Seeing Beauty in all places

Ms. Smith, the author of Unearthing Hidden Literacy: Seven Lessons I Learned in a Cotton Field, creates a narrator who speaks of the effect of her once perseived negative past on her self understanding.  The narrator explores bits of her life and its effects on her appreciation to one specific aspect of her past, her experience picking cotton in the fields.  This piece of literature is viewed to me as a personal testimony.  The narrator speaks about her experience with teachers who attempted to negativly influence her understanding in certain classes.  She speaks of relations pertaining to Crick Crack Monkey, and how she understand knownledge construction.  The narrator speaks of a period of time when she did not have TV, but would get her entertainment from spending time outside in the fields with elders listening to stories and wise lessons about present life and life of the past.  They were able to "envision" a better life in the future; their stories were always full of "hope" and completely void of "despair" (Smith, 44). Many aspects of her knowledge construction and personal ideas she expressed.  The narrator touches on the self confidence imparted in young Black girls at a young age; this self confidence that tends to be very unique.  She speaks about several views of Black women being portrayed through the media.  The narrator then makes a connection back to her experiences in the cotton fields.  She explains how this aspect of her life was once one that was kept closed and very explained, but then a certain ephiphany was explained.  She goes into how women are connected.  This basically means that women tend to connect with situations, people, and especially aspects of nature on a level much deeper than that which is normally understood.  She feels as though throught the teachings and connections that she made during her time working on the cotton field, it has contributed to a unique part of her.

Jessica Robinson