Jasmine Labastida

November 23, 2022

Literacy Narratives: Teacher Draft

Throughout their academic lives, students are taught to use adequate and proper terminology in

their writing and to develop their thoughts through a “correct” lens of ideas. When students become

trapped in a cycle of satisfying a prompt and sacrificing their voices for the sake of following a “correct”

form of writing, their voices become muffled, creating a separation between the writer and the writing.

Many students in turn may feel as though their voices do not matter. The opposite can occur when

students are given the tools and opportunity to explore their identities through writing, giving them not

only a voice, but strengthening their writing. In ‘We Are Our Stories’, Williams examines how we

construct identity through writing, while in ‘Workin’ Languages: Who We Are Matters in Our Writing’,

Alvarez, Wan, and Lee push forward solutions to help students find their voices through writing.

Although the focus of this piece is centered around students, anyone can fall victim to dominant

narratives. In ‘Everything You Want to Know is in A Book’ by Kenishia Powell and ‘Writing with a Cause:

Mayan women, Maya Angelou and my mother’ by Simone Riddle, I present examples of people who

through writing are able to revise their identities. And what does revision entail? It entails a

decomposition of self through personal stories, experiences, objects, etc. With complex and varied

experiences, every person has a unique story. How these stories are told and composed are reflections of

each individual. They become revisions of identities that can be transcribed through writing.

Bronwyn Williams presents an interesting idea about the relationship between memory, identity

and how individuals compose literary narratives. On page 8 of ‘We Are Our Stories’, Williams

emphasizes the power memory has in helping individuals compose their identities, stating that “Literacy

narratives offer an intriguing window into the ways individuals draw on memory and narrative to

construct perceptions of agency”. How can this be possible? Through writing and the acquisition of

knowledge, an individual gains the consciousness to explore past events and give these a meaningful
value, turning these into explorations of character and in turn distinctive stories that show a

decomposition of identity. Williams further explains the relationship of identity and memory later on in

the same page stating that, “To understand these narratives not just as the description of memories, but the

construction of memories, and also the construction of identity, provides glimpses of not only how the

authors understand past events in terms of agency but also how they have shaped their current perceptions

of agency out of their memories”. Upon reading this, the question of Does memory shape us or do we

shape memory? came to mind. The answer is both. Williams does not necessarily state that memories are

constructions of an assumed identity but rather, how people construct memories gives individuals the

power and voice to express their identities and thus turn memory into narratives and at the same time

these narratives give people additional tools to understand themselves and draw conclusions they

otherwise would have never come to.

Reflection serves as a tool of revision, allowing individuals to dote in memory, creating their own

perceptions of events which they can in turn use to decompose their identity. This can be observed

throughout Kenishia Powell’s literary narrative Everything You Want to Know is in A Book, where on page

two she writes “My granny began to plant the seeds of success in my mind all those Friday nights that we

would sit at her kitchen table reading. I furthered the upkeep of my garden by watering those seeds, with

the wealth of knowledge I obtained from exploring the library endless access to books, and the film reader

looking up the history of the city that I lived in ''. Powell reflects on early memories and writes about the

nights she spent with her grandmother reading at her dining table and the days at the library learning

about history, and how these cemented values of success in her. Through the use of “seeds'' as symbolism

for the influence her grandmother had on her, she emphasizes the empowerment this brought into her life.

On page two Powell expresses gratitude for the love for knowledge of her grandmother cemented in her,

stating, “I honestly believe that your mind is a garden and that everyone you encounter in life adds to the

cultivation of that garden”(Powell 2). It affirms the significance of these memories in composing her

character as ambitious(Powell 3) . Through writing, Powell is able to make connections between her

memory and identity, just as Williams suggested in his writing. Powell reclaims memories as a reflection
of her life and self by decomposition. For Powell, her time at the library greatly influenced who she is,

giving her the ambition to pursue whatever knowledge she seeks to aquire.

Though an understanding of how memory can affect identity is crucial, it is important to

understand how the process of writing itself can impact the development of identities through writing. For

many people, including many students, the act of writing is observed as strictly academic(Alvarez, Wan,

and Lee, 4). Many are taught that there is a correct way of writing and correct words, grammar, structures

that must be used in order to categorize a piece of writing as “good”. Falling victim to dominant

narratives and ideas of what is and isn’t good writing can hinder the voices of people. Simone Riddle talks

about her struggle with writing and what it is to be a good or bad writer in her essay, In Writing With a

Cause: Mayan Women, Maya Angelou and My Mother. Riddle struggles to regain her love for writing

after working alongside many ivy league graduates whose writing she describes as beyond her level of

expertise. From the beginning she writes, “I had never understood writing to be something you had to

work at: you were either good at it or you weren’t”(Riddle 1). For a significant percent of the population

dominant narratives seem to prevail. Generally people believe that there is a strict boundary between what

is good and bad writing because of “an ideal often conceived as white, upper-middle class, “accentless”,

and male..”(Alvarez et al 4). Thus it is understandable why people fail to want to explore their voices and

identities through literacy. Riddle chooses to reclaim writing as a tool for self exploration when she says,

“Writing is a tool to enable us to lead a more meaningful, thoughtful and conscientious life. It helps us to

coherently communicate who we are, the past that shaped us, to reflect on what we are currently

experiencing, and how we feel about all of these things. At least this is the case for me”(Riddle 2). The

connection between a writer and their writing goes beyond narratives, it creates a clear connection

between the mind and the body and pushes an individual to understand themselves and the world around

them at a deeper level. The standards of good and bad limit the scope in which people may see themselves

and to let go of these standards enables people to write their own stories without fear of judgment.

Although it is impossible to rid oneself of standards that plague writing norms, finding love in reflection

and revision through writing can greatly impact how we write not only for ourselves but in any occasion.
 Students and everyday people alike have the power to tell their own stories, to transcribe their

identities through writing and create their own narratives. However, many fail to do so because of

standards that have been set to prevent everyday people from doing so. Without the tools or guidance to

understand the possibilities that exist in the world of writing, many are deprived of using writing as a

form of self-expression. As Brownyn Williams suggests, who we are matters in our writing, not only as a

form of self expression but also as unique voices. People such as Simone Riddle andKenishia Powell are

examples of how a person can use their memories to make connections to their identity, of how the

decomposition of character can allow individuals to reclaim normative standards and of how people can

find meaning through literacy narratives. Through revision and analysis people are able to use their

memories to find meaning and transcribe these into identities, and finally to strengthen their writing by

developing a distinctive voice. We do matter in our writing and understanding this opens limitless literary

possibilities for everyday people alike.

 Work Cited

Alvarez, Sara, Wan, Amy, Lee, Eunjeong, “Workin’ Language: Who We Are Matters in

Writing”, Writing Spaces Volume 4. Edited by Dana Driscoll, Megan Heise, Mary

Stewart, and Matthew Vetter, 2022, Pp 1-17,

https://writingspaces.org/writing-spaces-volume-4/

Riddle, Simone. "Writing with a Cause: Mayan women, Maya Angelou and my mother." Digital

Archive of Literacy Narratives, 10 Oct. 2019,

https://www.thedaln.org/#/detail/e0f36430-e5dc-4264-bf41-d7e5e038439d. Accessed 8

November 2022.

Powell, Kenishia. "Everything You Want to Know is in A Book." Digital Archive of Literacy

Narratives, 10 Oct. 2019,

https://www.thedaln.org/#/detail/73dce6b9-cd06-4535-a858-c83bea2fee4e. Accessed 8

November 2022.

Williams, Bronwyn T. Literacy Practices and Perceptions of Agency: Composing Identities.

Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2018.