Literacy History

Literacy History                                                                     Vol. 1

Introduction

Hi, my name is Emily Bruck and I will be a junior in the fall. I attend NJCU in partnership with the Joffrey Ballet School Jazz & Contemporary program in New York City. I am majoring in Dance and minoring in Political Science. I am from Fairfax, Virginia, and I started dancing at the age of 3 years. My interests include hiking, politics, history, journaling, writing, listening to music, and coffee. I took this class because I would love to get better at writing and ways to organize my thoughts on paper. 

I have always been told that I love to talk. I am the youngest child with siblings 5 and 7 years older than me. I looked up to my siblings growing up. My mom signed me up for dance at three because I wanted to be like my older sister. I learned how to count in dance class. I always wanted to read the same books and watch the same shows my brother and sister were watching, however, I never really enjoyed reading like them; I got bored easily and was not particularly fast either which bothered me. I did, however, love spending time with my mom. When I was around six or seven years old I would go to her room every night and sit in her bed with her while she would wind down and read her people magazine. Together we would read each page out loud. My favorite part would be getting to the crossword puzzle near the end of the magazine and she would let me write the answer down. This helped me form a better relationship with reading because I didn't associate it with mandatory school reading, it was fun. 

I was in third grade when I found history interesting for the first time. We were learning about the different ancient cities and their cultures. That interest continued through middle and high school where I took the highest levels of history because I was so interested. I love writing about it and learning from different world perspectives. Most of these classes were writing-based and that was the first time I felt excited to be challenged to write. Having ADHD, the thing that frustrated me the most was starting to write and organizing my thoughts. I always have to make an outline before I write or else it would make no sense. Writing took a while but was extremely calming. The other challenge I had was finding a way to explain ideas or concepts for other people to understand, because I understood the topic, however, my explanation was unclear to the reader. One of my biggest role models in life has to be my grandma. She had a Ph.D. in English and was a professor for most of her life. She would help read my essays and tell me if the sentences made sense. She often times did not know what I was writing about so being clear was crucial. I loved writing papers. I felt accomplished and articulate. 

Today, I feel very confident in my literacy but in an extremely different way than I did in middle and high school. I felt very confident in my ability to write and explore my thoughts on paper while I lacked the ability to organize my thoughts when speaking. Now that I am in a more artistic setting at Joffrey and less of an academic setting, I have learned to take time and organize my thoughts before speaking, the same as I would do if I was writing a paper. Again, my ADHD makes my verbal explanations of things a little crazy getting from point A to B without segwaying to G first. Now, I tend to listen to music more than ever before, where as a kid I rarely did. I love watching Broadway shows having that as my goal after school. The thing that continues to inspire my literacy development is my watching dance. They say dance is a universal language and I completely agree. Being able to understand what dancers are trying to convey without words is so extremely important and it continues to inspire me in my personal and professional life.