The Language Teacher
06 - 2002
A Language of Their Own:
Young Japanese Women Writing Their Life in English
Mika Toff
Aichi Shukutoku University
Life writing in English has been the object of considerable critical scrutiny for the past several decades, especially in attempts to theorize it in terms of genre (Neuman, 1991). Certainly, theorists of self-representation, such as Paul Jay (1984), for example, have discussed the notion of an unstable, multiple self. My own experience with life writing classes tells me that young Japanese women writing about themselves in English can be identified as destabilized "subjects in process" as they live their lives in one language and write about them in another. Thus, rather than generalizing about life writing as a genre "where concepts of subject, self and author collapse into the act of producing a text" (Sprinkler, 1980, p. 342), I wish to particularize the subject of life writing by looking at the writing of my students and describing the role identity plays in the classroom when students are straddling the language of experience and that of narration. I want to also acknowledge the awareness my students gain of themselves as individuals, as writers, and as the subjects of their stories.
This paper has grown out of my own classroom experience; it is as much life writing as academic paper. For this reason, I have chosen to foreground personal experience and my own students' writing. I have been teaching life writing to second-year junior college students for five years and have discovered in students' stories variation, detail, colour and depth that I never imagined. By the end of the one-year course, students desktop publish a life story of approximately 4000 to 5000 words which has been developed through monthly email drafts, constructive peer review and collaboration, and sharing their stories. Students have the opportunity to become more interesting writers and perceptive readers while realizing just how fascinating their own young lives are.
The foundation of this life writing class is honesty and openness because the topic is sensitive. Thus, it is important to create an atmosphere where students can be supportive of each other while learning English writing and computer skills. Accordingly, content and interest are prioritized over grammatical accuracy. As one student described her experience, "I felt relieved and happy when I realized that it was not necessary to be able to write like a native speaker, that I had my own style of writing, which was special." I have found that instead of being intimidated by linguistic limitations, students become more creative, finding their own voice, indeed their own language, as they write.
This paper looks at how students go through the process of writing about their lives, and suggests how a teacher can guide such a writing class with personal and critical sensitivity. I begin by comparing two examples of student writing to show the difference between writing with an "eye" perspective, the goal of life writing, and writing from an "I" perspective that is focused inward. This is followed with a more general consideration of my own identity as a teacher, and how I interact with the students to bring the subject of their lives forward in writing. Life writing is a useful departure point for students to learn about themselves. By focusing students' attention on interesting narrative content instead of linguistic shortcomings, teachers can better assist their development as English writers as well as learn more about the lives their students lead.
Turning Lives into Stories
At the start of the life writing course, I give students models of life writing such as My Place by Sally Morgan (1987) or Dakara anatamo ikinuite by Ohira Mitsuyo (2000). These moving stories written by women are ones the students can relate to and thus they get the inspiration to start writing about their own lives. Even more moving are the stories I give them written by students in previous years; students become motivated because they want to learn to "write like that."
In successful life writing, the subjectivity with which we view our own lives is translated into a narrative in which we are characters. Imagining herself as the character of her story gives the writer a chance to more fully understand the person she is writing about, namely herself, and to create a picture of that person, so that she more fully exists, since "our stories validate who we are; they are our personal myths" (Miller, 1994, p. 9). Therefore, students need to learn early on that writing does not violate the privacy of their lives but rather affirms their image of themselves. Though they may only have a vague image of who they are when they begin, as they write, that image becomes clearer. A student described this process:
I was surprised with the difference between the way I had imagined things had been, and what I realized while I was writing. There were many emotions that I learned about for the first time when I put them down on paper. I also realized how foolish I had been, because I was able to look at myself objectively.
The critical objectivity that allows this student to reassess her life becomes important when the teacher constructively develops a student's writing.
Where Does a Life Story Begin?
