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Grace Thomas

Professor Gary Vaughn

Intermediate Composition 2089

15 September 2017

Re-Writing History: The Development of my Storytelling Literacy

Flames bubble in the fireplace. My cousins and I, our mouths muddied with melted

marshmallows and tongues burned by charred chocolate, cluster around the legs of Aunt Linda’s

chair. There she sits, like a queen upon a throne, radiant in the warm glow of the standing lamp.

Our eyes gaze up at her and we kneel in a reverent silence, fixated upon every word that comes

flowing, like honey, from her lips.

“And then, Aunt Elizabeth turned and ​punched through the car window​!” A gasp escapes

the young crowd. Aunt Elizabeth? Never! Lindammai begins to chuckle as her devotees descend

into a confused chaos of questions, concerns and demands for an encore.

This is how every evening would pass at my aunt’s spacious home in Minneapolis,

Minnesota. From the moment we children could comprehend English, we would gather about

Lindammai’s feet, our bellies filled with toasted s’mores, and warm ourselves with her wild

adventures. She would weave tales about our family members, characters whom we already

knew and loved. Within Lindammai’s stories, my mother would transform from a sensible

physician into a karate mastermind; ​Ammapa​ (my mother’s father) would shed the reputation of

a sprightly grandfather and blossom into a mischievous teenager; cousin David would ascend

from his position as the mature ​chettan ​(older brother) and play the part of the curious babe.
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I have always felt that it was these fireside chats, these nostalgic moments of bliss, that

fostered my adoration of storytelling. To enthrall a crowd by braiding drama with stark reality

held a certain charm. As a young child, I began to ponder what importance such a skill might

have. Storytelling was a pleasant pastime, but was there a more rewarding purpose underneath

the surface?

While I continued growing, I pondered this question. Whenever I performed small skits

for my friends or volunteered with the drama club, I maintained a steady stream of such inquiries

in the back of my mind.

It was not until my sophomore year of high school that these notions bore fruit. There

was a popular speech competition held by my school every year and the second-year students

were expected to present the storytelling portion of the contest. Once the announcement had been

made, I became engrossed in practicing for the performance. “Birbal and the Ten Fools,” a

famed Indian fable, was my weapon of choice. 1

Several restless nights were spent gesturing in front of the

mirror. As I memorized the piece, I created a concoction of

extravagant hand motions and colorful voices. My mother

would often find me walking about the house in the character

of the Emperor Akbar before settling down to eat dinner.

The competition arrived sooner than I expected. As I

ascended the stage stairs and took my place in front of the

crowd, the audience became shrouded in a sea of whispers.

1
​The image pictured to the left is my annotated version of “Birbal and the Ten Fools”.
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My eyes blinked in the startling spotlight and, as they began to adjust, I was pleasantly reminded

of the lamp in my aunt’s living room.

A hush fell upon the crowd.

“Once upon a time…” Words began to tumble out of my mouth and the story flowed

from my lips like a waterfall. The sentences crashed upon the audience; I heard the faint echoes

of laughter. My fingers flowed through the air as I painted the story; waves of Indian accents

swam alongside my words. The cascade suddenly ended as I brought my story to a close.

Applause rippled throughout the auditorium and, at the end of the competition, I accepted the

first place prize.

I basked in the glory and the spotlight, then received praise from those who had heard me

speak. Several parents and teachers were amazed by the beautiful Indian culture described in my

tale. As I continued to listen to these compliments, a certain realization took center-stage in my

mind: this competition was not simply an opportunity to perform before others; instead, it was a

moment in which I could influence the opinions of a group of people​.

A majority of the crowd was born and raised in the homogenous society of northern

Kentucky. Thus, for several audience members, my performance would be the first experience

they had with an Indian person. The story I told, one that was brimming with references to the

history of my exotic hometown, would be the only lesson they had in Indian traditions. Even

though my fable may have been fiction, the idea that I was actively shaping my audience’s views

on my culture was reality. I was finally able to discern the importance of storytelling, a fact that

had escaped me in years past. To tell stories is to influence the beliefs of others.
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Throughout history, people have written stories. First told by word of mouth, these tales

were eventually written down and have become known as ​history​. No account of our past can be

considered as unbiased truth; each tale has been colored by he or she who is relaying it. Thus, we

who are living in the present have never known the complete truth about the past; we only know

the image that has been painted for us by others.

This reality often becomes a source of strife between peoples. Whoever controls how

historical stories are portrayed has the power to construct presumptions about others. The famed

activist and writer, Malcolm X, skillfully described this notion in his work “Learning to Read”

when he stated that his “history had been ‘whitened’- when white men had written history books,

the black man simply had been left out” (260). In Minister X’s time, knowledge about African

American people was severely influenced by the historical accounts that were provided. The rich

history of an influential race was crushed into inexistence. As a result, those who were not

members of the black community viewed an entire population as worthless. If a person was

given no honor in the past, were they really worth respecting in the present?

The negative consequences of our stories were obvious in Malcolm X’s case. However,

spinning tales has also positively influenced a culture’s expectations. The Native American

writer, Sherman Alexie, noted that he “was certainly never taught that Indians wrote poetry,

short stories or novels” (365). Once Mr. Alexie began to write fiction, he took the constricted

view of Native American written culture and cracked it open for the benefit of his fellow Native

Americans and the rest of the world. In a sense, his defiant act of writing stories allowed him to

rewrite history itself. Never again would historians be able to say that an American Indian could

not be an author.
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It is not question that both Minister X and Mr. Alexie radically changed the world in the

present; however, it is the writing that they created that will radically change the future. The

words that they have constructed still resonate with us now. ***

The renowned storyteller Stephen King expands upon this idea when he states that when

you read the words of others, you are “having a meeting of the minds” (106). ***

Stories and the way in which they are portrayed can be both constructive and destructive.

This duality stems from the perspectives through which our history is told. To create a truly

impartial account of the past, to widen the prejudices that we place upon other people, we must

demand that each and every person tell his or her story. People of every gender, persons of every

race, must have their histories known. As we continue to gather pieces of our communal story,

we put together a puzzle that represents the most truthful version of the past. To write narratives,

to tell anecdotes, to describe our versions of the tale, we allow for future generations to develop a

more enriching understanding of each other.

As I grew from the tiny tot who worshipped at her aunt’s knee into the confident young

woman who preached to the masses, I continually drew meaning from the practice of

storytelling. It was not only an outlet for my over-active dramatic genius, but also an opportunity

to revolutionize other’s belief systems. In this way, storytelling was my own literacy. While most

define literacy as a person’s ability to read or write, I have come to believe that it is much more.

Those who read are those who draw value from something they do. Storytelling became

invaluable to me and I knew that it held much more importance in the world than what was

expected from it.

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As people discover more about their literacies, as folks preach more about their histories,

the world expands. It slowly becomes a place in which the past, the present and the future are

colored by a variety of unique ideas and cultures.

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Works Cited

Alexie, Sherman. “The Joy of Reading: Superman and Me.” ​Writing About Writing: A College

Reader. ​1st ed. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s,

2011. 363-365. Print.

​ ew York: Scribner, 2000. 103-107. Print.

King, Stephen. “What Writing Is.” ​On Writing. N

X, Malcolm. “Learning to Read.” ​50 Essays: A Portable Anthology​. Ed. Samuel Cohen. New

York: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2011. 257-266. Print.