(1 paragraph)
Style Make your prose as clear and concise as possible. Don’t waste your time (and mine) trying to sound impressive. Write, instead, in a conversational voice: the clear, plainspoken, engaging voice of a person talking about a subject they find interesting. Don’t let your essay run longer than what you have to say. Make every word count. One sentence that has something to say is better than a paragraph that doesn’t.
Audience Think of the audience for your essay as an individual, not a vaguely defined group of people. Imagine a single reader just as intelligent and well-informed as yourself. Your essay should hold that reader’s interest and provide them a new insight into the importance of reading, writing, or language.
Drafts You will develop your essay through pre-writing exercises and multiple drafts. You will submit a Mind Map for your essay on January 22 . You will turn in an Informal Outline on January 27 . Your outline will help you write a First Draft. Your First Draft will suck big-time (all first drafts do), but its awfulness will show you what you need to work on to make subsequent drafts better. On January 31 , your fellow students will assist you in a Peer Review workshop by pointing out just where your draft needs improvement. You will submit your Final Revision on February 14 .
Proofreading Before you submit the Final Revision, proofread your essay carefully and thoroughly, correcting any errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, and MLA formatting. Slapdash spelling, sloppy punctuation, semiliterate grammar, or slipshod MLA formatting seriously undermines your credibility as a writer–your ethos, in rhetorical terms. Therefore, essays with excessive errors in spelling, punctuation, grammar, or MLA formatting will receive no higher than a D. If you need to know how to spell a word, look it up in a dictionary. Do not trust a computer to proof your spelling. Spell-checkers tell you whether you’ve spelled a word correctly, but they can’t tell whether you’ve used the correct word. (For example: “They proofread there essays carefully” contains a misspelling.) If you have questions about grammar, punctuation, or MLA format, consult A Writer’s Reference or ask your instructor.
Evaluation In evaluating your essay, I will consider each of the following: your essay’s thesis, its structure, its use of evidence, and its prose style. (See the “Grading Criteria for Major Essays” on the Syllabus.)
Schedule for Essay 1 – Literacy Narrative | ||
January 22 | Brainstorming Writing Exercise | |
January 27 | Outlining Writing Exercise | |
January 31 | THREE copies of your First Draft. | |
February 14 | Revised Draft, First Draft with Peer Reviews, Outline, and Mind Map (in a two-pocket folder with your name on the front cover). |
This guide is adapted from the Writing Guide with Handbook by OpenStax .
Topics Covered
I first learned to read at the age of three while sitting on my grandmother’s lap in her high-rise apartment on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago, IL. While flipping casually through Time magazine, she noticed how I took a keen interest in the blur of black and white shapes on the page. Soon, I was following her wrinkled finger from one word to the next, sounding them out, until those words came into focus, and I could read. It felt as though I had unlocked time itself.
What are your strongest memories of reading and writing? These stories, otherwise known as “literacy narratives,” allow writers to talk through and discover their relationships with reading, writing, and speaking in all its forms. Narrowing in on specific moments reveals the significance of literacy’s impact on our lives, conjuring up buried emotions tied to the power of language, communication, and expression.
To be “ literate ” implies the ability to decode language on its most basic terms, but literacy also expands to one’s ability to "read and write" the world — to find and make meaning out of our relationships with texts, ourselves, and the world around us. At any given moment, we orbit language worlds. Soccer players, for example, learn the language of the game. Doctors talk in technical medical terms. Fishermen speak the sounds of the sea. And in each of these worlds, our literacy in these specific languages allows us to navigate, participate and contribute to the depth of knowledge generated within them.
Famous writers like Annie Dillard, author of "The Writing Life," and Anne Lammot, "Bird by Bird," have penned literacy narratives to reveal the highs and lows of language learning, literacies, and the written word. But you don’t have to be famous to tell your own literacy narrative — everyone has their own story to tell about their relationships with reading and writing. In fact, the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers a publicly accessible archive of personal literacy narratives in multiple formats featuring over 6,000 entries. Each shows the range of subjects, themes, and ways into the literacy narrative process as well as variations in terms of voice, tone, and style.
Ready to write your own literacy narrative but don’t know where to begin?
Writing literacy narratives can be a joyful process, but it can also trigger untapped feelings about the complexities of literacy. Many of us carry scars and wounds from early literacy experiences. Writing it down can help us explore and reconcile these feelings in order to strengthen our relationship with reading and writing. Writing literacy narratives can also help us learn about ourselves as consumers and producers of words, revealing the intricacies of knowledge, culture, and power bound up in language and literacies. Ultimately, telling our literacy stories brings us closer to ourselves and each other in our collective desire to express and communicate a shared humanity.
Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein is a poet, writer, and educator from Chicago, IL (USA) who currently splits her time in East Africa. Her essays on arts, culture, and education appear in Teaching Artist Journal, Art in the Public Interest, Teachers & Writers Magazine, Teaching Tolerance, The Equity Collective, AramcoWorld, Selamta, The Forward, among others.
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Hey everyone! If you’ve ever taken a class that focuses on writing, you may have heard the terms “literacy narrative,” “literacy biography,” or something along those lines before. Today’s post is going to delve into traditional literacy narratives, what they’re all about, what their purpose is, and how they are really amazing tools for finding out about how you write! There will also be some helpful tips for writing literacy narratives, too!
First thing’s first—what exactly is a literacy narrative?
