Advanced Essay #2: Pure Imagination

For this essay, my goal was to go beyond the question, what is literacy? I wanted to create an essay that not only caught a reader's attention, but was also something that no one else would do or say. I only wrote one scene, that was purposeful, so that my reader could think about his/her memories while reading the essay. My whole essay was about imagination, and I wanted my reader to use their imagination while reading it. Writing this was a bit more difficult because I didn’t know how to explain what I was trying to say. Personally, I don’t think I was able to explain everything I had in mind because 1. it was too much, 2. my thoughts became more complicated while writing the essay. Next time, I’ll make sure to take my time in explaining every single thing that I want explained.


When I was younger, my father would always read to me, every night, before I would go to bed. He would sit on my bed, and I would lay next to him, with my head on his shoulder, which you might think would be for comfort, but in reality, it was so I could just read along. It wasn’t just the story my dad would read me that made me look forward to this nightly event, it was the way he read. He made me imagine and create a world just like the places in the book. It was never just one book though, and that’s what made this so wonderful. Everything he read was my ticket to escape reality. I soon began to imagine my own worlds. I stopped listening to my dad read, because I would just think about my perfect world. My head would no longer rest on his shoulder, and my eyes no longer rested on the pages of the book. It was those nights of reading that helped me fantasize of a world where everything and anything was like a dream. 


I can’t say I don’t fantasize today, because that would just be a complete utter lie, and an ugly one at most. It’s because of literacy that I allow myself to daydream from time to time. It’s because of literacy that I fear less of reality.  It is something so delicate and specific, that if you don’t practice it, you won’t understand anything. Literacy, words, are used as a way to show physical emotion that you are too scared to show on your own. It took me a while to understand that. I would always hide something, or fear to express how I felt. For that reason, I became a shy child, one who refused to go out into the world and explore. Instead, I’d explore in my books. I came to the realization that in most of the books I read, the characters were just like me. They were able to express their emotion, their feeling, in writing, or more to say, the author was able to express their feeling and emotion in writing. I envied them for being able to do that. Personally, I am unable to write the way I intend to. It’s hard to write down who I am, and easier to write about someone else.


Rumer Godden once said “When you learn to read you will be born again...and you will never be quite so alone again.” Literacy is nothing but a way to represent who you are, and who you want to be. You not only gain knowledge about the world, but you also gain knowledge about who you are. There are some people who read and write because they have to, and there are other people who read and write because they have a strong desire, a craving, that can only be fixed with literacy. Once one learns who they are and who they want to be, there’s no stopping them. Those people are the ones that inspire the next generation writers, the next generation of book worms. Literacy inspires people to do the things they once thought to be unimaginable. Literacy is merely just a way to escape. That is why you are never alone. You read a book to imagine yourself completing those desires, you feel as though you’re invincible.


As children we fantasize about a magical world, or at least a world that isn’t ours. We create a world to make us happier than we actually are. Everyone does it at least once in their life. We use our imagination to discover and rediscover ourselves, sometimes without even noticing we have. As we grow up, we lose the capability to create our own perfect worlds. Time becomes of the essence and we become so mature, that our minds tell us only children day dream. Just like that, the world of imagination disappears, and becomes a small memory tucked in the corner of your brain. To me, literacy is like another language, but only one that you can understand. No one can see the world like you, no one can fantasize the world like you, so how will they be able to read and write the world like you? We use literacy as a tool of imagination that helps us escape the hardships and pain of reality.

Digital Video 

Work Cited
"Quotes About Literacy." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Nov. 2015. <http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/literacy?page=1>.

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