My autobiography - Antonio Hallenbeck

Hello! My name is Antonio, I am a freshman in college, I am a computer science major. I am interested in learning how to program in my college years, and I took this class to enhance my skills in areas such as writing. I am mixed races and I only speak English in my household. 

In my earliest experiences of becoming literate the people who have helped me most were my parents. My parents and my grandma were my biggest inspiration while growing up too because I’ve always looked at them as people who have answers or solutions to almost anything, they were the smartest people I knew. My grandma supported me the most because she would help me with homework everyday after school, she would teach me how to read and write better. With their help growing up I felt very encouraged to continue enhancing my reading and writing skills growing up. One of my earliest experiences and most memorable experience with literacy is reading the books my mom would have on her shelf, one book in particular that I can remember reading was called “Rumble Fish” by S.E. Hinton. I believe this experience has impacted my development because I found that book to be extremely interesting which led me to want to read more books. When I was in school I would practice more of my writing skill than my reading skills since we didn’t read too many books at a young age in school so I would practice more reading at home which was very enjoyable to me. 

Growing up I really started to feel literate around 1st-2nd grade. I became very intrigued by more action/ drama types of books and I would usually write a lot of my stories or essays about things in those genres. I enjoyed listening to more calm musics, speaking about mini stories that randomly pop into my head and I would enjoy watching scary things. What would always frustrate me when it comes to literacy is starting a story, I always get writers block when it comes to starting a story. Personally my father was a big role model for me growing up because he always knew how to do things, and seeing how much knowledge he had about the world and everything around him made me realize how useful these things could be so I would aspire to be just like him.

Now that I’m all grown I feel as if literacy is a very important skill and can be as interesting as you decide to make it. I feel this way because we all communicate to each other in some way that uses literacy such as sending a text, talking over the phone, or talking in person so I believe it is a very important skill in life. I continue to use literacy in my personal life because I do occasionally read at least 1 book every other month and I text friends and family every day. The person who continues to inspire my literacy development is my father because I notice he has a way with words when it comes to deep conversation and I find him very helpful so I would like to be able to do the same as him someday.