Instead of relying on memory, some students begin the story of their life with stories they have been told about their birth:
I was born on December 22, 1979. The expected date of my birth was 12 days before that, so everybody was waiting and worried, especially my parents. It was a cold day but the sky was clear. In the evening when the sun was going down, my mother felt a faint pain so she asked my grandparents to take her to the hospital. She was nervous, thinking how hard it would be. My grandmother accompanied her to the hospital and she kept stroking my mother's back as she said to her, "You will be all right!"
In addition to stories they have heard, students have other evidence of their early life. Photographs and videotapes, like stories, are familiar and cherished, and can be endlessly scrutinized by the writer for clues to who they must have been:
There are about a dozen one-hour videos of the family when I was a child. From what I see on the videotape, I never cried. Even when my brother took my milk bottle off me, I sat quietly. When I wanted some toys or sweets, I would just stand in front of these things saying nothing.
Stories they have heard and enjoyed many times may help some writers begin the difficult task of writing about their lives.
Other students prefer to begin with a deeply felt experience. A homestay abroad or teaching practice at a junior high school can be a powerful and positive experience that has changed the way a student views her life. Still other students choose to write about a painful experience such as being bullied at school, or of tense family relationships. Illness may also serve as a departure point as it does in the case of M, who begins her life story with a brave confession: "I have an illness. It is called anorexia." In the following paragraph, she recalls her decision to participate in a 1000-metre race in spite of her delicate state of health, and describes what happened:
At the sound of the gun, we all started running together.... We ran four times around the oval and were running the final lap. When I looked ahead of me, I saw a girl I hated who always said nasty things about how thin I was. I wanted to run faster than her so I ran with all my might. I overtook her. I was very happy. But as I overtook her, suddenly I collapsed and blacked out.
Rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, M regains consciousness, only to witness her parents fighting about her:
When I looked at my father, he was blaming my mother for my becoming so thin. Before worrying about my condition, he was blaming my mother. They were fighting and I was very sad because my father was fighting with my mother outside the door without even coming into the room to see me. With the little strength I had left, I shouted at them to stop fighting. I told my father that it was not my mother's fault at all, and that nobody was to blame.
This version of M's story only emerged in the course of revision. Initially, she was reluctant to share her story with anyone other than the teacher for fear of being misunderstood or disliked. Consider the perfunctory nature of the first draft:
One day (I was high school student) there was strength test. It was 1000 kilometer marathon. I do not know why I became the ill. But I rested last semester because of the ill. And I enter in hospital. Though I became the ill took all the way. But now I return to my health. I am very happy.
Here, the marathon incident is afforded a single sentence, only implying a connection between the race and her illness. As M uncovered other memories and emotions, the insistence on happiness and recovery was edited out. Moreover, the feelings of reluctance about sharing her story evolved into a sense of pride and a determination to make her story public.
"I" vs. "Eye"
Life writing ideally develops an awareness of self and examines relationships with others, but not all writers are ready for that. M's story grew and became more impassioned without deepening in terms of self-awareness. Writing about her experiences was no doubt valuable, but M was unable to step back and consider the events of her life from any perspective other than her "I" perspective.
M's version of her life can be contrasted with C's story which deals with herself as a subject from the position of writer. Her "I" is an "eye" that observes and, at another level, is observed. In the passage below, C writes about her being bullied as a child, describing an incident that develops into a story including other people, not as adjuncts to her "I" but as characters who are of great interest to her story:
On my way home from school, there was a street which I didn't want to walk along. When I was walking along that street, sometimes I saw a boy who was the same age as me but was much bigger than me. He often came over and kicked me. I said to him, "Stop it," but he kept kicking me until I arrived at my house. Before I went into the house, he told me not to tell my parents or my teacher about this. I really wanted to tell them, but I couldn't. If I did...I knew he would kick me even more after that. Every time I went home, I prayed that I wouldn't see him anymore. I didn't know what to do.
This situation is unpleasant but tolerable as long as it is confined to her, but when her younger brother starts school and the bullying is extended to include him, C is increasingly concerned with her inability to solve the problem.
