RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2010)

After spending a couple days reading through Perry’s article about the use of storytelling to write, I came to the conclusion that storytelling may be a better way to express ones feelings then through writing. I believe this to be true because when you are listening to someone tell a story you get a feeling of being there, true you can get lost in the pages of a book, but when you sit back and watch the emotions, tone and actions of the person telling the story there is a better connection between what is being told and what the listener is taking from the story. Growing up a lot of people learn so much about their families and their lives through the stories they listen to from members of their families. These stories are not written down on the pages of a book, instead they are passed along orally, just like the people of Sudan do. Growing up in a modern world, many things that we read about the older days is boring and we as readers do not get a true feel or understanding of what was really happening during that time, because it is so different then how we live now. I can try to read about past events and if I don’t fall asleep while reading then when I get to the end I have no clue what I have read. This has been the case for me for a long time, but if I take the time to sit down with someone older and listen to their life stories I learn so much more. I get a better picture of what they are saying and trying to tell me. Not only am I learning, but I feel connected to the event because of the emotions the person is as they tell the story.
As I read this article, I starred the quote, “individuals are caught in the tensions between past histories that have settled in them and the present discourses and images that attract them or somehow impinge upon them.” I took from this quote that the stories we have been told help to shape us to who we become along with the life that is lived around us. Each generation parents pass on to their children parts of themselves and their lives, but at the same time the children are learning things through their own experience. Both the ideas that children are taught through their parents stories and through their daily encounters in life help to determine how children act and react to the life they live. Just like oral storytelling, children lose part of their parents as they grow and change.
Storytelling happens to change overtime too, and the only way to preserve these family stories is through writing them down, maybe not to read, but to give the storyteller a reminder of what the whole story is saying, not just what can be remembered.
One other quote that touched me while reading was, “the spoken rather than the written word is of central importance.” This quote made me automatically think about how generations before us spoke of how a hand shake was as good as a legal contract between people. Sometimes it is the trust that people need in others and in themselves to truly tell their life story; a story that can be written down, but doesn’t have the full effect until the writer is able to verbally express all the emotions of their story as they tell it to others.
Francis, Chol, and Ezra all took their life stories to “teach” their teachers who they are, where they come from, and their dreams. These three students used their voice and their life to write about who they are. Through their voice, I was able to feel how they felt growing up on the run and the trial and tribulations they went through. I could never imagine how a young child could live alone going from place to place seeing deaths, rapings, and many other things that no one person should never experience in their life. I wish that all students had a solid foundation, stable home, and love, and hopefully one day that will be true.
As a teacher sometimes we need to listen to our students through their stories and their pictures in order to understand fully about them and what they have inside themselves shaping their lives. Writing about life experiences is so much easier than on a topic someone gives you, so again the article goes back to the idea of giving students a choice in their learning and writing.

Meredith Bromley