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Reading is a topic in which many students who write literacy narratives tend to focus on. It is a vital part of education as well as a stepping stone to higher knowledge. Though with this, many people tend to find themselves in the outsider characteristic when they struggled with learning how to read. The students felt that they developed slower than their peers and through that felt like they were different. Kids “constructed themselves as a stranger in a foreign land” (Alexander, p. 622) Students found themselves banished from the group and cast away from their peers solely because they were not as proficient in reading. This is where the concept of outsider stems from as the students labeled themselves as outsiders due to a lack of literacy proficiency. A good example of a feeling of being on the outside of the group due to a difficulty in reading in grade school comes from Ben Lui.

“I was filled with so much embarrassment when it came my turn ro make my contribution and I had nothing to say. I felt overwhelmed everytime I began reading and started to feel hopeless. I could not understand how everyone else was going through reading so easily” (Lui, 1).

Lui perfectly exemplifies the effect of which poor reading skills can make students feel extricated from not only the peer group but even their friends. Students have a fear of being called on to read aloud and thus fear causes them great anxiety in the classroom. The fear which some students have and others do not pushes them to feeling that they are being removed further and further from the group, emphasizing the outsider characteristic. Along with reading, a very similar issue stems from writing.

 

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Reading is an early learned skill in which many students who write literacy narratives tend to focus on when thinking about how literacy shaped their lives. It is a vital part of education as well as a stepping stone to higher knowledge. Though with this, many people tend to find themselves in the outsider characteristic when they struggled with learning how to read. Though Alexander does not directly state that is is the reason why students write outsider narratives, it is a great example. The students felt that they developed slower than their peers and through that felt like they were different. Kids “constructed themselves as a stranger in a foreign land” (Alexander, p. 622). Students found themselves banished from the group and cast away from their peers solely because they were not as proficient in reading. This is where the concept of outsider stems from as the students labeled themselves as outsiders due to a lack of literacy proficiency. A prime of feeling like an outsider to a group specifically due to a difficulty in reading in grade school comes from Ben Lui.

“I was filled with so much embarrassment when it came my turn ro make my contribution and I had nothing to say. I felt overwhelmed everytime I began reading and started to feel hopeless. I could not understand how everyone else was going through reading so easily” (Lui, 1).

Lui perfectly exemplifies the effect of which poor reading skills can make students feel extricated from not only the peer group but even their friends. Students have a fear of being called on to read aloud and thus fear causes them great anxiety in the classroom. The fear which some students have and others do not pushes them to feeling that they are being removed further and further from the group, emphasizing Alexander’s outsider characteristics. A deficiency in reading perfectly lines up with how Alexander describes an outsider narrative despite the fact that he never specifically stated that poor reading skills cause one to be an outsider. Along with reading, a very similar issue stems from writing.

 

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Though some students felt like they were separated from the group due to their literacy skills, some narratives discuss the physical separation which some students had during English class. In elementary school, there are programs which are specially designed to help students who are behind in reading and writing skills catch up to the everyone else in their class. These special programs are designed to help students, though that is not what they always accomplish. These programs can promote outsider characteristics by further isolating students, this time physically rather than mentally. Madison Derosa discusses her time in a special reading program called “Title 1” where she spent extra time reading. To her at first this program was great, as it allowed her an escape from the regular class. But with time, this opinion changed. “Once again we had those paper books that went above our cubbies. So everyone still knew we weren’t as smart as them. I was disappointed that I would have to go back to my mom and tell her I was in Title 1 again” (Derosa, p. 2). Madison’s “books” were a label of her lack of discipline in reading which made her feel as though she was less than the other students.

 

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Writing and reading share a dependent relationship on one another, without writing you can not read, and without reading there is no point to writing. Based off of their direct relationship here, it can be expected that there would be some similarities between outsider narratives which stem from either reading or writing. As described by Wiley, students with this literacy narrative topic “often write about themselves as being invisible or used metaphors about being unclean or outcast from the world of literacy” (Wiley, p. 344). From this, less than proficient writers find themselves feeling just as lower level reader, “outcasts”. They turn their papers in, which they believe to be worth a decent grade, only to have them be returned with a grade far less than what they expected. Due to their lack of understanding while their peers flourish within the writing world leaves them with a sense of bewilderment, thinking that they are less than their peers. This feeling of subordination is what sets the stage for the foreign feeling  these authors describe. Jillian Hagerty states within her outsider literacy narrative that “I felt like they were making judgemental thoughts. That I was being watched, judged, made fun of, and that others thought I was stupid and not worth being with the rest of the class until lunch” (Hagerty, pg. 1). Just as stated with reading, these two quotes correlate in the sense that both describe the feeling of displacement among peers. Hagerty feels as though she is judged and mocked due to her lack of writing skills, which emphasizes Wiley’s quote of students feeling “unclean or outcast from the world of literacy”. This is where the outsider narrative becomes prevalent in Hagerty’s paper as she states she feels like the students look at her differently, placing her in a different group of individuals outside of the norm.