When my brother told me about it, I felt terrible. I wanted to help him as an older sister but I couldn't do anything for him. I felt I was not a good sister, and I was worried about my brother.
Because C's "I" is an "eye", she is able to develop a story that treats other people as important as herself in the telling of her story. By telling us about the lives that affected hers, and about how she attempted to deal with the problems of others, we learn a great deal about her. When the neighbourhood boy stops the bullying of her brother, C recalls how relieved she felt.
I thought what a nice neighbour I had. My neighbour seemed very cool to me at that time. And after that the boy stopped kicking my brother, but he still kicked me.
Her life story became richer by admitting other characters into it.
Observation, Not Explanation
We can see that the first-person subject can be very focused and inward looking, or turned towards the world and others as an observer. In the case of M, the most important thing is to write what has been unsaid; lessons learned can be saved for later readings. In other cases, the story itself will already have acquired a life of its own and offer more illumination to the reader.
From C's description, it is clear that she was much more concerned with her brother's bullying than her own, but the resolution of that more pressing problem is not the culmination of the episode. Instead, the narrative grows more complex. When C "concludes" the story of her brother's bullying with the wry "he still kicked me," she continues to weave her own story in and out of the threads of other lives as well as her own.
However, C does not resort to explanation to drive the narrative; instead she juxtaposes incidents and implies connections. With the instincts of a storyteller, she deftly shifts the scene and observes the "bully" in an entirely different context, delaying his description, and then finally, surprising us with a portrait that is sympathetic and tender:
The following year I was in the same class with the boy who had been kicking me, and I realized why he had been kicking me. In class, I couldn't even imagine him kicking me. He was very quiet and ignored by everybody, and was always alone. Our classmates wouldn't even approach him. He always wore the same shirt and pants, didn't wear shoes, and his nose was often running, so everybody thought he was dirty. If the boy approached somebody, they would say, "Don't touch me!" Seeing what was happening, I felt he might be lonely and understood that he had been taking it out on me on the way home from school because I had friends. I felt sorry for him.
Using description and narrative rather than overt explanation to ensure our understanding, C is able to make us notice changes without explaining them, and we are deeply immersed in the story as it culminates in a satisfying conclusion:
I decided to try to become friends with him. First, I asked him in a very tense voice when he came close to me, "Do we have homework today?" I asked him although I knew we didn't have any homework. He was about to kick me as usual, but he turned to me in surprise and smiled. Then he answered my question, and before I went into my house he said to me, "Good-bye! See you tomorrow." And from the next day he started to tell me about himself little by little. He didn't kick me anymore, either.
The Struggle of Putting it Down on Paper
It is not easy for any student to begin writing about their lives, whether because of the imaginative gaps, personal resistance, or unpleasant memories. Some students do not realize at first that their lives are full of things that are worth writing about. A student who spends the first month not knowing what to write will suddenly realize she has a story and write seven pages in a week. Students need to be given time to get started.
There are other reasons besides an absence of inspiration that keep students from writing. Some students resist the direct investigation of their lives as an invasion of privacy. This resistance usually stems from the belief that readers will be critical of the student's life. The teacher must be flexible and allow room for students to work through their reluctance. For example, one student who was inhibited about writing about her feelings and relationships felt comfortable writing about the changes she saw as she looked out the window of the train on the way to school every morning. Released from the obligation to write about herself, the writer relaxed and her subtle descriptions of the shift from countryside to urban scenery revealed much about herself. There are also students who start writing about a painful memory but then find it too stressful to sustain the exploration. This may be a temporary block as the writer gathers courage or it may be more prolonged. I encourage these students to write me an email telling me if they need help or just want me to wait. As one student says, "Writing about yourself means that you have the most information on the topic, but it also means that you need the most courage, so it is difficult."
