Evolution

My earliest memory of a technique used to teach me how to read was a group of laminated images of letters that my kindergarten teacher put in the middle of the classroom. Each letter had a picture of something that started with that letter alongside it. I have a clear memory of the letter D on that chart because the image used for D was the picture of a dolphin. I had a huge interest in marine biology when I was younger. My kindergarten teacher gave us assignments in which we wrote down each letter in their uppercase and lowercase forms. She also read stories to us that helped me develop my imagination.

Most of the memories I have of the ways my first, second, third, and fourth grade school teachers taught me how to read and write have faded out of my mind. But I do remember doing a lot of reading comprehension assignments, vocabulary tests, and video watching.

Excerpt from "What if…there was a Monster in my Refrigerator"  (I wrote this in 1997)

I was getting a snack one day. While I was getting a loaf of bread, a monster grabbed it and ate it. Then, I went to get a piece of cheese, and he ate that too.

Then the monster jumped out and said, “I haven’t eaten in days. Will you give me some food?”

I said, “Yes”

He said, “I want to be your friend. Please, please, please.”

I said, “Yes”

He jumped back into the refrigerator and said,

“Good night, Jacob”

Then my brother came into the kitchen and saw the monster.

He said, “Cool Monster.”

The next morning, the monster came out of refrigerator and said,

“Good bye.”

He told me that he was going to the planet Mars. He left and I never saw him again.

In fifth grade, I became more mindful of the ways in which my teachers taught us different subjects and my memory of that class is clearer than that of all my other classes. The teacher I had in my fifth grade class was my first male teacher, named Mr. Kriech. I consider him to be the best teacher I had in elementary school. One of the main techniques he used to teach us the meanings of complex words was to give us “Marva Collins” vocabulary word lists. These Marva Collins vocabulary words were rather advanced words that many people don’t use often. If I could get a glimpse of a Marva Collins list again, I would probably know the meaning of a few of the words on that list. For example, to this day I still remember the meaning of the word proboscis, an elongated appendage from the head of an animal, because that was a Marva Collins word.

Outside of elementary school, the sponsors of my literacy were my parents, clergymen, and I could list myself as a sponsor as well. When I was young, I remember having devotionals with my parents in our living room in which we would sing Christian hymns, read a passage of scripture, offer a prayer, and study different passages from the Bible. At church, different preachers and teachers encouraged the congregation to study and memorize scriptures from the Bible. There was a time when almost everyone at my congregation memorized and quoted entire books of the Bible. I memorized the book of James. To this day, I’m able to quote a large portion of it. 

Excerpt from the Book of James (KJV)

James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad, greeting.

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord.

A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted:

But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.

For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways.

Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.

Elementary school was also the time when I developed an interest in going outside what my teachers, parents, and religious leaders were teaching to me to acquire my own literacy. Throughout elementary school, I was interested in marine biology, zoology, paleontology, and the performing arts. I went to the library whenever I could to get books about these topics.

During middle school and high school, my parents decided to homeschool my siblings and me. My mother told me the reason she and my father decided to homeschool us was they were unsatisfied with the IPS system. She said she and my father were unsatisfied with the way IPS handled bullying, which wasn’t addressed in the late 90s as much as it is today. And she gave me an example of IPS’s poor teaching techniques when she said they showed my sister and her classmates The Lion King, an obviously unscientific film, to teach them about animals. They considered private school, but because it was too costly, they decided to homeschool us.

I know of many homeschoolers who have said they hated homeschool and were glad to finally come out of it when they graduated. But I enjoyed homeschooling. It had a profoundly positive influence on my life, personality, and literacy. As far as my reading and writing are concerned, my parents gave us English textbooks and educational software that they assigned my siblings and me to read and study. The assignments we did focused on reading comprehension, English literature and grammar, vocabulary, and writing. I remember reading novels like The Odyssey, Hamlet, and Jane Eyre.  

When I came closer and closer to college, I began to write essays for scholarships. But I needed someone to edit my scholarship essays. A professor of English who had been, and still is, a friend of my family helped me write my scholarship essays. Even though she told me I, at that time, used too many prepositions, she told me my writing was much better than that of many of her students. I had considered being an artist and a history professor beforehand. But when she made this positive comment about my work, I discovered that I had a talent I could one day turn into a career. This is when I decided to major in English.       

Excerpt from “The Perfect Day” (I wrote this for a scholarship in 2004)

So there I sat, alone, in a busy hallway of an enormous hospital, waiting impatiently. Let me back up and get straight to my point here. Why on earth have so many bad things happened to me? Amy and I had been married for about three years, and during that time I’d been working in public relations at a community college. My boss was a very kind and understanding businessman, and my salary was pretty fair. Then the children started coming, and you know how that is. Suddenly, the money the we once spent for our own personal enjoyment now had to be spent on things like diapers, doctors, milk, toys, bottles, rattles, and everything else babies need. I soon realized

that I desperately needed a new job that offered better wages.

