Narrative Theory and Stories that Speak to Us - by Cynthia L. Selfe and the DALN Consortium
It is nearly two-thirds of the way through Kevin's story (two minutes and thirty-three seconds into a three-minute-and-thirty-second narrative) that he introduces the turning point—his transformation into a confident and competent writer, one who even occasionally enjoys reading what he has written,
It wasn’t until I got into, you know, my Ph.D. program that, you know, it [poor writing] became more of a non-issue… I’m not going to say I’m a good writer now, but sometimes I go back and read stuff that I’ve written and I’m like, “Wow! That’s actually kind of good!”
In a coda to his narrative, Kevin speaks with a sense of productive personal agency, both as a successful writer and a teacher of writing, pointing out,
You know it’s kinda been this long, long journey for me. But even with that, I think that some of my early experiences have been very valuable in the sense of I can take that into the classroom, and, uh, I have more empathy for, for my students, uh, who struggle with it [writing], and I can give them better strategies, uh, for how to build their confidence in what they’re doing.
Kevin ends his narrative, as the video clip reveals, with a slightly lifted chin and a smile signaling the end of his story and his own hard-won intellectual victory.
