Why Narrative Writing Is Crucial to the Making of My Generation
What do John Green’s Paper Towns, JK Rowling’s Harry Potter Series, and Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird all have in common? Yes, they are all heartfelt stories with a strong female lead, but what is the base of each of those novels? They are all narrative and have authors who had their first sparks of creative writing talent received through their education. During my time as a student of the public education system, I’ve seen this skill become less and less taught, now almost extinct in the guided curriculum. Today, I’m going to show you why this literary art should be reborn into the general lesson plan. Let’s start off with the basics, like how this furthermore proves that the public education system is a strainer of individuality and creativity unless you are in a special advanced learning or talent program. For years people have suspected this, and for years the schools have denied it.
But, by removing narrative and creative writing skills, they are only fueling the political anti-establishment fire and diminishing the false sense of an all-inclusive, hands-on environment that makes learning worthwhile for the students and teachers alike. This leads to problems like protests, uninterested students with undiscovered potential, and eventually, the death of what should have been an immortal art form. No one, administrators, teachers, parents or students want this to happen. So why is it? On page 89 of the dystopian children’s novel The last Book in the Universe, one of the characters, Ryter, describes literary immortality as “the part of you that lives forever… the part that writes stuff down.” This is important to this topic because in the dystopian universe set in that book, there are no books left.
People turn to a needle that goes into your brain to keep entertained and distract themselves from their horrible world. Unfortunately, this is the exaggeration of the not-so-far-away future that will become the world if we don’t stop cutting away narrative writing as an important skill. No one would know how to tell a story, or how to even begin learning to do so. It would all be brushed away with the wind, replaced with analytical, text-based essays that exist for about a month before being thrown into a metal trash can. Then, once those are deemed unnecessary, there will be nothing left to study, type, write, or think about.
That horrible scenario is right around the corner of time, unless we do something about it. Maybe changing it back to the old curriculum would work best, or maybe just modifying the new one. Though, I can see why you might want to remove narrative writing, as for most it will not be a skill needed in their job or at any time during their life, so why not just focus on what the majority needs, right? Still, I stand by my claim, and ask you to tell me how you know the majority of the future generation won’t be actors, or writers, or directors? Oh, right. It’s because our curriculum doesn’t teach them to be that anymore.
