Mia Bautista 10/18/23 ENGL

Peer Profile: Learning More About Jaylen
Jaylen, a fellow student in my English class, in his essay “Brick Book”, describes how
finding genres that interest you can help encourage reading for entertainment, rather than as a requirement. Jaylen supports this claim by relating to personal experiences in his childhood that made him reluctant to read books throughout the early years of his life, and utilizes a friendly tone in his narrative that adds a sly and funny aspect to it. The purpose of his essay is to demonstrate to his audience, fellow English students, that even though some underlying circumstances may make it difficult to enjoy a book, in order to truly immerse ourselves into a story we must first find a story that resonates with us.
Jaylen chose to utilize a very personal writing style, almost like a storyteller. He draws on his personal experiences to paint a clearer picture of how and why things progressed, and why they ended up the way they did. In the first paragraph of his essay he says “But that wouldn’t be fun to write, and would also be disgusting…instead what I can tell you is how I learned to love writing because of reading.” This choice gives the narrative a much more personal touch, as if the author is speaking directly to the audience. His use of the word “disgusting”, in my opinion, was very funny because in standard English you wouldn’t expect to find a joke in the middle of a sentence, most people tend to be more formal in terms of writing essays, novels, articles, etc. ; this statement translates more into spoken language, I can feel the emotion behind his use of the word. Famous writer June Jordan, in her essay “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan”, discusses the difference between standardized English, and Black English, and the different circumstances in which one might use either structure. Jordan writes “White standards control our official and popular judgments of verbal proficiency and correct, or incorrect, language skills, including speech” ( Jordan, page 1). It Was refreshing to read through the essay and see a statement that feels more like a comment between two friends, rather than stating facts and statistics to a stranger.
The language Jaylen uses also supports this narrating role he takes on in this narrative. For example he references receiving a “Fat F”, and the “Stupid graphic novel for thirty five dollars” that all makes me feel as though he is writing from experience/ genuinely rather than generally about his topic by adding that touch of slyness. A specific portion of his narrative I would like to highlight is the first paragraph where he describes his sisters and his relationship with their mother. Jaylen writes “I only give you stories from my mom about how much me and my sisters were a pain to get to be quiet…”. As a fellow person of color I can relate on a surface level to feeling like a “loud kid”, and feeling the need to tone down our personalities in order to “behave”. However what’s really powerful is how it seems as though reading became associated with being silenced, and Jaylen was able to rediscover his voice as a reader/ writer after his grandfather helped him to broaden his horizons.
In an interview with Jaylen he said “1000% I idolize my grandpa; he’s one of those old men you always see with like a newspaper or book in hand so him telling me reading could be enjoyable, was a lot more convincing than most. He also knew what I liked, and me being his grandson he went above and beyond to get what he knew I liked.”. In his narrative Jaylen clearly paints a picture that his grandfather played an important role in helping him to discover what books would peak his interest by presenting him with books that were already stories he knew

Jaylen would enjoy. Jaylens narrative is a great example of how breaking the standards of white English by choosing to utilize a more comical, and relatable stance can transform your narrative into a beautiful story, and I truly appreciate the relatability he was able to achieve.