Whitaker 1

Ahmad Whitaker

Dr. Angela Geosits

ENGW 104 - 24

September 9th, 2020

Literary History

Growing up, I did not really know how to write as myself. In elementary school to this

very day, I’ve been great at writing sequels or add-ons to books and copying a writer’s style and

flow, but when it came to writing my own works, I just wrote like I talk; my rough drafts were

always too informal or too much like a conversation. K-12, I was told about this issue, but I got

no help. This carried over from elementary school to middle school to high school until I finally

started to switch it up unintentionally.

My writing style was never something I focused on until late high school. Before high

school, my literary style was something my teachers enjoyed along with my counterparts. My

father was also a historian, so my brother and I were constantly around books at a young age.

After I lost my father in ‘08, my natural love for reading and writing diminished, but I still read

and wrote at high levels due to what I was surrounded by growing up.

Elementary school strongly solidified my love for reading more. I was close to all my

teachers, and most of them had already known my brother and my parents, so they supported me

strongly. Then there was our amazing library and the book fairs we had, along with the books I

already had at home. Not to mention the local libraries five minutes away from my house.

Nobody had to tell me to read or write; I simply did it for fun.

 Whitaker 2

Late elementary school and middle school were when my reading and writing really

flourished. I wrote sequels to my favorite series and books from the school library and the local

library, and I had the time for all these things, especially in middle school.

I still flew through middle school because I was never forced to do more; I was never

challenged. The standard for most of my English classes was never based around writing to

begin with, so I never felt the need to improve. Most of the time, I was using my sequel skills to

create something meaningful from the former, or I was reading something and offering a detailed

analysis of the text. Getting into high school was when my writing style took several dips, flips,

and turns.

As soon as I arrived at Enloe High School, I was overtaken by the course load. I tried to

keep up reading and writing for fun, but since the standards for my middle school were so low,

and I was constantly traveling with my mom, I was not prepared. After my freshman year, I

barely read as much as I used to. I still read comics, but as far as anything more, I did not do so.

To this day, I do not know why I stopped so abruptly, but it happened.

My reading level was still very high, but I just was not reading as much. I was also in

challenging English classes with very high expectations for their reading assignments with little

to no actual writing. By the end of my freshman year, I did not write anymore, and I only read

comics or a book for school. It was in my sophomore year that I unconsciously made the switch

with my literary style.

It was not a distinct change, but it was significant in my understanding of complex topics

such as “Adopting subjectivity as a defining value” (Royster 29). Understanding all these things

as a sophomore in high school was something I did not want to do. During my sophomore year, I

had experienced things mentally that are still affecting my life now. Those experiences gave me
 Whitaker 3

a whole different perspective on reality and society. And to be more specific, as a child and up to

that point, I was well-traveled, very educated on all things and all people, and had a fair amount

of societal intelligence, so sadly, this was not a culture shock.

I was simply forced to grow in such an egregious way that my mind rejected the material

and created a space for it to live and sadly, grow. In turn, my literary style changed too. I started

writing complex memoirs to myself while also reading books like “The Problems of

Philosophy”, by Bertrand Russel. But this was not entirely me. I was still the same kid that grew

up reading the Percy Jackson series while sitting in the school library after school. So, when I

had these episodes, I wrote to myself, and I read these things, but it was never really me.

At this point, I was 15, and my literary style was very advanced for that age and I was

dragging myself through each day. I was reading philosophical texts at 4AM on school nights, I

was barely sleeping, and I was pumping out my thoughts on paper in such a beguiling way that I

would read it later on and be astounded by what was written. I still had no control over adding

this to my writing style in total; writing essays always added a certain seriousness to it. That

seriousness made me overthink the content I put into each essay I wrote.

After sophomore year, I had to start figuring out how to implement this added writing

style into my essays for school. I struggled with this for a lengthy moment until I found a

pleasant balance to my writing. I worked with my mom teachers on it, and I worked with myself

on it until I got it right during my senior year (pre-COVID). I also realized that an essay is a

paper written on a particular subject and depending on what the subject is in relevance to the

class being taken at whichever grade level, decides the literary voice implanted into the essay

written.
 Whitaker 4

By the end of high school, I had not changed my literary style very much, but I had

become more conscious of the way I theorize and formulate my words. I had a good start with

my literary style, but I had been stuck along the way, and I felt I could not improve. Along the

way, I learned to balance my writing and my spirit while critiquing myself very harshly. Now

when asked to explain or characterize my writing style, I just tell this story. Until this point in

time, I would not know how to characterize my literary style, and I do not feel the need to for

anyone. What is important is that I am comfortable with it, and I know that I can improve.
 Whitaker 5

Works Cited:

Royster, Jacqueline Jones. “When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own.” College

Composition and Communication, vol. 47, no. 1, 1996, p. 29., doi:10.2307/358272.