I really liked this story. His writings really relates to teenagers. I really enjoyed the chapters, because they vary between narrative stories of how Gilyard communicates in different social situations and scholastic analyses of those experiences. Gilyard has a way of writing that never sounds boring and you can keep reading and reading until you finish the all book. In “Voices of the Self” Gilyard uses a lot of imagery which is what kept me reading the text with a flow that I really enjoyed a lot. I think that on my writings that is what I have to get better at. An example in his writings is “Cutting into an alley, I encountered a high fence topped with a short row of barbed wire and didn’t hesitate to scale it. I ripped my shirt going over but managed to jump down to the other side and scurry behind a clump of bushes just as the cop entered the alley”. In this example I can really imagine my self in the situation because the way he words the sentence is fantastic and he also uses an English which really sounds like the one that many teenagers use as well, and this is why I really like Gilyard’s writing.
Category: Portfolio
Response to Gilyard’s “Voice of the self”
While reading “Voices of the self” by Keith Gilyard, his background is easy to understand because I have been to the areas such as “a rehabilitation center over on 14th street”. So it was easy to imagine myself there in his setting-imagery. Gilyard also includes demographics that shows the diversity is expanding and also credited his resources, “Whitaker (1989) reports that because of low pay, undesirable work conditions, and overall frustration with school systems”. However, I would not like to write a research paper in the conclusion. While there are some things that can easily relate to things that happened around me, was how this story was very similar to the people that I had encountered. Such as students doing drugs in school and not even attending, and they still graduate like the rest of the students. However its nice that Keith was given the opportunity to graduate high school, even though he has been sent to jail. Another thing that I liked about this story and that I would prefer in my writings is the use of first person perspective. I do not like how this story has people talking to another individual, as reading from a 3rd person perspective, and would prefer his usual first person- his life. In my opinion, I though the story was okay.
