i.e., objects, writing, learning materials, pictures, video recordings, etc.) from your past can you locate/recall and that in some way represent a meaningful moment in your reading/writing development? This can be something like a journal or book, but also anything at all (e.g., a toy, piece of furniture, cereal box, art supplies, etc.) What memories and feelings can you extract from these examples you’ve gathered/recalled? Explain.
One artifact I can recall from the past is a full metal pencil sharpener that I got as a gift in like 1st grade. It looked different and was lot higher quality than the plastic sharpeners, so I used try keep it safe and not loose it. It was the tool used to make another tool used for writing, useable.
For better or worse, who and what impacted how, when, and why you developed your languages and literacies? Who in your family, at school, among your peer group, or in your community played a part? How did your particular situation or experience shape your literacy? That is, what sorts of issues, experiences, organizations, or life circumstances played a part? What kinds of languages and literacies did you gain from those people and your particular situation? How? Why? Explain.
Something that impacted the development of my language and literacies was a friend I met in 4th grade, who was also from Nepal. We both spoke Nepali, but he was way more fluent in English than me so he would help me a lot in my process of learning English. We spoke as much we could in English so I could learn and in Nepali when I didn’t understand something or wasn’t able to say something in English.
In what ways do you see your language, reading, and writing capabilities as having social consequences or impacting your life circumstances—that is, what advantages did/do you have and what disadvantages did/do you face as a result of your language and literacy learning?
I am bilingual so an advantage for me is that I can now read, write and understand English, but also speak Nepali to my older relatives, many who don’t speak English.
How might your experience with language and literacy connect to larger social realities (e.g., of your life, family, generation, gender, race, culture, nation, geographic location, historical moment, etc.)?
I think my experience with language and literacy connects to family and generation. When me and my family first immigrated to the US, my parents started working right away, while I went to school and got education. Therefore, I was able to learn English through the education system, however, my parents didn’t so they never got the chance to learn it as well as I did. So now, I often translate a lot of things to my parents.
