Personal Stories in Literacy

Throughout every literacy source I analyzed from the Digital Archive of Literary Narratives, each source has an underlying theme in common – they all convey very individual stories that are personal to the storyteller, yet they describe the events through such detailed storytelling that the audience can connect and relate. I originally chose all 4 narratives because they had surface-level themes I could relate to: being by the ocean, running in college, and storytelling being passed down through a family, but after a closer look, I realized what really drew me in to these narratives was the level of personalization that each author poured into their work. Although each narrative utilizes a different genre of storytelling (video, poem, voice recording, essay), they are all effective in their purpose in conveying their message because of the level of detail and personalization they tie in to their words.

I Am On A Beach – poem by Jack Barshaw

I am on a beach. My feet are in the sand. I am listening to the ocean. I see the sunset.

https://www.thedaln.org/#/detail/cdeea1a8-138d-4a39-9c8a-0b8ff44bd9d5

This poem, written very simply, denotes the feelings and senses that are invoked when a person is standing very close to the ocean, in the waves, on the sand. The simplicity with which the poem is written makes it extremely accessible to all literate English readers, and besides the inclusion of a few words such as “firmament” and “bailiwick”, this poem could even be read by older elementary school students. Nonetheless, this poem’s simplicity adds to its effectiveness – the ocean doesn’t require any additional explanation other that imagery and even if a reader has never visited a beach, they could imagine themselves here, not prior ocean-literacy needed.

Running Around the World – a spoken narrative by Miles Duncan

‘Fight it.’ This phrase helped me battle when the going got tough.

https://www.thedaln.org/#/detail/720e1ad2-3003-4f27-af87-a3934c8fce21

This spoken narrative describes a runner’s experiences with running a specific race, and the importance that language can have in sports, particularly running. The narrative also speaks to how running has its own language, its very own literacy with different terms essential to understanding the sport such as “PR” (personal record) and “stride” (to lengthen your legs to go faster) and “400m” (the length of an outdoor track, but when coaches yell it during a race it usually means there’s one lap left to go which means to run as hard as you can and give everything you’ve got left). This exploration of running literacy was extremely interesting to me as a collegiate runner, as I had totally forgotten there was this literacy that I have been tuned into for the past 8 years of running that has become so innate to me that I didn’t even think of it as literacy. I often find myself explaining track/cross country terms to my friends who don’t run, so running terms are really their own form of literacy.

Reading for Generations – Essay by Michelle Byrne

This book repeats the phrase “I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be.” These words continue multiple times through the book and every time we read them we find ourselves imagining growing older and wonder what life will be like for us, our son, and the rest of the world.

https://www.thedaln.org/#/detail/ef78fee3-679d-4912-a02a-dbec0e7d374b

This very special essay describes how the author remembers her parents reading to her as a child, and how she is continuing to pass on the lessons she’s learned from her upbringing to her son – and emphasize the importance of a parental relationship. She writes that the most important thing she gained from parents were reading to her was the strengthening of their relationship, and also a lifelong love of reading and learning as she hopes to become an attorney. This literary narrative explored the importance of having a good literary sponsor. Clearly, the author’s parents were her sponsors as they encouraged her to read and read to her at a young age – as discussed in the Brandt reading, these sponsors of literacy probably had a benevolent purpose for teaching their children to read. There is no “reciprocal relationship” as Brandt states there usually must be in a sponsor relationship, just a family tradition of passing down a love of reading.

Reading and Running – Video Narrative by Sarah Foster

As I read those [running] books, I progressed into keeping my own running journal, which also helped me with my training, so literacy is a huge part of that because I was inspired by those books.

https://www.thedaln.org/#/detail/9ccb05db-024b-4310-bf9d-cd4bea9205b1

This video-narrative describes how Sarah Foster, a member of the Ohio State women’s XC team, was inspired by the book Running With the Buffalos by Chris Lear, written about the University of Colorado’s cross country/track teams and how they trained to become champions. Once again, storytelling is used as an intrinsic part of creating a narrative, and the story that Foster tells, about how her running was positively impacted by writing down her own training notes, was even inspired by a story. Humans are naturally inclined to tell stories, as explored in the Reading for Generations essay, and it’s how we hold others’ attention and also how we remember things that happened to us in our own memories.