Juan David Ladino Cardenas

Professor Deby Jizi

UWRIT 1103-036
September 14, 2015
Literary Narrative Essay
I said father, not brother, Jennifer said to me. Thats the name I remember my second
grade teacher by. She was certifiably awful. Growing up in posh northern New Jersey, there was
this huge push to get the younger elementary kids reading and writing. We had a rather thick
booklet meant to teach us how to write in cursive. Writing thus became synonymous with the
blue smudges erasable pens left on your hand if you were left hand, as was I. After all our letters
had been learnt, we tackled spelling and vocabulary meant to prepare us for the end of year
Assessment of Skills and Knowledge (ASK; we were the first second grade class to ever take the
test). To put those skills into practice, we were given a prompt, usually a statement or a picture,
from which we had an hour to devise and flesh out a full story.
Maddie and her father, Michael, are walking through an elaborate fieldStart writing
the rest on your own, Jennifer read off her notepad. That was the very first prompt, and
effectively the first essay, I ever had to write. I somehow managed to hear father instead of
brother and what followed was the very thing that made me curse writing up until ninth grade.
Jennifer asked us to read our stories out loud to the class. Thinking I had written something
rather good (to this day I surprise myself with how imaginative my ideas were), I raised my hand
and obliged. I said father, not brother was the only thing Jennifer said and not a word. She was
frustrated with me, even as a child I knew that. Typically a teacher in her position might manage
to keep her cool but in retrospect Jennifer was particularly ill-tempered for her job.
This stood in sharp contrast to Mrs. Pulumbo, a year later. While I had always been a
decent reader (thanks in no small part to my mom who taught me to read both English and
Spanish texts at home) I struggled somewhat with fluency and flow (read: lots of stuttering and
sounding out words). What Pulumbo had us do then was read form this booklets which included

small hash marks and flowing symbols embedded within the text to demonstrate where we
should stop for breath and where to keep flowing. Couple this with a teacher who was not only
patient with us but mind bogglingly supportive (I wouldve called it quits with us, much like
Jennifer) and you have a recipe for my current fascination with good prose. My reading
improved dramatically and with my moms encouragement I began to appreciate books and read
of my own accord. Fast forward a few years and I was so far ahead of the game that when I
moved to North Carolina and took the AR test for the first time in fifth grade, I scored a 12grade reading level. I never did get to tell Pulumbo the good news. I had promised to keep in
touch. The woman cried on my last day there after all.
Something similar happened as I started high school. Finding myself with nothing better
to do with my schedule, I decided to go ahead and take Mrs. Codys Creative Writing class. Cody
emphasized the idea that a story flows from within. When it comes to a quick write, either you
that spark, or you dont, and no amount of brainstorming can help you. However true were the
things she related, is frankly irrelevant. When we wrote, she made us feel as though we had the
spark. She set aside a time in class where wed have the freedom to write about whatever we
wished, as long as we willing to share it. Can you imagine how much the idea of no prompts
appealed to me? She taught me to write my stories as I thought of them; to plan ahead but only
slightly; and to go back and rewrite once I had fleshed out my idea (after all, you have to make it
look like you tried to brainstorm). For the first time in seven years, I was excited to write.
You know, why have you never shared? This is absolutely brilliant! We were halfway
through the school year when Cody got around to actually reading something of mine (papers
were graded by completion). I was always willing to share, I just never bothered. Honestly, you
need to go thank whomever it was who taught you to write like this! You could turn this into a
book! And I did. Every year since ninth grade Ive added a few chapters and revised the old

ones. I titled it Angels Falls. Over time, the language has become more complex, more nuanced,
more introspective and even philosophical. The story however, has always remained essentially
the same. Its about a girl named Maddie and her brother Michael.
When I was little I imagined Maddie and Michael running through a field of mirrors.
They run up to a mirror, and it shows them a snapshot of their collective memory. Somewhere
along the way I decided they had to suffer from depression. Maddie became the fiery epitome of
unbridled pain and angst; ready to explode at any moment. Michael, whose appearance I think
was partly inspired by Kurt Cobain, was a quiet, slow burn. The fantastical field of memory
mirrors became manifestations of Maddies subconscious as her broken mind tries to contain the
damage done to her. As time went on and I developed my skill, I took a page out of Fitzgeralds
The Beautiful and Damned and started using occurrences in my own life to drive the story.
Maddie and Michaels relationship became so much like Cassie and Is that it is difficult for
anyone who knows us to distinguish fact from fiction. I never meant to write a roman a clef, and
I still dont consider my book as such. I would hope not. Everybody dies at the end. Interesting,
how I have the end in mind but no idea how to get there. The longer I work on Angels Falls the
more I think Ill never finish it. After all, I hate it when a good story ends.
Juan David Ladino Cardenas
Professor Deby Jizi
UWRIT 1103-036
September 14, 2015
Reflective Paragraph
I was rather happy with some of the feedback I received. At first I thought perhaps the
whole thing may have been rather long winded, but I was nonetheless pleased at the interest
everybody expressed in my book. I had initially not planned on actually discussing my book so
much as initially it was neat way to wrap up my story given the inherent contrast between the
first and last paragraphs. Although not written, the reaction my peers gave me regarding my flow

and style of writing was also positive, hence the reason the first two thirds of the essay remains
unchanged. I admit, the flow I used was rather new to me. While I am most adept at creative
writing and rather vivid storytelling, journalistic style reporting is not my strong suit. Granted
this essay was inherently more storytelling hat reporting, but the overall pattern of
compare/contrast and symmetry/asymmetry common to journalism served me well here. The
extended ending of my essay delved more into traditional storytelling and although said ending
is not under peer review, I feel as though it would have been less well received given the change
in pace. Nonetheless, it was demanded by the audience, and although no self-respecting artist
would compare themselves to new school George Lucas, one has to admit that the man
successfully gives the people what they want, regardless of quality. As a comedic aside, please
note that George Lucas is now a billionaire.