Augustus Johnson

Week 16 / December 13 2015

English 1A – Section 73017

Professor Kirsten Ogden

 

The Importance of Discovering My Voice   

 

    “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them”, Henry David Thoreau, from an article by Dennis Merritt Jones

 

     Everybody eventually faces the question of ‘Who I Am’, either through an essay or through a period of period of self-reflection. Mary Phipher posed that questions to immigrants when she asked them to discuss their history and experiences in her “I Am From” (33) exercise. We have all faced situations, either troubling or joyful, where we’ve had self-doubts and questioned our existence. Death of a family member, the birth of a new child or an acceptance speech are all occasions in which we question ourselves. It is then during a period of introspection, that we examine our experiences, our history, and our values. The things that make us who we are. That is the point when we are most passionate about the things we care about and the point when our voice is truly authentic. The recognition of this point and the discovery that I have an authentic voice was the most important lesson learned from English 1A.

 

     “The terrible struggle that made an American out of a potential slave said “On the Line!” The Reconstruction said “Get set!”, and the generation before said “Go!” (Hurston 478) from Readings for Revolutionary Writing

 

     The possession of an authentic voice is inherent. We all have one and it is unique. I just had to recognize what it is. Authentic voice is the sum of my life experiences, my history, my vales, my likes and my dislikes. My authentic voice is what makes me, me. It is the spirit part of my identity.

 

     “Personal identity is what makes every person unique, defining them through their specific biographies (e.g., name, birthplace), unique characteristics (e.g., intelligent, athletic), role identities (e.g., daughter, employee), and particular combination of private and personal experiences.” Oxford Bibliographies

 

Mary Pipher in Writing to Change the World, definition of authentic voice is “Voice is everything we are, all that we have observed, the emotional chords that are uniquely ours – all our flaws and all our strengths, expressed in words that best reflects us”, (46). Recognition of the concept of authentic was an epiphany for me. It was in that moment that I realized that authentic voice was my vehicle to connect, my way to express my thoughts and opinions to others. It was then I realized the importance of my voice.

     One feature that makes authentic voice so important is its power to avoid Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie’s, “The Danger of a Single Story”. Adichie states the power one has over a person or culture is when there is only one story, the storytellers story about that person or culture. It is the power Adichie states to “show one people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again”.  She adds that “power is not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.”  Adichie defines this power by the Igbo word “nkali”, meaning “to be greater than another.” By adding another voice to the story, one can mitigate “The Danger of a Single Story”. Adding another voice adds another point of view. Adding another point of view allows one to become part of the adversarial process.

     An authentic voice allows one to participate in the “Contact Zone”. The concept of the “Contact Zone” is relatively new to the pedagogy of teaching English and is defined as an area of transition, where the language and history of one culture translates into another culture and vice-versa. Juan Flores in his article about “Authentic Multiculturalism and Nontraditional Students: Voices From the “Contact Zone””, uses Patricia Bizzell’s definition of “Contact Zone” as a “new method of incorporating multicultural literature in the English classroom that is accomplished through the study of events where cultures interact”, (1). Mary Solidly uses Mary Louise Pratt definition of “Contact Zone” as the “social spaces where cultures meet, clash, and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power” (512) in her discussion about literary narratives a sites of translation. The “Contact Zone” promotes authentic dialogue and is the place where discourse between two cultures can occur. In reference to authentic dialogue, Flores states “Without authentic dialogue, knowledge must be imparted through the monocultural i.e. highly suspect soliloquy of one voice”, (1), which can lead to the “The Danger of a Single Story”. (Adichie). Flores goes on to state, “Cultural inclusion in the loci of historical narrative sustains a “first-class seat” in mainstream culture. (1) The “Contact Zone” allows for this inclusion and is the place where authentic voice can be used to effect change.

 

     “A true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.” ()--- Tobias Wolfe from Mary Pipher’s Writing to Change the World

 

     A third aspect which makes the use of authentic voice important is its ability to connect and effect change. To discuss the ability of authentic voice to connect I’ve included this excerpt from the online site, English for Students on Authentic Voice;

 

     “Good Writing Should Have An Authentic Voice. When you read first – rate writing, you feel the presence of the writer. The Writer’s Character and sense of self permeate the writing and project authenticity. This writer, you think knows what he is talking about and means what he says; you feel only this particular writer could have written that particular piece – it is stamped with is personality. You are drawn in to this writer’s world and engage with it.” (Author-Unknown)

 

Another excerpt which I paraphrased, from Mary Pipher’s Writing to Change the World also emphasizes the power of an authentic voice to connect.

 

   “He swatted in the gutter, almost naked, selling children’s Magic Slates. As I walked by, he quickly scrawled on his display pad “Freedom from Fear” which is the motto Burmese exile Aung San Suu Kyi. He smiled at me  -- a fierce desperate smile – and the quickly erased what he had written. He dared to make a connection with a westerner. I have never felt more honored and more humbled.” (31)

 

Pipher and the unknown writer both show the power of the authentic voice to connect, to evoke feelings of trust and to raise our emotions. The ability of the authentic voice to effect change is reflected in one of Adichie’s final points in her transcript, when she states “Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories are used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity.”  Pipher states “All writing is designed to change the world, at least a small part of the world, or in some small way perhaps a change in a reader’s mood or in his appreciation of a certain kind of beauty.”  Adichie describes the power of voice can positively or negatively effect the human condition whereas Pipher states the purpose of all writing is to effect change, large or small. From the propaganda of World War II, to political debates and to Nike ads, the power of authentic voice is to at first connect then to persuade and to invite people to join the movement.

