The Evolution of a Writer (Part 1)

I often ask the writing tutors that I train annually to write a short autobiographical piece called a literacy narrative. This narrative gives an account of the tutor’s development as a writer, from whatever starting point he or she would prefer to the present day. The purpose of this assignment is to get each student in touch, through writing, with his or her own relationship to writing in order to better relate to the students who need tutoring assistance.  This assignment is also a fulfilling transition into a new role as writing tutor.

As I find myself getting more and more involved with Philly Spells, I feel a stronger and stronger need to revisit my own literacy narrative to both reacquaint myself with the trials and glories of becoming a writer and justify my role as a FoS (Friend of Spells).

My Literacy Narrative

I remember wanting to write before I could read. This rather large obstacle would not deter me, however. My older sister, Debbie, was both an accessory and a victim of my determination.

Me: Debbie

Debbie: Yeah

Me: How do you spell Once?

Debbie: O-N-C-E

Me: How do you spell Upon?

Debbie (sighing): U-P-O-N

Me: How do you spell A Ti—

Debbie: God! Will you shut up!

Well, I found something else to do until I was taught to read at Eastampton Elementary in New Jersey. This town, a satellite of the larger and more significant (although less haughty) Mt. Holly, would become my major motivation for writing. The town where I grew up was not racially or ethnically diverse. What’s more, the political correctness movement that began to grow, flower and seed in the 80’s somehow skipped my small suburbia. Hence, my Afrocentric features combined with the Eurocentric color scheme of the neighborhood may have looked like a speck of pepper in a mound of salt from a bird’s eye view.

This difference was not lost on some of my more insensitive peers (as well as their parents). The things I heard on a regular basis were emotionally and psychologically damaging. However, I kept it from as many members of my family as possible. I feared that if they knew what was going on, the hurt and emotional turmoil they’d go through in trying to help me would do more harm than good. The rare time I did mention something to my mother, her complaints fell on deaf and, frankly, uninterested ears. I decided to deal with it myself.

So, in dealing with it myself, I found writing. Writing benefited me in two ways.

The first benefit was therapeutic. I wrote about my frustration and pain in a variety of genres. I wrote poetry about how it felt like to be different; I wrote short stories about an outcast protagonist who triumphed and received the love and respect of all around him; I wrote comics about characters who would deal with the cruelties of their worlds in superhuman fashion. This all helped me cope. It helped me construct a mental image of what life would be like when I was liked and respected. It helped me make sense of my life by speculating, through writing, why certain things happened and why the world was the way it was.

The second benefit was that my writing was quite entertaining to my peers. It was so entertaining that, along with excelling in sports, my writing helped certain bullies (students and adults) forget to torture me for a bit. I wrote for public amusement whenever I got the chance; it was mostly through required school projects in which all the students, and my teachers, would have to either read my stories or hear me read them. For a few moments, here and there, my literary star would illuminate an otherwise dark situation.

Writing served as an oasis in a harsh psychological and emotional desert.

I sought a larger oasis when I graduated from the Eastampton school system and entered the regional high school, Rancocas Valley. Here, there would be other students who looked like me. I would be free from forced marginalization. I would finally feel at home some place other than home. When I got to high school, however, I realized that looking like someone doesn’t guarantee being like someone. In fact, the environment from which I thought I escaped followed me via learned social norms and speaking habits. Thus, the African American kids shunned me as well; I acted too “white” for them, and they let me know on a regular basis.

So, I was temporarily debilitated by the cruelest irony.  I stopped writing to give myself time to research the writing of others. Maybe others had gone through similar things and had answers for me. I went from James Baldwin, through the Bible (read the whole thing in a month), and into a variety of self help books.

I found some solace, finally, in Mr. Corcoran’s psychology class, where, for a final project, I was allowed to write an autobiography while referencing certain popular psychologists. In doing this, I not only realized the potential I had as a writer, but I also realized that my pursuits in life would revolve around exploring the various meanings of life and writing about those explorations for others. Yes, the act of writing, itself, solidified this for me. In fact, a writing scholar named Janet Emig conveys that my experience is nothing new, and references well-respected psychologists to support her claim. In her essay, “Writing as a Mode of Learning,” she writes

Jerome Bruner, like Jean Piaget, through a comparable set of categories, posits three major ways in which we represent and deal with actuality: (1) enactive—we learn “by doing”; (2) iconic—we learn “by depiction in an image”; (3) representational or symbolic—we learn “by restatement in words. To overstate the matter, in enactive learning, the hand predominates; in iconic, the eye; and in symbolic, the brain. . . .What is striking about writing as a process is that, by its very nature, all three   ways of dealing with actuality are simultaneously or almost simultaneously deployed. (my italics).[1]

From this experience, it was apparent that writing was both a device for learning and a medium for conveying what has been learned. I can safely say that writing saved my childhood (well, it at least kept the vessel of that childhood afloat in a sea of turmoil that would have otherwise doomed me to its dark and murky depths—how is that for imagery?).

Perhaps writing can be a universal remedy—or, at the very least, a pain reliever—for other children going through their own kinds of trauma.

Later, my interests in writing would move in a direction meant to benefit both myself and others. I will write more on that, later.

---

[1]Emig, Janet. “Writing as A Mode of Learning.” College Composition and Communication. Ed. Victor Villenueva. Urbana, IL: NCTE Press, 2003. 7-15.