Briana Urena

Some of the “ingredients” of the education narrative genre are taking your past experiences and explaining how it affected you and your relationship with education. In Jose Olivarez story, he never felt like he belonged anywhere. A preschool rejected his application because they did not have anyone on staff who spoke Spanish. At a young age he had a rough experience in school because he just moved to the United States and it was hard for him to adjust to everything. Even when he went back to Mexico, the kids told him he didn’t belong there either. This shows me how Jose Olivarez became the person he is now and why he writes poems and stories so kid’s who experience the same thing don’t feel alone. He also explained when you are writing in the education narrative genre, it’s ok if you don’t remember everything from your past you can still write your own book. Jose Olivarez wrote a book of poems with one foot in the past, one hand in the present, and a nose on the future. In “The Fourth of July” story, Audre Lorde’s sister couldn’t even attend her senior trip because of the color of her skin. Imagine how excited she was only to be rejected because of something she can’t control. What I learned from both of these stories is that education does not determine your value. We are all special. A place to get started with my own education narrative is talking about my past relationship with education and some of the up’s and down’s I experienced in school. I remember feeling not good enough because of my low grades. I don’t have any concerns about writing my own education narrative.