    Once recognized, the struggle to incorporate our authentic voice into our writing may be difficult. I faced the same problems with authentic voice that Ellen Shull students faced. I wrote what I thought the teacher would like instead of writing about what I felt. Shull uses the analogy of the process of writing and tailoring a suit of clothes to describe this predicament. She states that all student’s writings contained all the necessary features rthat made them essays just as a finished suit contains all its necessary requirements that make it suit, but like the student’s writings, it is a suit the students would never wear. She states that student’s writings were dull and uninspiring and compares the writings to a “dreadful outfit” (1) that “no student would be caught dead wearing”. (1) She continues, stating the students “make no claim on them at all because they are for manipulating only: cutting out, piecing together, handing in, getting a grade, and passing the course” (1) She discovered the reason for these dull and uninspiring clothing was that those clothes were meant for her. She describes the epiphany as follows, “Then it dawned on me who was supposed to wear those dreary duds. Me! Perhaps that was the important realization on the way to enlightenment. Since the writing was tailored to my specifications and instructions and carried my labels, the grades, it stood to reason I was the one.” (2). To resolve this issue, Shull replaced the student’s textbooks with real books about real people that contained topics that the students could relate to. She states, “In these wonderful books the student writers found topics for writing about their own lives.” (2) In response to changing the focus of her class she states, “I found myself writing as energetically as those in my class because we were telling THE story. And it was working. The voices coming from the pages became true and real, honest and authentic voices”. (3) Shull resolved her student’s problem, like I resolved mine by allowing her students to utilize their own authentic voices to write about how they felt.

     I was lucky, I had no issues with translating my English into English used in classrooms, primarily because my parents were educators. I therefore had no issues with assimilating into the classroom environment or maintaining my cultural perspective like Richard Rodriguez discussed in his autobiography Hunger of Memory. (Soliday (518) Without knowing, I traversed the “Contact Zone” utilizing many voices without losing my identity. Soliday in her essay, also described a similar process of crossing the “Contact Zone” made by her student, Alisha. She states “Alisha represents herself as a speaker of many Englishs making multiple translations between worlds rather than assimilating the values of one world at the expense of those of another.” (520) Alisha’s many voices included one which she used with her professor, one she used with her friends, and one that she used at home. Soliday’s discussion of Alisha’s many voices made me realize that I too had many different voices that also depended on the setting. I definitely had a work voice, home voice, and a friend voice. The differences between voices could be subtle or extreme. Soliday’s Alisha also examines Rodriguez’s identity problems. She takes issue with Rodriguez’s assertion “that in order to embrace the culture of the school, student’s must necessarily distance themselves so painfully from their home cultures” (518) states that “Even though learning [in school] started changing my life” she wrote, “I never allowed it to separate me from my intimate life.” (518) I am on her bandwagon and would like to add that unique identities enhance the learning experiences. As Pipher says, “All of this individuality that is you, properly understood and clearly presented, is a tremendous gift to the world.” (45) Mary Pipher offers more insight on Alisha’s and mine insistence on maintaining identity;

 

     “I struggled for Yeats to find my voice. At first, I wrote in a self-conscious way: I sat down and “committed the act of literature.” My anxiety about writing caused me to write in a constipated, bland way that sounded clunky, pompous and effusive all at the same time. I was imitating other writers and producing inferior work.” (47) Pipher discovers her voice when she realized that “when I try to be fancy or literary, I sound silly and fake. When I speak as I write, I sound authentic” (47)

 

Alisha adds to the argument against imitating, by stating that Rodriguez’s feeling of distance is due him finding his “identity by imitating authoritative figures in the mainstream culture, such as teachers.” She continues “Instead of sitting in a classroom obtaining my teacher’s identity, I focus on obtaining my own public identity.” Her developing sense of self helps her to cope with the “Contact Zone”. This ability “allows her to negotiate the complex demands of her cultural situation in mature ways.” (518) This additional property of authentic voice gives Alisha the power to connect and effect change regardless of the situation.

     The recognition that I have an authentic voice has given me the ability to connect with others and effectively express my concerns and ideas. Knowledge of and continued development of my authentic voice has given me the confidence to navigate in the classroom and elsewhere in society. Man’s ability to connect with others by using his authentic voice has led to change in civil rights, ecology, political policy and social policy. It is my hope that my voice, too can help someone. Mary Pipher states “voice is like a snowflake – complicated, beautiful and individual. It is the essence of self, distilled and offered in service to the world.” (46) I would like my voice to be part of that world.

 

Works Cited

Adichie, Chiamanda Ngozi. “The Danger of a Single Story”: TEDGlobal, (2009): Transcript

“Authentic Voice.” English for Students.  “N.p” “n.p” Web. 16 Dec. 2015

Flores, Juan. ”Authentic Multiculturalism and Nontraditional Students; Voices From the “Contact Zone.” “N.p.” “n.p.” (1995) 15. ERIC. Web. 16 Dec. 2015

Huston, Zora Neale. “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” Readings for Revolutionary Writing. Boston / New York: Be/St. Martin’s, 2013. 178, 179. Print.

Jones, Dennis Merritt. “Finding Your Authentic Voice Will Set You Free to Express Who You Really Are.” Huffpost. Huffington Post, 23 Jan. 2014  Web. 16 Dec. 2015

Andriot, Angie, Owens, Timothy J.. “Idenity” Oxford Bibliographies.Oxford University Press, 12 April 2012. Web. 12 Dec. 2015

Pipher, Mary. “Know Thyself”, “What You Alone Can Say”, Writing to Change the World. New York: Riverside Books, (2006):  33, 45, 46, 47. Print.

Shull, Ellen. “Memoir Writing: Evoking the Authentic Voice.” “N.p.” “n.p.” (1991) 13. ERIC. Web. 16 Dec. 2015

Soliday, Mary. “Translating Self And Difference Through Literary Narratives”, College English 56n5 (1994): 512, 518, 520. Print .