Hi, my name is Jennifer and I am 22 years old. I am a senior at Montclair and my major is Family Child Studies K-5. Next semester I will begin my clinical. I am currently working as a Teacher’s assistant at a daycare center in a 3 year old classroom. I love children and that is why I want to become a teacher.

My best literacy moments was when I was in first grade. At that time I used to love reading and used to play teacher everyday when back from school. I remember having a small blackboard and a collection of books and my dolls were my students. Books were my favorite friends at that time, whenever possible I will be reading one.

My best writing moment was when I went to live at Brazil. I was a new student and had never studied Portuguese and there was going to be a writing contest in my class. I remember working hard everyday at home, practicing different essays that my aunt would give me. On the day I did my best and ended up winning third place. For a student that was just beginning to study in a foreign country, it was the best feeling. I felt very proud of me.

My latest reading was Something Blue, by Emily Giffin. I read it during the summer. I love her books and not long ago I had read Something Borrowed and could not wait to read Something Blue, since it is the continuation to it. I went to Cancun this summer and bought the book at the airport on my way there. It is a great book and whenever I had time during my vacation I would read I, since I wanted to know the end to it as fast as possible. I finished reading it in a week during my vacation.

Hello everyone! My name is Marylin Zuniga and I transferred to MSU my sophomore year from Long Island University. I am a family and child studies major and am currently in my Clinical I semester. I am placed with fourth graders at Ridge Street Elementary in Newark. I have aspirations of being an elementary school teacher, of course. However, I also wish to eventually start my own day cares, camps, etc. I love being involved with all aspects of child development. I love to travel and meet new people.

My earliest memory of literacy is reading Dr. Seuss books. He was my first favorite author and I remember whenever we would make trips to library as a class I would refuse to pick any books that were not written by him. My best memory would have to be about a short biography I wrote in 5th grade. Our assignment was to write about a person who we saw as a hero in our lives. I chose to write about my older sister. At the time, Linda was finishing up her senior year of high school and was pregnant. She was going through a hard time of her life, and I saw her as a hero not because of some poor decisions she had made, but because of the way she was handling them. Linda always stayed positive and with all she was going through still worked hard to finish school and receive her diploma. I expressed how much I admired her through my writing and when i finished writing the biography I made a cover and decorated it. When we were done with the project we were told to give it to the person; she cried when she read it. I could see how much it meant to her and it made me feel great. This experience made me realize how powerful writing can be. My latest experience of literacy is my journey in beginning to read the bible. I would like to read the bible from front to back one day. Many books that I have been reading lately are related to God and make biblical references; two of my favorites include: The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren and Joshua by Joseph F. Girzone.

Hello! My name is Dana Russo. I am 24 years old and live in Caldwell. I will be graduating from Montclair in Spring 2013 :) Aside from going to school, I work full-time as a bartender at a Irish pub, so I am always busy for the most part. Some hobbies that I enjoy are gardening and snowboarding. Whenever I can find the time I like to pick up a good book to read. One of my all-time favorite authors is Stephen King. My first and best reading/literacy moment was when I around the age of five/six. I remember finally being able to read my favorite book, Good Night Moon, from front to back. I was so excited that I could read it, I copied the sentences, word for word in a notebook that I had (I think my parents still have this notebook somewhere).

My latest reading memory was very recent. For two years, I have been studying to become a Cicerone. A Cicerone is just like a wine sommelier, but instead it is for beer. For all of this time, I have been reading multiple texts on the histories, styles, ingredients, and processes involved in beer. I just recently took the exam last Wednesday in Brooklyn. The exam was very challenging (3 hours long, about 200 short answer questions, 3 essays, and a tasting portion). Anyways, by the time the exam date was here, my eyes were ready to fall out of my head from all the reading/writing I did! The topic that I have been studying might sound silly to some, but it is very interesting and has an extensive amount of history involved within it. Hopefully I passed, there is only about 300 Cicerones in the world, I will find out my results in two months.

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My name is Kristen Donohue and I'm a senior at Montclair State University. I live in Lyndhurst and graduated from Lyndhurst High School in 2008. I will be doing my Clinical 1 and 2 at Smith School in Tenafly in the 1st grade and I'm extremely excited about it.

My first memory about literacy is that I always wanted to be in school because I watched my older sister go to school, come home, and do homework. I wanted to be doing the same thing, so my mom would pretend I attended school and teach me how to read and make me do math problems and other activities while my sister was at school. When she would come home and tell my parents what she learned in school that day, I would tell her what I learned too. It was probably because of this that I was able to read prior to ever being in school.

My last couple reading moments have to deal with readings for school. Because I'm a history major there is a lot of reading for each class, so I do not have free time to read books that I would enjoy.

My best writing memory is from the 5th grade when I had a poem published in a Teacher's Anthology book. I remember being so excited about having a poem published (it was about Christmas and was quite funny).

Although I do not enjoy reading at this time, it is mainly because I'm forced to read things for classes that do not keep my interest. Some books that I have enjoyed over the years include Night, The Gossip Girl Series, Things Fall Apart, and The Crucible.