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Ahmad Whitaker

Dr. Angela Geosits

ENGW 104 - 24

April 25, 2021

Literary History: Revised

As I grew up, I didn’t really know how to write using my own voice. From 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 for school, I either wrote inside the

parameters or wrote like I talk. For the entirety of K-12, I was told about this, but the bulk of

public school teachers did not aim to fix that, they aimed to get my assignment from me. It has

never been easy for me to ask for help either, especially if I feel like it’s too much or too stupid.

In turn, this carried over from elementary school to middle school to high school until I finally

started to switch it up unintentionally.

Now, 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,

but it was not something I saw as important. My father was also a historian, so my brother and I

were constantly around books at a young age, learning what real literary works look like, backed

by our heritage. 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 exposed to. We were still surrounded

by a surplus of books and my mother did not hesitate to add to the collection at every turn.

My elementary school experience firmly solidified my love for reading more. I was close

to all my teachers, and most of them had already known my family, so they supported me. Then

there was our amazing school library and the book fairs we had, along with the books I already
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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. I had extra time and lots of openings for books to

fill, and there were no other pass-times I enjoyed more. This time frame predates the mass use of

technology, so I used all my extra time reading my favorite series and comics.

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

flourished. I started really getting into writing, but my love for technology was also on the rise. I

would begin to write sequels to my favorite series and books. I went from mainly reading comics

and graphic novels to complete series in a short amount of time, and I found it all a little too

enjoyable. 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. If I were given an assignment, the restrictions on

how it should be done made it easy to finish. By the eighth grade, I had read a good amount of

books, and I thought I would take this love to high school, but as we saw in the introduction, this

is not that kind of story.

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

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

with how much I traveled, I was not prepared. I barely got by in my freshman year academically,

so literature quickly became something I would do for an assignment. I hardly read as much as I

used to. I would occasionally go to the library and grab a comic or two, but that’s it. 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. My sophomore year is what brought

the change my writing style needed. It was not a distinct change, but it was significant in my
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understanding of complex topics. A good example is Jacqueline Royster’s work. When she

explains “Adopting subjectivity as a defining value” (Royster 29) in “When the First Voice You

Hear Is Not Your Own,” That is something I would have enjoyed at that time. Understanding all

these things as a sophomore in high school was something I did choose. During my sophomore

year, I had experienced things mentally that are still affecting my life now. Those experiences

gave me 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. The same kid that would get super loud at the lunch

table when my friends and I would talk about that anime and who the strongest is. 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,

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

read it later on, I’d be astounded. 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 piece 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 long moment until I found a pleasant
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balance in my writing. I worked with my mom and 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.

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. With the constant criticism without advice

on how to change, I felt like I couldn’t improve. As I pursued this journey, I would also learn

how to critique myself and form my own ways to find what is right and what is wrong. 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 describe my literary style, and truth be told, I don’t feel the need

to tell others. What is important to me is that I am comfortable with it, and I know that I can

improve because that is what makes a writer.

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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.