Understanding How I Learned: A Literary Narrative

As I sit in my graduate courses at City College, understanding how adults come to learn, it is not lost on me that I can see most of the concept and theories being applied to me as I absorb the pedagogy. One of the tidbits of information that first took me aback in my first class was hearing that while children are learning language in their home, their grammar is not corrected by their parents or caregivers. We, my four siblings and I, were always corrected in our grammar at home. In hindsight, I find it ironic how my brothers and sisters and I were given a strong foundation of how to use the correct form of words by parents who did not finish high school. My mother is from the south and when her family moved north when she was 12, their southern accents obviously came with them. I know her twang was a source of ridicule and after a while my mother would not say a word unless she knew she was saying it correctly.
And as I write the previous sentence, I’m reminded of my struggles with my son, Jordan. When he was a toddler when his pediatrician suggested I get a speech therapist for him after discovering he had very few words in his repertoire at 15 months. My son is not an only child but having a sister who is 5 ½ years older, makes it seems as if he is sometimes. He’d play quietly by himself and motion or point when he wanted something. After a few sessions with Maureen, she said “Jordan has his own language but he won’t verbalize it unless he can say it correctly.” It was then I began to notice how my son was listening to our conversations; I could almost see him trying to say the words in his head. Today, Jordan still struggles with having responses well thought out and ready to share with the classroom much like his mother. To be called on to participate and not have the right words in place is a scary thing for the both of us. I did not notice my mother or myself in my son’s literary journey until the writing of this narrative.
As an avid reader of 1980’s trash novels of Jackie Collins, Sidney Sheldon and Danielle Steele to name a few, I developed a vivid imagination and began writing stories about my friends and reading them during down time. Stories were great because they gave me the audience, the attention I wanted to show off how clever I was with my words. I liked to play with them, rhyme them, twist and break them to see what else they could do. Words could make you laugh or cry, make you gasp with horror or incite you to riot. I realized writing was the most honest I could be with myself without ever having to say a word. I always tried to prove to myself that I had a voice, even if my tongue became tied up by the nerves that infiltrate my stomach any time my name is called on to participate. I imagine that is how my son feels.
Although, I was the go to girl for story ideas, love letters to current ex boy or girlfriends, I had not yet transferred this gift academically. My papers were a little too sing-songy, my ideas not clear or solid so by the time I was in my 12th grade English class, the novelty had worn off and I felt I was just a cheesy girl who liked pretty prose and poetry.
I went to high school in the Hell’s Kitchen section of New York City where most of the students were black and Latino who lived in various parts of the five boroughs. My grades weren’t stellar, mediocre at best, but the one class I knew I could hold my own, when I applied myself, was English. My twelfth grade teacher, Mrs. Spilotro, was a stickler for little things. I would always receive my papers back with comments about one thing or another. One comment that stuck out for me was how my cursive “k” wasn’t a textbook cursive “k.” She made me do my homework assignment over making sure I wrote the “k” according to the penmanship “k” posted in the classroom. I felt she was nitpicking at everything I did and therefore my effort subsequent assignments were lacking. Our relationship continued like this for most of the year.
However, this would change after one particular assignment. Mrs. Spilotro had been reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to the class as we followed along in our books. The books were shared with her other classes therefore they never left the classroom. At the end, she gave an assignment in which she asked us to write a paper on if The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn should be taught in schools. Her directions were to “give evidence to support your claims using 12th grade English.” This sparked my interest because I knew exactly what she meant. I read the papers of the other students on the bulletin boards with “95’s” and “100’s” in proud big red numbers. I knew I could give her what she wanted
When she handed all the graded papers back, everyone received theirs exbut me. I thought to myself, here we go again. What’s wrong this time? As it turned out, nothing, it seemed, as Mrs. Spilotro read my essay to the class. I could see them looking around to see whose paper it could be. Who didn’t get their paper back? No one thought it could be mine. My daily conversations with classmates were not remotely similar to my essay so when she handed the paper back to me I heard the collective gasp of the class. She went on to point out how I made use of the words “derogatory” and “consistently” and provided examples from the text and of the time period to support my argument of why it should be taught in school. She gave me the slightest of smiles when she handed me back my essay. It had a profound effect on me because I felt as if I was now part of a club, that she was proud of my work. Subsequent papers that were submitted made no mention of how I wrote my letters, but focused on the content, what I could explore, how I could expand my thought or idea.
My teacher did not recognize my linguistic competence until she read my essay. I did not recognize that I was flexing my linguistic abilities by speaking in a familiar and conversational tone with my classmates and then submitting a well-received academic essay. This is when I first noticed that using the academic language held a certain kind of status in the classroom that did not translate outside of the class.