Textual Lineage

This document summarizes the literary lineage of the author by briefly describing various books, movies, songs and speeches they encountered at different stages of their life and how each work impacted and connected with them. It traces influences from early childhood through elementary and middle school including The Parent Trap film, the song "Big Girls Don't Cry", poems by Maya Angelou and the book Ungifted, to high school where it discusses David McCullough Jr.'s graduation speech "You are Not Special".

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Textual Lineage

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Literary Lineage

Sophie Kettenbrink :))

The Parent Trap
This 1999 film takes a set
of twins separated nearly at
birth finding each other in
happenstance at a summer
camp. The two switch places
to meet the parent they
respectively never knew with
a plan to bring the whole
family back together.
“Big Girls Don’t
Cry” -Fergie
In this classic 2000s song,
Fergie describes a breakup
she has with a person who
was her rock and how that
affects her relationship
with herself. It’s a song
about wanting to move
forward but grieving the
moments spent together.
Elementary school connections
● The Parent Trap was the first time I recognized the power
and uniqueness of having and being an identical twin.
With my only sibling having the same DNA I do, it’s a
weird thing to almost mourn as a child, but this movie
got me taught me so plainly about the joys and hardships
I faced.
● “Big Girls Don’t Cry” is a funny one because it’s so
2000s. I remember hearing it when I was 4, which we
didn’t know at the time was when my mom was diagnosed
with MS. It was her anthem to get her through the
realities she would face and being 4 I was just like
“yeah! Big girls don’t cry.” Now, I connect with the
lyrics as a daughter of older parents.
“Still I rise” -Maya
Angelou
About how blackness and
womanhood are intertwined
and often looked at worse
together, she proclaims her
strength and resiliency in
her marginalized
communities. Her powerful
words resonate through many
contexts.
Ungifted by gordon
korman
A troublemaker middle school
boy (Donovan) pulls a prank
so wild he gets sent to the
alternative academy, but
because of a fluke ends up
at the gifted academy
instead. Through a couple
months, the gifted students
work together with Donovan
to realize they aren’t all
so different at all.
Middle school connections
● Obviously as a white woman, Maya Angelou’s powerful words
don’t apply completely to me. But “Still I Rise” was in a
way my feminist awakening realizing how I had been viewed
by classmates and how I would continue to be viewed if
society didn’t change much. It helped to align the way I
viewed myself but also my opinions of those around me.
● Even after spending years reading books that represented
me well, I had never felt more seen than reading
Ungifted. In every character, there was a different piece
to my academic personality puzzle—the outcast, music
nerd, ADHDer, gifted kid, and math whiz. I recently
re-read this book to be reminded I’m not weird and
definitely not alone.
“You are Not Special” -
David McCullough Jr.
This high school graduation
speech is about seeing how
ordinary that extraordinary
experiences can actually be.
Streamlined moments can be
celebrated, but that life is
about more than existing and
rather truly something of a
life for yourself.
High school connections
I rhetorically analyzed this piece in AP Lang and have a
certain fondness to it since. I think it’s because I’m
grappling with the transition from young adult to adult.
Usually the lesson is to make ordinary moments
extraordinary, but instead it argues that all our
extraordinary moments are really ordinary when you think
about it. It’s given me a lot to think about as I try to
find the version of myself I am happiest with.