I remember learning the word genre in school, and the teacher explaining how it can apply to writing art, and movies. How there are a lot of different genres and how a lot of writers stick to one specific one, for example, R.L Stine. When the genre of āeducation narrativeā came up I was confused, mainly because Iāve never heard of it before so I didnāt know what to expect. When I read the first text that was assigned to us I realized that this genre would be something that I could easily relate to, annotate and break down. The authors that weāve read so far have been immigrants trying to get through life without being viewed as different, uneducated or broken because they donāt fit into the educational norms that society has put in place.
If I wanted to write my own educational narrative I think I would have to start with digging very deep into my memory and try to find where my perspective on the things we were being taught no longer mattered and we had to start just downloading the information like robots. One question that I have about writing an education narrative is does it have to be written in one style? For example, can we do a poem and then a story explaining it like how Olivarez did.
One educational experience that I feel has stuck with me is when I went to my first bilingual school. A lot of kids who migrate from their countries whether that be Mexico, DR, PR etc say how they feel like they donāt belong in school because they donāt speak the same language and teachers treat them like theyāre stupid. For me it was the same thing but just I was the one who came to a school full of Latinos and I was treated like the outsider especially because I was one of the only three black kids there.
I think you’ve got a great place to start. Tell us that story. And as far as “style” — well, that’s up to you. I’ve had some great poems, some great and funny and sad stories, some that were written in at least two different languages. Don’t feel like you’re being forced to write according to some stupid template — there isn’t one! You’re definitely on the right track, so just keep trusting your instincts on this one. š