Storytelling: Fictional Narratives, Imaginary People, and the Reader's Real Life

Rationale

The rationale for creating a unit that combines memoir writing with an exploration of lies, stereotypes, and prejudice came surely, but not swiftly. Perhaps I am slow on the uptake, but I seemed to fail to see the blinking neon signs – they read "Tell the truth!" For instance, I recall a time when, after reprimanding an African American male student for talking while I was giving instruction, the student huffed, "You don't like me because I am Black." Did I question where his notion had risen? Tell him that I actively take African dance lessons because I honor the opportunity to be a part of something other than my own culture? Lay down a portion of the things I have chosen to study about the rich oral-storytelling tradition or artistic production of African Americans? Nope. I would be lying if I wrote that I had said any of those things. Instead, I rolled my eyes and snapped my lips closed faster than a clam retaining its claim to a prize pearl.

During another mind-opening moment, I came across a child's social media post regarding a teacher's refusal to answer a question posed by a class member. It was a question about the origin of racism. The student apparently was told that her question was off-topic. The student felt otherwise. The post read something like, "Ugh. Teachers...they don't allow us to ask questions, but all they do is ask. How do they expect us to learn?"

I was struck by the profound nature of this child's statement and it led me to question my own teaching practice. I could not lie to myself; I was guilty of questioning more than I allowed students to question. This lead me to believe that I was indeed a Liar?I was presenting myself as superior to the students by stifling the student-generated questioning process. I arrived at the notion that I did so because I was afraid that they would ask questions that I could not answer. I am older: Does that not mean that I should be wiser? I was establishing a classroom climate of 'us' versus 'them.' Is this the same bias that led the aforementioned student to believe that the teacher has an answer to her question? To all of her questions? Can you see the stereotype hidden here? Age is not a requirement of maturity, yet both student and teacher made an assumption to the contrary. That is a stereotype that I will categorize as age and/or status related.

I had long fallen prey to the sinister little snake of lies that led me, like many other educators, into thinking that discussions about race are taboo. Why? What about sex, gender identity, religion, body type, parental financial status, family configuration, disability, neighborhood, and social status? A silencing finger seems placed upon those lips as well. I tried to pin-point moments when this habit might have originated for me. Slowly, like a sleeping foot to which feeling begins to return, those pin-points became too numerous to tolerate. I began to toy with the idea of using memoir writing to help the students. As all educators should, I began to do what I was planning to ask my students to do. I utilized the Memoir Pre-write Organizer (See Appendices) and, in my own memoir, attempted to utilize the elements of craft that I expect my students to learn; audience appropriateness, memoir structure, voice, tone, dialog construction, use of active verbs, and figurative language. Here, my first try at crafting such a memoir illustrates the connection to lies, prejudice, and stereotypes that I remember being fed as a child:

• "Damned Questions"
• What does a 12-year-old know? Who has the right to decide what a kid should know? I've always asked a lot of questions. I recall being prepared for my Confirmation, a Catholic rite of passage in which an adolescent verbally 'chooses' to accept Christ in front of the Church. A precocious but naïve child, I had been reading Herman Hesse's Siddhartha. I poked my pink hand into the air, "Does reincarnation hurt?"
• Silence. More silence. A great deal of squirming.
• The priest glared, his red eyes forming into razor-sharp slits. "There is no reincarnation in Catholicism!"
• "But the Bible clearly says that Jesus rose from the dead. And that was a mighty big rock to roll away," I replied in the cheeky tone that, to this day, I never managed to shake. My friends giggled. Some rolled their eyes. I didn't know why.
• "You blasphemous harlot!" he raged, spitting like a clogged faucet.
• In that moment I learned children should be seen, but not heard. To this very day I am grateful that none of us actually knew those terms.
• I was thrown out of class merely for asking a question and scourged as an insolent child. I narrowed my eyes and bit hard on my tongue. I was, evidently, supposed to bow to his will and eat the host of his narrow-mindedness. He represented patriarchal morality. I thought his collar simply must be too tight. He did also once tell my mother that being divorced meant she could not accept Communion. My kind, beautiful mother was not good enough for God. Huh? The synonym for priest hissed in my ears. Go ahead and call her, Father. My God loves my mother. And me.
• I wonder now if he would have imposed the same restriction upon my dad. Mom would certainly be licked by the flames of hell. The apple did not fall far from the tree. A questionable damning brought by way of a damn question.
• After drafting this memory, I began to think about the limitless ways that people can be stereotyped and the impact that it has on student-student, teacher-student, and student-society relationships, but I was still stymied as to how to even broach the issue. How do I tie this all together? How do I model this process without imposing my will? As I do during any time of personal bewilderment, I turned to literature to help me de-stress. I began Kite Runner. Amir, the narrator and main character, takes a moral journey saddled with racial stereotype. In a poignant moment in the text, he is told by his father that there is no other sin than theft. Lying, the father reveals, is theft of the truth. ¹ The entire book is predicated on lying; Amir and Baba are tormented by culturally-charged lies of omission. ²

Then it hit me.

Use literature to segue into discussing lies, stereotype, and prejudice as well as a model for writing! By using student-appropriate selections that show how brave a writer must be to write about such concepts, the reader can be guided to deconstruct craft choices made by the writer, thus enabling the young reader to become a writer capable of constructing his or her own memoir. The students need to be led through a series of readings that allow them both to discuss lies, stereotype, and prejudice, and to identify and mimic craft choices within their own writing. For this purpose, I have selected fiction and memoirs that dramatize elements of lies, stereotypes, and prejudice. They include: Smoky Nights by Eve Bunting, Isaiah Washington's memoir in Etan Thomas' Fatherhood, Sharon Olds' poem "On the Subway", Harriet McBryde Johnson's Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life, Richard Wright's Black Boy, and Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood.