Writing to Survive by Alvarez Deborah M.;

Author:Alvarez, Deborah M.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: R&L Education
Published: 2011-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

This interview took place very early in the research project, and its disturbing message and story caught me completely by surprise. After she said this, I struggled to remain unaffected and dispassionate about this candid admission. It was at this point that the focus of the research changed and became a disturbing marker for compensations in this adolescent’s life.

Diana was a cutter, a person whose self-mutilation spoke of self-loathing. A psychologist would recognize this adolescent as deeply disturbed due to her long traumatic stresses from abuse, rape, and her mother’s alcoholism. Diana was an adolescent who desperately needed help, safety, psychiatric counseling, and healthy parental love. Her journal was the only place she could create a fantasy life—literally writing her way to survival.

As Diana’s story unfolded, the fantasy journal as well as selected writing assignments within her classes suggested that she separated school writing from personal writing, even though she employed school based literacy. For an adolescent with Diana’s traumatic life, more writing opportunities that allow Diana to tell the ongoing traumatic crises of daily life would be important in providing this adolescent with a healthy avenue to address these crises in juxtaposition to what existed in the hidden journal.

Diana showed us that in the event that learning contexts do not provide specific opportunities to investigate these personal crises, she created them. Desperate circumstances called for desperate learning and literacy strategies. Diana employed the classroom content knowledge, writing opportunities, and journaling as a compensatory strategy ensuring her survival.

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