1. In my paper, I certainly support the narrative of Alexander and Brandt’s victim definition, but there’s definitely elements that challenge slightly if not dispute it in a way.
2. From what I can gather, it seems they’ve approved my usage and introduction of the scholarly sources.
3. I could certainly re-analyze the definition of a victim narrative from the perspective of Brandt and Alexander in order to retool a perspective on the narratives.

In the literacy narrative titled, Learning to Not Hate English, a clear example is shown of a narrative being incorrectly placed within the category of a victim narrative. This narrative has the foundation of a student who feels that they were indeed victimized by his senior year english teacher. She is described as a woman, pregnant, preparing to take on maternity leave. The student believes that they are a victim do to the lack of interest the pregnant teacher seemed to have, or in this case not have in their job. In this narrative, the student describes each day that they were with this teacher, and of how they learned nor aspired to learn anything at all. “For the 42 minutes I was in that class, not a single thing was taught to me.”(Scaglione) It is quite easy for someone to take a look at this narrative, and quantify it as indeed a victim narrative. Though if they are careful enough to look deeper within it, they will see that nothing about it allows it to be categorized into the victim narrative category. Since the victim narrative is such a commonly used base, it is easy for this to slip by unnoticed by the reader. “The popularity of the victim narrative in student texts indicates that students associate school-based literacy practices with oppression and even cruelty.”(Alexander 618) Though this can be easily categorized as a type of literary cruelty towards the student, nothing about this narrative has a direct correlation or connection to these events, and the writer having a newly minted hatred for reading and writing.

In the literacy narrative titled, Learning to Not Hate English by Austin Scaglione, a clear example is shown of a narrative being incorrectly placed within the category of a victim narrative. This narrative has the foundation of a student who feels that they were indeed victimized by his senior year english teacher. She is described as a woman, pregnant, preparing to take on maternity leave. The student believes that they are a victim do to the lack of interest the pregnant teacher seemed to have, or in this case not have in their job. In this narrative, the student describes each day that they were with this teacher, and of how they did not learn nor aspire to learn anything at all. “For the 42 minutes I was in that class, not a single thing was taught to me.”(Scaglione) It is quite easy for someone to take a look at this narrative, and quantify it as indeed a victim narrative. Though if they are careful enough to look deeper within it, they will see that nothing about it allows it to be categorized into the victim narrative category. There is not any direct withholding of literacy taking place here, this qualifies as more of a passive barrier. Since the victim narrative is such a commonly used base, it is easy for this to slip by unnoticed by the reader. “The popularity of the victim narrative in student texts indicates that students associate school-based literacy practices with oppression and even cruelty.”(Alexander 618) Just because someone may have had a negative experience in school, doesn’t qualify them to use it in a victim narrative. Though this can be easily categorized as a type of literary cruelty towards the student, nothing about this narrative has a direct correlation or connection to these events and the writer having a newly minted hatred for reading and writing.

A proper example of a narrative that correctly follows the given guidelines for a victim based narrative would be, The Mean Teacher. For the writer, they actually had an encounter, which resulted in them finding a distaste for the idea of, in this case, reading. He writes of his mean teacher, who did not allow him to read the book of his choice for his book report. “I remember one time we were assigned a book report on our “book of choice”. But once I picked out my book which was the first Diary Of a Wimpy Kid, she said I couldn’t do my project on it because it was too childish, which I found confusing because I was only 10 years old and was a child.”(Luccini) The idea that this teacher, someone who is supposed to be a literacy sponsor, which is defined by Deborah Brandt as, “I defined sponsors as “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress or withhold literacy  and gain advantage by it in some way” (Brandt, 1998, p. 166) forced the writer to pass up on the opportunity to complete a book report on their personal choice, do to the assumption and opinion that the book was too childish is a solid example of a negative literacy experience that leads to a direct loss of interest in reading and writing. One can make the argument that this falls into the subdivision of a teacher who is being wrongfully blamed for something, and was actually trying to push the writer to challenge themselves. This does not fit within this narrative as the writer would go onto explain how this experience, though not driving a complete hatred for reading and writing, no longer has the desire to actively seek out anything that pushes the literary envelope or reading and writing.

A proper example of a narrative that correctly follows the given guidelines for a victim based narrative would be, The Mean Teacher. For the writer, they actually had an encounter, which resulted in them finding a distaste for the idea of, in this case, reading. He writes of his mean teacher, who did not allow him to read the book of his choice for his book report. “I remember one time we were assigned a book report on our “book of choice”. But once I picked out my book which was the first Diary Of a Wimpy Kid, she said I couldn’t do my project on it because it was too childish, which I found confusing because I was only 10 years old and was a child.”(Luccini) The idea that this teacher, someone who is supposed to be a literacy sponsor, which is defined by Deborah Brandt as, “any agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, and model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress or withhold literacy  and gain advantage by it in some way” (Brandt, 1998, p. 166) forced the writer to pass up on the opportunity to complete a book report on their personal choice, do to the assumption and opinion that the book was too childish. This is for sure a solid example of a negative literacy experience that leads to a direct loss of interest in reading and writing. One can make the argument that this falls into the subdivision of a teacher who is being wrongfully blamed for something, and was actually trying to push the writer to challenge themselves. This does not fit within this narrative as the writer would go onto explain how this experience, though not driving a complete hatred for reading and writing, no longer has the desire to actively seek out anything that pushes the literary envelope or reading and writing.

People often misconstrue the concept of a literacy narrative. It is often used to mislabel narrative pieces, and almost discredit those that do actually fall within these prerequisites. It is not difficult to identify those who are inappropriately labeled as victim narratives from those who clearly do qualify. In this analyzing of four literacy narratives, I showed two examples of what I feel were perfect examples of those who don’t fit versus those who do, as well as those who have moments where they certainly teeter on the edge, which often leads to mistakes being made while coding narratives. Maybe having the freedom to analyze more data would prove beneficial for myself and other writers, as it would allow mutual freedom to have a greater input of information in order to make a more professional and cordial claim on these narratives.