When JosĆ© Olivarez writes āMaybe I Could Save Myself By Writing,ā he is, among other things, telling us one version of his education narrative. Project #1 for ENG 1101 will ask you to write your own education narrative, or one version of it at least. More on that soon.
After you read Olivarezās essay, write a comment below thatās longer, maybe 250-300 words:
- Find a passage from his essay that catches your attention and include it in your comment below. Why does it speak to you?
- Using Bunnās questions, who is writing this essay, and what is its purpose?
- What makes it an effective piece of writing (if you agree that it isāor what makes it ineffective if thatās your reaction).
- What makes it an education narrative?
- If you were going to write your education narrative (and you will!) what would you think it should include?
- What else do you want to say about Olivarezās essay?
“There are facts and there are stories. Every fact can be turned into any number of stories.
Here is a fact: The United States went to war with Mexico in 1846.
One story says the U.S. soldiers were heroes. One story says the United States was a winner and MĆ©xico was a loser. One story says Manifest Destiny….”. This passage sticks out to me because he is letting us know that just because something is a fact doesn’t mean a fact can’t be altered. The passage also alludes to his earlier claim of not being able to fully remember his past, therefore saying there will be a mix of facts and exaggeration in anything that has to do with explaining the past. The person writing this essay is a young man whom is trying to explain to us his reason for writing this essay. His piece is effective because it may be relatable to certain people. I love writing poetry so his essay speaks to me as poet. This is an education narrative, because its educating us on the speakers journey while also educating us on the speaker himself. I think an educational piece should include something that’s special to you, but factual.
“Maybe I could write the stories I was craving to read. Maybe I could save myself by writing.”
This passage sticks out to me because this part shows how much Jose found something that he found interesting and that makes him feel comfortable. This is coming from someone that could not find a place to belong, and was confused with his life. When he discovered how nice poetry was, he found out that he wanted to write stories to teenagers that are like him. The person that is writing the essay is a person that finally found himself and wants to improve on his tactics to be able to reach to adolescents that are in the position that he was once was. what makes a effective piece like this effective is the connection to the reader. in this essay the connection to their adolescence .Every reader has been a teenager that’s been confused about where they belong, this connection makes the reader relate to the author. This essay is an education narrative because this talks about how someone is talking about how their experiences in the past made them improve one problems that they once had. If I were to write an educational narrative, I would talk about how my experiences with other people has affected the way how in perceive other people and how I treat them. all I want to say is that I liked Oliviarez essay because it relates to how I used to be lost like him, but when I discovered myself, I felt like I finally wanted to better myself.
One passage that stands out to me comes early in Olivarezās essay. He writes āI attended public schools in a working class south suburb of Chicago called Calumet City, where teachers taught via the banking model of education: We were empty bank accounts, and it was our teachersā responsibility to deposit facts.ā The idea of education as some kind of banking transaction comes from educator and philosopher Paolo Freire. We can read more of his work on this from his foundational text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, especially Chapter 2. Iām not expecting you to read all of this chapter! But there are many relevant passages so I canāt quote them all. Here are a few important passages to get you into the text, and please reply here with additional passages if you find them helpful.
āEducation thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the ābankingā concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the depositsā
Freire terms the opposite of the banking model of education āproblem-posing education,ā and writes this about it:
āthe problem-posing educator constantly reĀforms his reflections in the reflection of the students. The students Āāno longer docile listeners Āāare nowĀĀ critical co-Āinvestigators in dialogue with the teacher. The teacher presents the material to the students for their consideration, and reĀ-considers her earlier considerations as the students express their own.ā