One of the most difficult tasks for an English teacher is making text accessible and relevant to today’s teen. One way to connect students to the text is to connect them to themselves. Recently I introduced a new unit of study – nonfiction. I wanted to tap into students’ own lives. After reading excerpts from contemporary nonfiction, I set the students loose to write a story they held within themselves. I expected light stories of teenage drama, football games, and so forth. I found something quite different.

Some stories told of family heroes of World War II. Some stories described immigration to America at any cost. Yet others told of loss and pain. One work, “The Confusion of Cancer,” was written after the student had already submitted her work. Her aunt was diagnosed with cancer, and this student wanted to write about it. She submitted a second personal experience narrative – because she needed to write it.

At first I wondered if these stories “qualified” as folklore. I expected something…older. Something of a past generation. For several years now I have taught a unit where students “capture” a family story. We have published stories of The Trail of Tears, local ghost stories and legends, and family traditions. Certainly some students this year wrote of grandparents and parents, but many wrote from their own perspective. One student wanted to share her love for an aunt who died of breast cancer when the student was five years old. She felt that no one understood how deeply she was affected by this death. She wished to tell her story, her pain, her loss. Another student was born in Vietnam and came to America with her mother after her parents divorced. She has lost part of her family and a part of herself. Her reason for writing? To remember, and then to set it aside and move on.

Family history, immigration stories, integration stories – all of these are relevant in the study of literature. Yet students have so much to say about their own lives, and they often feel no one will listen. If folklore is the word of the people, then this generation, too, has something to say. By telling their own stories, they begin to see the value and cultural relevance of the literature they study. They begin to see how it all fits together.

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