Elizabeth+Shukri+Baran-Bouladian

Is Literacy Collaborative Heath's Article (Elizabeth) Writing as Praxis-Elizabeth-Jan31 Writing Processes and Practices-Elizabeth-Feb 7 2012 Comment on Dawn's post : http://verbafacture.wikispaces.com/message/view/Writing+Processes+and+Practices+-+Clark+%26+Ivanic/50245856 February 8 Amazing comment by Goldie: http://verbafacture.wikispaces.com/message/view/January+17%2C+2012/50247338 February 8 Literacy is not autonomus but social-Elizabeth February 8 Reply to post: http://kjkrug.wordpress.com/2012/02/06/gee-reminds-me-of-a-marriage-proposal-dilemma/#comment-8 February 8 Elizabeth's reflection on chapters 12 and 19 Gee on Ideology-Elizabeth Elizabeth-HAlR Chapter 9 Elizabeth-03-16-12 Chapter 14 Elizabeth-Chapter 17 HALR I agree with Goldie on AAVE ELizabeth-04-05-12 HLAR chapter 22 Elizabeth-04-06-12-Chapter 23 Elizabeth-04-07-2012-Chapter 8 Elizabeth-04-08-2012 HALR Chapter 18 Elizabeth-04-08-2012 HALR Chapter 6 Response to Goldie's on-Let's stop teaching writing. Response to Teresa's Literacy Over the last few weeks Elizabeth 04-23-12 response to Goldie's April 17 update

Elizabeth Baran-Bouladian

Professor Tucker

English 515

22 January 2012 Literacy Memoir

// Pages From The Heart // 11 Your sisters will be with you You’ll see. School is nice! I got on the jungle gym Soon a bell rang The children lined up I looked around in panic Oh! Where are my sisters? My sisters have abandoned me too. Come on, cajoled Miss Sarah Let’s go into class It’ll be fun. I can’t remember how But somehow I made it through the first day of school.
 * __ The first day of kindergarten __**

The above poem and the following poem are from my book //Pages from the Heart.// I self-published the book in 2009, and as you can see one poem is on page 11 and the other is on pages 25-26. When I wrote the poems in 2006, I didn’t even have a clue that I am writing about my own literacy or that I will take English 585 or English 515, and will have to reflect on literacy as a whole and my own in particular. “Freedom” is a simple poem, but it is from my depths. I still appreciate reading and writing, and if a day passes in which I don’t read something that teaches me a new lesson or reaffirms previous knowledge, then I have not exercised my freedom that day.

// Pages From The Heart // 25 I can read! I can read! I told my sister but she didn’t show much cheer She could already read But I was full of glee I could read my textbooks Without much effort I finished half the stories in my reading book the first day The other half the next day. A story about a mother and daughter saddened me My eyes welled with tears I started loving my mother even more Mother noticed that I could read She flooded me with children’s books I was Cinderella one day Joan of Arc the next I went to India or America by the flip of a page My horizon expanded I read my sister’s books I read to enjoy I read to remember I read to grow I didn’t have to ask questions anymore I just read the answers. // continued // // Pages From The Heart // 26 To read is to live over and over To read is to be free Good bye childhood I can now read.
 * __ Freedom __**

Elizabeth Baran-Bouladian

I was elated in the summer after I finished third grade to find out that I could read any unfamiliar text, and actually understand and enjoy my reading. The texts were my older sisters and brother’s textbooks. I in no way claim that I read and understood physics texts, but I read all the English and Arabic literature texts. I have five older brothers and sisters, so there were lots of books to read. I liked reading their books, sleeping in their beds, and wearing their clothes, which annoyed them a lot. I was a regular brat.
 * __ Rewinding the tape: __**

I read the expository reading selections but skipped questions and exercises related to the texts. If a text did not appeal to my childish mind, I simply flipped the page.

As for my own textbooks, I liked reading the history of the Middle-East and I finished reading my history and geography books early on in the school year. I hated grammar texts and grammar exercises in both English and Arabic but could write using correct grammar. I particularly disliked parsing.

When I finished elementary school, something very significant happened. I was looking forward to starting middle-school at Aleppo College for Girls. The school could not accept me because I was only ten years old. You had to be eleven to enroll in seventh grade. The only thing my mother could do was to have me repeat sixth grade because I couldn’t be left alone at home. All my friends and classmates moved on while I stayed behind and lost interest in school. My teachers were told that I could leave class if I wanted to at the beginning of the hour and go to kindergarten and help the teachers there. At least that was an outlet, and as I think back I feel grateful to the school administration that gave me the option to leave class and go to assist my old kindergarten teacher, the beautiful and kind Miss Sarah.

So, I lost my momentum. I did attend seventh grade at Aleppo College eventually, but the beautiful green and yellow uniform had been changed to a state-mandated charcoal uniform. The English teacher whom my sisters excitedly talked about had gone and a state mandated teacher replaced her. I hit rock bottom. I came home and flung my bookcase aside and played with my cat and took a nap then slept till morning. I don’t know how I passed that year.

When I finished seventh grade another trauma was waiting for me. This time the family moved from Aleppo-Syria to Beirut-Lebanon. I was multicultural but I was sent to an ethnic all-Armenian Evangelical school. I was completely lost this time. I felt I did not belong. I did not know Armenian well at that time because we were focused on Arabic in Syria. I could not join the drama club although I yearned to. I played basketball but the girls on my team did not pass the ball to me, I could not sing in the choir and I had a couple of friends only. The school was operated on the British system and I was used to a more liberal American-style education. Aleppo College was established by American missionaries and I felt lost in this new and strict environment. The teachers were not friendly and I could not speak up in class. So I went from being an exceptional student to becoming an average one. When the Civil War began I went from being an average student to a failing student. I came home in ninth grade with a failing grades on my report card. Physics, chemistry, Algebra and geometry were all marked in red meaning I had failed all.

Things got better when we returned to school after the two-year war was over. The city had unofficially been divided. All the teachers had changed because the old teachers could not come to West Beirut anymore. The new teachers were cosmopolitan and in general kinder and more understanding. I was filled with new hope and there was now camaraderie between the few remaining students. The school shrank to ten percent of what it used to be as all the Armenian families had moved to East Beirut. I started climbing despite everything that had happened and I was back to being at the top of my class.

I was accepted to the American University of Beirut after graduating high school. We did not have much guidance as to what major to choose so I chose to do a five year degree in Agriculture. I was frequently on the Dean’s honor list and did not have much time to read books other than entomology, horticulture, crop production and protection, weed science, botany, Zoology, biochemistry, food technology and nutrition, genetics, etc. I am so happy that I chose agriculture as my major although at the time it was an impractical choice for a woman in the Middle-East. I learned so much and I feel I became literate in the sciences. After graduating, I continued with another impractical choice as far as money and work prospects and I did an MBA hoping I would do something with my degree. Well, I did not fit in the business world and I started teaching as the Armenian Evangelical School, my old school, invited me to teach and I have been teaching since that time and having the time of my life.

Whenever there were wars and skirmishes in Lebanon, I used to hide at home with my mother and read. I read as long as we had daylight. She would light a kerosene lamp and read at night but I did not. I listened to BBC at night and got the next door news from it. I had two books that I read to tatters. //A tree grows in Brooklyn// by Betty Smith and James Herriot’s //All Creatures Great and Small.// I also read the Bible and Gibran Khalil Gibran’s books like //the Prophet// and //Sand and Foam//. I have all his books now in four volumes in Arabic.