What’s the most influential story ever told? Who wrote it and Why? What emotions did it pull? All aspects of life are based on the stories told and history held within them. A piece of prose, a poem, and even a song tells a story and have the ability to evoke a wide range of emotions from the audience. My obsession with being a storyteller and The University Of Iowa’s M.F.A writing program is the perfect recipe to impact audiences across any medium.
Picture this, a young African American girl in a class full of children who looks just like her. Down to the color of their shoes, she is in sync. Frowned upon for her to look different and her individuality is hidden behind a cloak of conformity and resemblance. My story begins in systematic thoughts to my mind running wild. For as long as I can remember, I've had a fascination with stories. One particular story, A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle. A young Charles Wallace had just let the power of love release him from “It” and the influence held on him. This book and Movie were the first to bring me to tears. The story motivated my twelve year old self to realize that I wanted to make people cry; as well as make them experience every form of pathos. Fast forward to notebook pages overflowing with my words in forms of poems and stories. Fast forward to death of people who had significant
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To be apart of this program would mean being given the freedom to make my unique stories apart of the legacy of writers who aspired to be impactful on an audience. Audiences who want their minds to be embodied by tales that are written out of talent and hard work. These storytellers are shaped and groomed to be a vessel. To be accepted into this program would mean I become a vessel and the educators from this M.F.A program would have given me the solid foundation to do
Adler-Kassner, Lisa. “Taking Action to Change Stories.” The Activist WPA: Changing Stories about Writing and Writers. Logan, UT: Utah State, 2008.
The time I accomplished something would have to be ever since I got a job myself, when I told my mom about the job she didn’t like the idea she wanted me to focus on school and helping her out at the house and taking care of my sisters. She wanted me to not worry and just worry about school but I see a lot of people my age working and getting money they earned by working and I got interested myself and for me it didn’t matter where I worked as long as I did.
My relationship with writing has been much like roller coaster.Some experiences I had no control over. Other experiences were more influential. Ultimately it wasn’t until I started reading not because I had to read but because I wanted to, that's when my relationship reached change. I would have probably never cared about writing as I do today if it weren't for the critics in my family. When I was a child, my aunts and uncles always been in competition with who's child is better in school. I have always hated reading and writing because of the pressure to prove my family wrong was overwhelming for me. I had to prove them wrong and show them that I was capable of being "smart" which according to them was getting straight A's in all your classes.
Story, Story, Story: Conversations with American Authors. Seattle: Black Heron, 1999. Print. Wurtzel, Elizabeth.
Whether it's about your looks, the way you dress, your skin color, or who you are seen with. “The Flowers” by Alice Walker shows what the worlds actions and thoughts on skin color can do to someone. As a child you are as carefree as can be, without one care about what's happening in the world. Because, you live in your own special world. Myop’s world is the path in the woods she always took until she strayed from the path. “She had often been as far before, but the strangeness of the land made it not as pleasant as her usual haunts” (Walker 1). She's started to explore the world around her as do most children do once they start to grow older. However, exploring the world can have some consequences. Myop at a young age finds "Very near where she'd stepped into the head was a wild pink rose. As she picked it to add to her bundle she noticed a raised mound, a ring, around the rose's root. It was the rotted remains of a noose, a bit of shredding plowline, now blending benignly into the soil...Myop laid down her flowers” (Walker 1). Seeing that slave dead is the product of what society does to colored people. Teaching her that the world wasn't as colorful as she thought it was. That she’ll never be treated equally because of her color ruining her innocent view on the world. Giving her a negative view on society and losing her hope in it ever improving. “And the summer was over” (Walker
Maybe it’s the fact that I tend to stay in my room all weekend, which leads to people thinking I’m studying when in reality I am probably binge watching a TV show or maybe it’s my glasses, but most people who don’t know me too well assume that I am smart. Now that is a great thing for me because I don’t have to try as hard to impress them, but I end up finding myself in a bit of a problem. The problem is that everyone thinks I enjoy admiring school textbooks. But the truth is I’m usually admiring my Justin Bieber poster on my bedroom wall. Ever since I was in sixth grade I’ve been a huge fan of Bieber. His music always brought a feeling of calmness and back in the day his “never say never” motto, was what I lived by. I might still be living by that motto because I’ve decided to write this essay
My literacy journey began long before I had actually learned how to read or write. While recently going through baby pictures with my mother, we came across a photo of my father and I book shopping on the Logos boat, a boat that would come to my island every year that was filled with books for our purchasing. Upon looking at this picture, my mother was quite nostalgic and explained how they began my journey to literacy through experiences like this. My earliest memory of experiencing literature was as a small child. My parents would read bedtime stories to me each night before I went to bed. I vividly remember us sitting on the bed together with this big book of “365 bedtime stories for 365 days” and we read one story each day until we had
“They’re arguing about our sailing time,” replied Mark. “Specifically, why have we not departed already?” Other people added their voices to the argument, excitedly gesturing and complaining. Amos appeared crossing the companionway to the deck.
“After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” – Phillip Pullman
In the story “Only Daughter”, Sandra Cisneros is the only daughter in a family of 6 children. Since she’s the only girl, she faced challenges in her transition from childhood to adulthood. She constantly had to prove that she would be outstanding in life or that she was on the right path. Eventually, she did achieve awesome accolades, but still fret her father’s response to it all. More pressure was put on her, she felt than her brothers. Her story is related to mine because our transition from childhood to adulthood was filled with life lessons and memories that didn’t flow like it should’ve.
Gwendolyn Brooks once said “I felt that I had to write. Even if I had never been published, I knew that I would go on writing, enjoying it, and experiencing the challenge”. For some, writing may not be enjoyable or easy, but for Brooks writing was her life. Gwendolyn Brooks not only won countless awards, but also influenced the lives of several African Americans.
Savu, Laura. “The Crooked Business of Storytelling”. Ariel. Summer 2005 36. 3-4 Gale Cengage Learning. Thomson Gale. Webster Schroeder Library, Webster, NY. 31 January 2014.
Often times, literature has enough power for the reader to generate their own reality through the writer’s beliefs although most of the times the reality generated by the readers are not correct. In a TED talk called “the Danger of a Single Story,” Chimannda Adichie discussed about how literature affected her views on people, and then through life experience she had figured out that the reality she was creating was all false. She had grown up in Nigeria where at young age she was able to come across western literature. She was an inspired writer, and had realized all her inspirations came from British and American literature because most of her pieces were based of British and American literature such as having her characters...
There are many different types of events that shape who we are as writers and how we view literacy. Reading and writing is viewed as a chore among a number of people because of bad experiences they had when they were first starting to read and write. In my experience reading and writing has always been something to rejoice, not renounce, and that is because I have had positive memories about them.
Experiences mold people into who they are destined to become. They teach lesson to the ignorant, inspire the stagnant, and spark the content. A person’s experiences write their past and present, and my experiences wrote a dramatic story. My story begins with a naive child who was blinded by the wicked’s of the world, but one day hell released it’s beast. The beast came in the form of shattering words cracking picture frames and smashing children's hearts. It tore a family into two and transformed this girl into an adult. The beast had hunted her down and handed her the role of a leading her siblings to success. But this evil didn’t gain power over the young child; inside of her it blossomed a caring heart that strived to ease the pain of others