Sometimes a look elsewhere can help inspire students' return to writing with a renewed sense of purpose and energy. As students are writing their own stories, I have them look at selected passages of life writing to learn new techniques and see how other writers develop a reader's interest. From Adeline Yen Mah's Falling Leaves, students are encouraged to find out what was happening in Japan at the time of their birth and how these things might have influenced their childhood. From Irish writer Frank McCourt (Angela's Ashes) we learn about finding the right voice. We see how he taps the humour that allowed him to survive a harrowing childhood to find a voice that could tell that story with compassion. Students dealing with painful memories see how another writer dealt with his painful memories.
Working One-on-One
So how does a teacher insert herself as a critical guide when the student is both the subject and author of her writing? When working individually with the students, I look at their writing with them, asking questions about things that are difficult to understand or that I would like to know more about, and suggesting vocabulary and expressions that they can use. These meetings occur outside of class and take 30 to 90 minutes. As the student writer learns to read critically, I try to help her see things that she had not noticed before, and I emphasize the need to write with clarity and not assume a reader's implicit understanding. As students answer my questions they reexamine their writing and discover how easily intentions can be misrepresented by words. And thus a more careful approach to writing develops through this critical collaborative process of student and teacher-as-reader.
The Importance of Rewriting and Re-Reading
Vivid memories do not necessarily flow effortlessly at first, and simply relating events may not evoke the emotional power of an experience. Students often have to rewrite entire paragraphs or pages in order to convey what they want to say and make the narrative interesting and easy to understand. An important part of the revision process is rereading since it opens more windows of the memory. C learned a lesson from the neighbourhood boy, and then a bigger lesson by acting herself. We can see that her careful revision wove these stories together into a nuanced narrative. There is an intense sense of satisfaction in being able to uncover what you thought you couldn't, as C wrote after completing her story:
I never write such a long essay before so I couldn't write it smoothly at all and I spend many times thinking about my essay. The time when I finished half of my essay, I was writing just what I had done before. I didn't understand what I want to tell reader about me, and also I didn't have points and connection in each paragraph. And when I look back to read my essay, I could find my point and connections so I noticed that I had to rewrite. When I could write what I really wanted tell, I was very happy and I can't forget the feeling. So I learned how much rewriting is important to write good essay at this time.
It takes time for some students to recognize what shape a narrative should take. Early on students tend to list events without understanding that each has to have a point around which they can build their story. Collaborative rereading is one way to help students understand the structure a narrative should take while helping the student become deeply engaged in the content she is creating. Once they are interested in improving the content of their story, any comments concerning organization, or even grammar, are welcomed; after all, their goal is to accurately represent their lives in English.
Conclusion
The great challenge in a life writing course is to give narrative form to unlocked memories and emotions and release the details that have made a moment in a life so meaningful. Many of the life stories of 20-year-old women have a superficial similarity with each other, but we must not dismiss them as generic or mundane. We must validate students' attempts to articulate their experiences while hindered by linguistic limitations. By really listening to what each student is struggling to say we can help her express herself successfully.
Life writing demands a lot from the teacher. Time has to be spent together in class and out, talking about the work and rewriting together. However, it is a moving experience to share in their growth. The students you get to know in your life writing class are likely ones you will know better than any other students you have. Once you have honoured students' stories with the attention they deserve, you will never look at a description of someone's family or themselves and dismiss it as something you have read a thousand times before.
References
Jay, P. (1984). Being in the text: Self representation from Wordsworth to Roland Barthes. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Miller, P. (1994). Writing your life. St. Leonards NSW: Allen & Unwin.
Morgan, S. (1987). My place. South Fremantle, Western Australia: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
Neuman, S. (1991). Autobiography and questions of gender: An introduction. In S. Neuman (Ed.), Autobiography and questions of gender (pp. 1-11). London: Frank Cass.
Ohira, M. (2000). Dakara anatamo ikinuite [So can you]. (J. Brennan, Trans.). Tokyo: Kodansha.
Sprinkler, M. (1980). Fictions of the self: The end of autobiography. In J. Olney (Ed.), Autobiography: Essays theoretical and critical (pp. 321-342). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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