In my homeschool years, I became even more serious about developing my literacy outside of school. As homeschoolers, the library was one of the main places my family and I visited to find schoolbooks. Our constant trips to the library are what made me form an attachment to it. In my first few years of homeschool, I would ride my bike to the Broad Ripple Library and, when they moved, to the Glendale Library to find books on the topics I mentioned above (i.e. marine biology, zoology, paleontology, and the performing arts).

As I matured, my interests shifted to subjects like theology, philosophy, history, psychology, science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, and creative writing. I learned about theologians and the diverse theologies different churches have. I learned about different European and American philosophers and their philosophies. I learned about historical figures and found out how their theologies and philosophies influenced their actions. I learned about different genres of historical fiction, science fiction, and fantasy, and I became sort of a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien. And I learned a few things about the workings of the human mind when I read a little about psychology.  

After about seven years of homeschool, I reentered the world of public education when I went to Ivy Tech. I took seven courses that helped me improve my literacy: English Composition, two Spanish courses, Public Speaking, two American Literature courses, and Exposition and Persuasion. In the English Composition course, my professor reinforced much of what I already knew about writing. I also wrote four different essays, two were informative and persuasive essays. On the last day of that class the professor told me I had received one of the highest scores anyone ever received in his class. My success in this class gave me reason to believe I could succeed in future courses that would help me improve my literacy.  

I took two Spanish classes in which I learned, among other things, Spanish vocabulary, Spanish verb conjugation, and Spanish phrases. In my Public Speaking class, I learned a little about rhetoric when I learned that you can appeal to your audience’s reason, emotion, and moral sensibilities to convince it to accept your point of view. In the two online American Literature classes I took, my classmates and I read and gave reviews and presentations of literary works such as The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Catcher in the Rye, and The Old Man and the Sea. In my online Exposition and Persuasion class, I learned more about rhetoric and wrote different essays in which I tried to convince my readers to accept my views on different topics.

My years at Ivy Tech mark the time in which the responsibilities of young adult life began to transform my mind. Going to college part-time and working full-time at the Eli Lilly Technology Center on Harding St. left me with little time I could devote to developing my own literacy outside of class. Even though I took philosophy and history courses at Ivy Tech, the deeply passionate interest I had in learning theology, philosophy, psychology, and history grew less intense as I began to focus on what I considered to be more important: getting a degree that enabled me to get a high-paying job.

Excerpt from “The Death of Adolf Hitler” (I wrote this in 2013 for a World History course)

When people mention Adolf Hitler’s name dark and disturbing images of oppression emerge in their minds. Hitler was the notorious chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. He transformed Germany into a totalitarian autocracy based on Nazism. And he was one of, if not the, main instigator of World War II in Europe. During his time as chancellor, Hitler orchestrated the Holocaust and was not only responsible for the deaths of over six million Jews but also millions from within and outside his own country. German historian Joachim Fest writes that never before had so many lives, cities, and regions been devastated as much as those that were destroyed in the fall of the Third Reich (Fest, 2004).

     When the Allied forces eventually pushed Hitler back to Berlin where he, and many of his top dignitaries, hid in his bunker, Hitler eventually lost all hope of victory. Hence, he took his own life – on April 30, 1945 – along with many of his supporters who were there with him in the bunker.

The stress I had from the difficulties I was facing in college, the depression I had from struggling against weakness in my own mind, and the sheer boredom I experienced almost on a daily basis are what influenced me to delve more deeply into creative writing. Writing fiction became both a way for me to express the intense emotions I was feeling at this time in my life and a way to temporarily escape the dull and constantly frustrating world I lived in every day. I became even more interested in fantasy, sci-fi, horror, historical fiction, and thrillers during this period of my life, even though I have only read a few novels in those genres. Whenever I could, I would go to the library or search the web for hours for resources on how to write compelling fiction. And I began several fiction writing projects that I am still working on today.

Excerpt from “Do you also wish to go away? (John 6:67)” (I began to write this in 2005 and finished it in 2014)

As my time on earth

Continues to transpire

The strength of my inner enemies

Seems to grow ever higher
​

Fear and doubt comes to me

At different points in time

And the mountain of my life

Seems almost impossible to climb


As storms of trials

And tribulations blow

My faith struggles

As I fight against my foe


But my loving God

Is asking me today

Will you stay with me?

Or do you also wish to go away?


At every turn there is

Some new temptation or test

It seems that I never

Get a chance to rest


I may escape

To the comfort of my home

But that’s also a place

Where demons roam


When the darkness of despair

Seems to break down my mind

When liberation

Is almost impossible to find


My holy God

Has something to say

Will you stay with me?

Or do you also wish to go away?  

As the years go by, my literacy will continue to grow. At IUPUI my literacy is expanding every week as I learn different writing styles and read documents from all sorts of different sources. To further increase my knowledge of human thought, the human mind, and human history, I will continue to read about theology, philosophy, psychology, and history in books and on the web. Finally, when I attain a bachelor’s degree, I will continue to perfect my writing by reading writing books and by reading writing resources from the web. Will I become as world-famous as authors like Ernest Hemingway or Stephen King? Most likely not. But fame has never been and never will be my goal. I only wish to use the interests I have and the talent God gave me to make a positive impact on people’s lives. ​​