Prof. Gleason
Basic Writing Theory and Pedagogy
Literacy Narrative—Final Draft
December 2, 2014
Becoming a Writer
In
the seventh grade, I had been living in the United States for only two years.
During those two years, I lost my innocent childhood pep. Leaving Haiti, the country of my birth, was difficult. I left my family, and the life that I
knew. I left my house, my yard, my
porch; I left my cousins, my friends from the block and moved to a rented room
in someone’s house in Brooklyn, NY. I
became withdrawn as I struggled to handle my newfound feelings of disconcertion
and isolation. I went from being
surrounded by family and friends to being alone with my younger sister, Lois;
such is the life of children whose parents work long hours. The television raised us. It gave us its values and morals. It taught us English, which we learned fairly
quickly, putting away the French and the Haitian-Creole we were used to
speaking. But we were still unhappy and
felt isolated in our new surroundings.
Lois
and I found solace at the public library.
Additionally, the school library of my junior high school, Roy H. Mann,
I.S. 78 provided me extra comfort. In
Haiti I developed a love of books which was further nurtured in the United
States. I looked to authors such as
Paula Danziger, Jerry Spinelli and Paul Zindel to help heal my emotions and to
help me understand the ways of my new country and its people. My homeroom and English teacher, Mrs. Claudia
Cohen, also a fellow book lover, kept a library in her classroom and encouraged
her students to cultivate a love of reading as passionate as her own.
Early on in the year, Ms.
Cohen, gave us an assignment. Though I do not remember the specifics of
the assignment, I wrote a story entitled “Mr. Ching Chong’s Surprise,” a
racist title, I know, but I did not realize that then. When my paper was returned, it bled profusely due
to the merciless attacks of Ms. Cohen’s red pen. I made countless
grammatical, punctuation, and sentence structure errors. However, what was
pleasantly surprising to me were Ms. Cohen’s comments. She loved my
story. She found the story plot of this poor Chinese man (I do not know
why I chose to make this character Chinese considering I had not yet met many
Chinese people) being stalked by a secret abhorrer who writes ominous notes to
him, fun, clever and creative. The fact that Ms. Cohen liked my story in
spite of the many grammatical errors taught me that I was a writer, that I was
funny, and that words can be used to convey and invoke emotions if cleverly
assembled
on paper.
That
I was now a writer meant I had purpose. This
sad, lonely little Haitian girl was special. Believing I was a writer
meant that I would take several creative writing courses at Edward R. Murrow High
School, eventually rewriting that pivotal seventh-grade assignment and
renaming the title character “Mr. Williams.”
It meant that every day I would effortlessly write short stories
and poetry. It led me to join the
creative writing club and be surrounded with brilliant aspiring peers. (We all knew one day we would be best-selling
authors). I was published in the school
literary magazine, The Murrow Magnet,
for two consecutive years; the first year I submitted a short story, and the
second year I submitted two poems. I was a writer. I had a way
with words and that meant I had a way of gaining attention, which happened when
teachers read my work aloud to the class. I enjoyed using my way with
words as a shock factor. When in my ninth grade ESL class the
teacher asked us to write sentences using newly learned vocabulary, my
word was ‘yearn,’ I boldly wrote on the board, “His kiss was so passionate
that she yearned for more.”
At
Murrow, my love for reading flourished.
Though I do not remember all of the authors I was introduced to, I
remember having read a lot of short stories including “Love is a Fallacy,” “The
story of Icarus and Daedalus,” and various stories by Edgar Allan Poe. This was when my aptitude for fiction writing
soared. Inspired by Poe, I explored the
macabre, writing a story about a little vampire girl that eats a grown man and
another about talking anacondas plotting to take over the earth. I wrote romance; I wrote magical realism, and
though I had not yet formally learned about the plight and actualities of
people of the African diaspora, I wrote about race. Inspiration was ubiquitous, and the words
seemed to flow. Though I believed that
my ability to write creatively was a divine gift, I knew that it was a gift
developed by ample reading. I read a lot
so I wrote a lot; and the stories I wrote resembled the ones I read. Also, belonging to an artistic environment,
such as the creating writing club in high school, was greatly encouraging.
After
high school, I went to work; it would be ten years before I went back into the
classroom. As time went on and I was no
longer surrounded by talented aspiring writers, the ability to write
effortlessly faded away. During that time, my indulgence in reading
continued, though mostly through romance novels and Cosmopolitan
magazines. Slowly, however, I grew tired
of not seeing myself in the petite, blond-haired, blue eyed heroines of the
books I was reading and started to read romance novels written by
African-American authors. Eventually, I gravitated
to more serious novels, getting acquainted with authors such as
Haitian-American, Edwidge Danticat. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, led me to read everything else she had written
and helped me diversify my taste in books. Though I never really put
down Cosmopolitan Magazine, I also picked up Essence and Ebony magazines.
Though
my reading diversified, I struggled to write.
I began to realize that I had been
a writer. The ability to write short stories was gone. What I was left with were a few story ideas
with shoddy beginnings, incomplete endings and a few cleverly-written sentences
in between. When I entered Medgar Evers
College (MEC) located in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, my mind opened
up as I was met with a new world of literary adventures. At MEC I discovered authors who told my
history, authors such as Octavia Butler, James Baldwin, Charles Waddell
Chesnutt and Bernice McFadden. They
nudged me to revisit fiction writing and slowly I did. I was able to do so because I began to find my
voice. Baldwin, Butler and the like
helped me forged my identity as an African-American, something the romance
authors of blonde heroines were unable to do.
I began to view creative writing as a tool which could be used to inspire
others under the guise of entertainment.
Still,
I saw myself as less imaginative. Because
I was not writing every day, I believed I was no longer a creative writer. What I became was a student that writes
critical analyses, reading responses and research papers. Even so, a new genre, creative nonfiction,
seemed to flirt with me. In Freshman
Seminar 101, I was assigned a “Who am I” paper in which I was to answer seven
questions. My professor was so impressed
with my essay that she read it in class as a model for my classmates of what
their subsequent drafts were to resemble.
(I wrote no subsequent draft. My
first one earned me an A). Through
similar coursework and response essays assigned by other professors of other
courses, I began to realize that perhaps I had not lost my creativity. It simply took a new form.
Though
I miss fiction writing and even poetry writing, I am enjoying this new genre.
And though I may never become that best-selling author I once dreamed of being,
I’ve been published! Not only in high
school, but in college I have received several writing recognitions. In 2012, I won the National Black Writers
Conference fiction writing contest for a short story I had written entitled,
“Churchhouse.” I was featured several
times in Adafi, the school paper, having submitted a poem, a short story and
two response papers, and in my last semester, five pieces of my writing, one
fiction and four creative non-fiction, were featured in the first issue of the
school’s literary magazine, Unlocking Our Legacy. I am indeed a writer.
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