The Bully

Jaynyah Bland

Professor Brian Ward

English 1101

Essay 1: Literacy Narrative

2 September 2016

The Bully

What is Literacy.? Literacy is a fundamental thing you need to learn in school. Literacy means the ability to read, design, write, draw, speak, listen and communicate to the ability to comprehend it.  Being able to use literacy is very important in today’s society. It has an impact on a person’s ability to communicate in society and to understand important issues. A world without literacy is a world without history, education, books, computers, and phones. Literacy not just about being able to read words straight from a book but about being able to understand, comprehend things you read through newspapers, books, the internet, television, discourse communities and many other resources.  During this essay I will personally talk about how this book was significant to me in my writing and reading.

My own history with literacy began with a book I picked up over the summer when I was fourteen from the library because my mother said “we needed to start doing something productive with our lives.” I remember reading the entire book series, but the one that stuck out the most was a book called Langan, Paul.  The Bully. 2002. When I first saw this book I was just drawn into it. The cover was illustrated with two young men, one of the men is looking down on the younger boy, with a teen girl distanced in the background. As I started reading the book, it made me think about how grade school was for me and how when I started out I was being bullied. Bullying is something that nobody should go through because I was taught that everybody should treat people the same way they would want to be treated, because nobody knows what a person is going through in their life.

As I continued to read the novel it made a huge impact on me and it made me think about other people going through the same thing I was going through. The novel taught me that bullying is a huge factor in schools and sometimes students are too scared to speak up and say something about it to the bully, or a teacher. In the reading Paul Langan wants us to learn from Darrel’s experience and to spread the word about bullying. If you don’t help those around you, the world would never change or become a better place for other kids and the generations to come.