WRT 102.44

Literacy Narrative Assignment

In this assignment, you will describe, narrate, and analyze a key moment (or moments) in your personal literacy development, as well as the “sponsors” who have helped or hindered your growth. Your narrative will take the form of a first-person account and will use various rhetorical techniques we discuss in class to bring your memory to life and to successfully deliver the importance of this memory to your audience.

GUIDELINES:

Relate the story of your particular literacy memory/memories to the reader in a vivid and engaging manner. Draw on specific experiences. Don’t write a chronological list of events: Use narration, description, dialogue, and reflection- show, don’t tell!
Choose one type of literacy and focus on a moment(s) when you felt that you were becoming or had become literate in the skill. This literacy can be anything: language development, playing a sport, learning a new type of art, make-up application, etc.

Format

Because literacy narratives are inherently personal, you do not need to write a traditional essay. Instead, feel free to craft your literacy narrative in whatever medium you feel best suited to tell your story. For example, your literacy narrative may take the form of a podcast, a Youtube video/video essay, a board/video game, a website, a comic book, a poem, a traditional essay, etc (however, you will need to be the required length, this may involve writing an additional page explanation of your literacy narrative). You may also write in a more casual form of English. Please check in with me before you start writing if you want to write in a different medium, are unsure about your literacy narrative’s genre, or if you want to bounce off some ideas.

Framing Texts & How to Use Them

We’ve read two strong examples of literacy narratives in class: David Sedaris’s “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and Junot Díaz’s “MFA vs POC.” We also will examine the literacy narratives housed in the DALN (Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives) in class, but feel free to look through those on your own for potential framing texts. Although your own personal experience with literacy will likely be different from theirs, you can use these texts as guides as you write your own literacy narrative. We will discuss strategies for using framing texts in class, but when in doubt, here are a few quick strategies:

Not sure how to start your literacy narrative? Look at your favorite framing text. How do they begin their story- with a question, a quotation, or do they dive right into the narrative? See if you can use the same method of starting your narrative. Whenever you find yourself ‘stuck’ while writing the literacy narrative, repeat these steps with the section you need help crafting.
What was one strength that you noticed from the literacy narratives? What was your favorite part of one of the literacy narratives? Try to recreate that strength in your own writing (but without directly copying!). For example, did you like how David Sedaris incorporated humor into his story? Try writing your narrative using a similar humorous tone!

What should our criteria be for this assignment? What should you be graded on?

Final Thoughts

Based on the above definition and list of criteria we create together in class, I will design a rubric and upload it to Blackboard. Once that’s up, if you have any possible changes or additions you’d like to make to the rubric, please feel free to email them to me.
The final length of this assignment is 4-5 pages (950-1,300 words), or its equivalent if you choose to craft your literacy narrative in a writing genre different from the traditional essay.
Be sure to use proper formatting for the medium you choose. For example, if you choose to write a traditional essay, your final submission should be double-spaced with 12 point, Times New Roman font. If you choose to submit the literacy narrative as a podcast, it should be 8-10 minutes in length, the audio should be clear and easy to understand, and the podcast and its host(s) should be introduced at the start of the recording.
Above all, try to have fun with this assignment. Yes… fun. Very rarely are you asked to write about yourself in college, so take advantage of this opportunity!