Creation Myths And Literacy Narrative Essay

Creation Myths and Literacy Narratives There are two main similarities between the creation myths and the literacy narratives, For example, they both mention race and ethnicity. In the literacy narratives they mention blacks, whites, and Jewish people. In the creation myths they mention several different colors for instance, red, and yellow, black and white. There are also many differences between the myths and the literacy narratives. The creation myths are fictional and discuss the dawn of time, and the literacy narratives are nonfiction and discuss human race, slavery, and learning how to read and write. There are also differences between the Fredrick Douglass literacy narrative and the Gerald Graff literacy narrative.
The similarities between the myths and the literacy narratives are human race, and ethnicity. The Hopi and Potawatomi myths both mention the creation of humans of different colors such as yellow, red, white and black. “She made human beings, using yellow, red, white, and black earth mixed with her
saliva.” (“creation stories world”1) In the literacy narratives also describe human race, in the Fredrick Douglass narrative, is clearly talking about black and white and in the Gerald Graff narrative it talks about Jewish vs non Jewish. “I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood” (Douglass 2) Also another similarity is the creation of one god. For example the Yoruba myth talks about Olorun a powerful supreme being he controlled everything in his world. On the other hand the in the Fredrick Douglass narrative his mistress controlled him from learning to read and write. The differences between all myths and the literacy narratives, is that the myths are fiction, talk about dawn of time, creation of gods, and a relationship with the natural world.
“The world at first was endless space in which existed only the creator.” (“creation stories world”1) For example, in the majority of the myths it talks about how the world started off as a blank canvas and how the earth and nature was later slowly created by a God. In the Fredrick Douglass story, it talks about slavery and learning how to read and write. Being a slave made it very difficult for him to learn how to read and write because he had to sneak around to learn since blacks were not allowed to. “If I was in a separate room any considerable length of time, I was sure suspected of having a book.” (Douglass1) On other hand in the Gerald Graff narrative Graff didn’t enjoy reading when he was younger but later became an English teacher after he was introduced to a
book. The differences between the two literacy narratives is that in the Fredrick Douglass story is about him sneaking around trying different ways to accomplish learning how to read and write because slaves weren’t allowed to learn, him being a slave made it difficult, he had to sneak around when he did errands to get lessons from the poor white children in his neighborhood in exchange he would give the white children bread in return, in the end he accomplished learning how to read and write. In the Gerald Graff narrative it’s about him disliking how to read when he was young and later his junior year teacher introduces him to a book and becomes fascinated in literature and became an English teacher. “When I was growing up I disliked and feared books.” (Graff 41) “ To conclude, The Hopi and Potawatomi myths, the literacy narrative by Fredrick Douglass and the Literacy narrative by Gerald Graff all discuss human race and ethnicity. However, There is differences between the two literacy narratives and differences between the creation myths and the literacy narratives. The creation myths are about the dawn of time and the narratives are about learning how to read and write.