The 5PM Show

An object that holds great significance to my literacy development are composition notebooks. Not just any composition notebook though, they specifically had to be the one with bright colors. Throughout my time in elementary school and a little bit of middle school, my father used to hold diction/spelling lessons for my sister and I after school. Everyday he’d call us into the living room around 5PM and we automatically knew to grab our notebook and sit by the table. He’d then pull out his phone and search up words to have u spell out, most of the time he’d use this website. I remember these moments as if they were yesterday, not because I enjoyed it, but because of how much I dreaded it. However, as much as I dreaded those days, these lessons held a huge impact on my literacy development. I was able to gain a high level vocabulary at a young age, read and write well, and much more. This notebook is a constant reminder that although things may seem difficult right now, it will all be worth it at the end.

My father never got to graduate high school, and my mother never got the opportunity to attend college. My parents never had the best literacy skills when they came to America, however they both made sure my sister and I received the best learning tools to get the education they never had. We were a low income family at the time so we weren’t able to afford the tutoring services that were offered around our area, but that didn’t stop my dad from finding a way around that. One night after work he came home with the two colorful composition notebooks and called us into the room. He had told us to open the notebook and began blurting random words and telling us to write it down. We did this for about an hour nonstop and after he’d reviewed everything we wrote. For every word we spelled wrong, we had to rewrite it 50 times! My sister and I were utterly shocked, we didn’t know if he was joking or being serious at the time. We then did the same thing the next day, and the next, and then for the next 5 or so years. Even if my dad had come home later than usual, we would all still meet up at our dining room and go over more words. At the end of the week, my dad would hold quizzes and have us spell out the words that we hadn’t gotten wrong that week. Despite hating the lessons, I began to notice that as each day moved forward, the number of words we were rewriting became less and less. As the years went by we were learning more things each time, from spelling, to reading and formulating sentences, and then onto remembering definitions and much more. I am forever thankful that my dad had motivated me and pushed me to learn and develop such useful skills at a young age that I was able to use for the rest of my life.

I began to see that these lessons took into effect when I was doing amazingly well in my English classes. I had attended a tutoring class for my state test exams, yet it was as if I didn’t need it since I was always scoring a 4 on every essay. Then moving onto middle school I was thriving as I was continuously winning all the class spelling bees, earning high grades on my assignment and much more. I would often get honor roll awards because of my exceedingly good grades in my English classes. Moving forward to high school, I was placed into honor classes all 4 years. The best part about this all would have to be receiving an award for English- High Honors at my graduation. This award meant so much to me as it showed me that the struggles I went through to improve my literacy truly paid off. Not to mention how proud my parents were to see me do what they never got the chance to. Being from a low income family and parents that were never fluent in English, my parents still did everything in their power to push me into making use of every learning opportunity I received.

My literacy relates to my interest in American Musicals because of how unique it is to learn about American Musicals. I chose to take this class because it really caught my eye compared to the other classes that were offered. This class stood out to me the most because American Musical always sounded interesting to me, but I never got the chance to officially learn about it so I felt that taking this class would be a great opportunity. By taking this FIQWS course, I hope to learn more about the evolution of American Musicals from its roots to current Broadway shows. I also want to learn more about the deeper meaning that these musicals hold, whether it be the class, race, gender or any issues that were going on during that certain time. I was at first nervous to enroll as I’ve had no previous experience with American Musicals, but I realized if I didn’t do this now, it was never going to happen. After seeing how many don’t have the opportunity to afford taking classes, I should at least make the most of my learning experience and not let a small doubt stop me from chasing my interests.