Short essay proof read

Living without literacy
Life without the ability to read in American society is a daunting idea to the literates. When I came to America in the winter of 1993, I didn't had profound knowledge of English language. I was able to decipher all the alphabets in English language but I couldn't read the groups of alphabets that formed words. Luckily, I wasn't old enough to be effected by the hardship of society.


Unable to read the textbooks in the classroom during my early stage of life in America was painful. Even though I was able to read and understand some of the words but it wasn't good enough to grasp the whole idea of the content. I wanted to participate in the class like every other students but I was left out from the class discussion due to the fact that I couldn't read and understand the contents on the book. The graphic novels with extremely "cool" looking pictures that I purchased in the old comic book stores were appreciated by the form of art only. I had no idea what the comic book was about but I had so much fun forming a summary just by looking at the pictures. The Columbia house, a large music CD vendor who advertised that 12 CDs are sold at penny per CD. Who wouldn't buy 12 CDs for 12 cents? The literate people who can understand the flea size contexts on the advertisement paper might think twice before sucked into the company's "pay 12 pennies now, but pay the rest of the CD price plus shipping at the end of contract" scheme. Unable to read English opened up a whole new fantasy land when I received a spam lottery mail which contained a phony $1,000,000 check. I really thought that I won $1,000,000... I made all the plans to buy the latest video game consoles, games, and so many other popular things in that time period, then the American Dream came to an end when I exhibited the check to my English literate friend. At the time, the most of technologies were simple enough to operated by those who couldn't read. Popping in a video tape into VCR, playing CD on the stereo, carrying an arm sized wireless phone in the house can be done without the ability to read and hear.I can't even imagine how the life would be like to be illiterate in the information era. The ability to surf on the internet, receiving important text-message on the cellphone, setting up Comcast features, using public transportation(some public transportation requires complete literacy even before using the transportation service! AKA buying tickets through ticket vending machine) would be close to impossible without the ability to read.

It is shame that the technologies were meant to make the live of people easier but the modern technologies are expanding the gap between the illiterate people and the world. In contrary, the idea of living without the ability to read is a nightmare but I believe the perspective of illiterates isn't as daunting as the literates since the illiterates haven't experienced the life essential technologies like E-mail, text-messages but from the literate point of view, illiteracy would mean the end of the world.