Kayla:
The concept that I am focusing on for this paragraph is the idea of being a victim in a literacy experience. “The essay took me hours to write and perfect, but a week after I handed it in, I got it back and was devastated. The 70% that was written on that paper hit me like a bus. The feeling that my best work wasn’t good enough was honestly was devastating. There were red pen marks all over the page, word changes, “helpful hints” (as he called them), and just x’s everywhere. I saw nothing positive on the paper when I got it back. All I would see was “bad use of language” or “explain more.” The most constructive thing he had ever said was “explain more,” but explain what! ” In this quote Kayla is displaying how she felt as though her teacher was cruel to her about her work and made her feel invalidated. I believe that this is a good example of the victim story narrative that Alexander discussed in her work, ” The popularity of the victim narrative in the student texts indicates that students associate school-based literacy practices with oppression and even cruelty. When asked to reflect on past experiences in the confines of the literacy narrative, they remember these experiences that haunted them and took away their freedoms.” (Alexander, 618) The details in the narrative shows that students often feel as though no matter how hard they work on something teachers will continue to tear down their effort and work, making them feel victimized.
Hannah D:
Hannah’s literacy narrative has themes of being both victim and hero. She discusses the hardships that she faced when writing her college essay about the death of her brother and how the teacher didn’t appreciate or understand the amount of work she put into it and how good she and others who read it thought it was, “When asked to reflect on past experiences in the confines of the literacy narrative, they remember these experiences that haunted them and took away their freedoms.” (Alexander, 618) I felt as though the beginning had a mostly victim theme versus the end when it turned into a hero based theme. “When I finally got my paper back, all I felt was disappointment. I couldn’t believe what I saw, I looked at my paper and saw a B- minus circled in the top right corner. I did not understand. Everyone who previously read my paper thought it was amazing. I didn’t get how my teacher didn’t.”( Hannah) I think that in her literacy narrative Hannah took the victimized feeling that she had after receiving a grade for her paper and decided to persevere and work hard and turn it into a hero narrative, “When push comes to shove, I believe this assignment made me both a stronger person and writer. It made me look deeper. It made me realize how although everyone has a different point of view, each point of view is important. It doesn’t matter whether it’s writing or a real life situation, peoples thoughts will always be different. I realized it doesn’t matter what you are writing about, you should be creating a piece of work you can always be proud of. Something that makes you happy to re out loud, something you could read a million times and never want to stop reading. Write what makes you happy, that’s the paper to aim for.” (Hannah)
Blake:
The theme in this essay is also the victim/ hero theme. The beginning of the paper feels as though it is the victim theme and then it transitions into how they persevered through this tough event and overcame it. “At the time I felt like my teacher was kind of singling me out for such a small mistake. I mean, she told all the other kids what they had to fix in order for their essay to be done; why couldn’t she tell me? Now I know that the smile she had on her face when she first read my essay was her teaching me a lesson. I see now it was because she was holding me to a higher standard because she knew I had the ability to succeed in my work, but I would rush through it and not worry about it. Looking back on it now, this is the first experience that really brought my attention to me rushing through my work.” (Blake) Hero literacy narratives equate literacu aquisition with success, liberation, development… perserverance, self-reliance, and determination; establishes self as hero of literacy story.” (Alexander 615)
Sam:
In this narrative it felt similar to a victim narrative but there wasn’t a specific event that made him begin to feel differently about writing. “It just didn’t seem fun for me, anymore. I missed getting to unravel my creativity in short stories, where now the topics were strictly chosen by my teachers.”(Sam) While in this he isn’t blaming any particular person or event but rather the way the school’s take on english and writing gradually became less interesting to him. Also it is one of the less severe examples to me this felt like a victim literacy narrative, “When asked to reflect on past experiences in the confines of the literacy narrative, they remember these experiences that haunted them and took away their freedoms.” (618 Alexander).