To make things simpler, let’s start out by defining these two words separately. According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) literacy can be defined as “the quality, condition, or state of being literate; the ability to read and write.” However, there’s more to literacy than that! In the article, “College Writing Tips: Write a Good Literacy Narrative,” Sarah from Letterpile explains that there is a second definition of literacy that covers different facets, such as “professional literacy, hobby-related literacy, language literacy, or many other types of broadened understanding of a subject brought on by its connection to language.” For example, someone who studies music has a literacy in music; they can read sheet music and they understand musical terms, (like accelerando, sforzando, glissando, etc.). Bearing that in mind, we move on to define “narrative,” which, according to the OED, is “an account of a series of events, facts, etc., given in order and with the establishing of connections between them; a narration, a story, an account.”
So basically, if you put these three definitions together, you get a really vague sense of what a literacy narrative is. A literacy narrative is a story about your own experience with writing and reading, as well as your knowledge on a particular subject of your choosing, whether it be music, learning a new language, the story of how you learned to read—anything! In assigning literacy narratives, professors are asking students to take what they’ve learned about literacy development and apply that to their life stories. Depending on the class and the professor, students may be asked to explore stories that include substantial experiences and powerful sponsors, (people,) who motivated them, and to reflect on them.
Now that we have a somewhat solid idea of what exactly a literacy narrative is, you’re probably wondering about the purpose of it all.
Many professors use literacy narratives in their classes because it’s a great assignment for self-examination. In fact, most University Writing courses (UWRT) have some form of a literacy narrative/biography assignment because it helps students learn to reflect on their experiences with writing and reading. Of course, there are many reasons why literacy narratives are popular assignments in first year writing (and other!) classrooms. Here are three examples of how literacy narratives are amazing tools (inspired by the awesome article, “10 Ways Literacy Narratives Will Rock Your World (or at least your writing classroom)”).
Now that you know what literacy narratives generally are and why they are awesome, you’re probably beginning to wonder about how to go about writing one yourself!
Like all assignments, sometimes it’s hard to find a place to begin. Don’t sweat it though! That’s natural and something we all struggle with. Here are some reliable tips to help you tackle any form of a literacy narrative:
*(Courtesy of https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/write/fieldguide/writing_guides.asp )
These are only a few suggestions to help you begin your literacy narrative. However, there’s no one right way to go about it—what is important is that you take some time to think, write, and reflect on your story. As simple as that seems, it can really open your eyes to how you have evolved as a writer and reader!
–Katherine
Resources Consulted
https://letterpile.com/writing/Write-a-Good-Literacy-Narrative
https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/write/fieldguide/writing_guides.asp
https://letterpile.com/writing/How-to-Write-a-Literacy-Narrative
http://penandthepad.com/write-literacy-narrative-7850269.html
http://metawriting.deannamascle.com/10-ways-literacy-narratives-will-rock-your-world-or-at-least-your-writing-classroom/
https://sites.psu.edu/english15fonash/literacy-narrative/
Home ➔ What's an Essay? ➔ What is a Narrative Essay? ➔ Literacy Narrative
A literacy narrative essay is a first-person account of learning how to read or write. It often discusses the significance of books and other written materials in a person’s life and the role of literacy in society.
Most literacy narratives discuss memories, which means they are based on actual events from the writer’s life. However, some may choose (if possible within the assignment requirements) to fictionalize their stories to explore the theme of literacy more deeply.
The purpose of a literacy narrative is to reflect on the role of literacy in your life and to examine how it has affected you as a reader, writer, or thinker. In some cases, a literacy narrative may also be used to teach others about the importance of literacy, using your or someone else’s personal literacy story.
What is a Narrative Essay? – learn more about narrative essays in general.
Key characteristics of literacy narratives:
Common themes and topics examples in literacy narratives:
The following are some questions you may want to consider as you write your literacy narrative:
What is a Personal Narrative? – learn more about personal narrative essays.
Several key features are often found in a literacy essay:
First-person point of view: A literacy narrative is typically told from the first-person point of view, which means that it is written in the first person (I, me, my, we, us). This point of view is used to personalize the story and to give the reader a sense of the writer’s thoughts, feelings, and experiences.
The theme of literacy: As mentioned previously, the central theme of a literacy narrative is usually the importance of books and other written materials in a person’s life. However, some writers may also explore how literacy has affected them personally, such as how it has shaped their identity or their view of the world.
A focus on a particular moment or event: A literacy essay often focuses on a specific moment or event in the writer’s life that was significant to their development as a reader or writer. This event could be something as significant as learning to read for the first time, or it could be a more mundane event, such as realizing the importance of reading to one’s education.
Reflection: A literacy narrative often includes reflection on the writer’s part. This reflection can take the form of discussing the writer’s current relationship to literacy or a more general discussion of how literacy has affected the writer’s life.
A message or moral: Many literacy narratives end with a message or moral, usually about the importance of literacy or the power of words. This message may be explicit, or it may be more subtle.
Below is a very simple and short essay example of a literacy narrative to give you a basic idea about this assignment.
I remember the first time I ever read a book. I was in kindergarten, and my teacher had us all sit in a circle on the rug. She then brought out a big book and began to read it to us. I was fascinated by the story and the pictures, and I remember thinking to myself, “I want to learn how to do this.” From that moment on, I was hooked on reading, and it changed my life for the better.
Reading has always been an important part of my life. It has helped me to imagine new worlds, learn about different cultures, and understand the world around me. It has also been a source of comfort and escape during difficult times in my life. Whenever I feel stressed or overwhelmed, I can always count on a good book to help me relax and escape my problems.
Books have also played an important role in my success in school. I have always been a good student, but I credit much of my success to my love of reading. Reading has helped me to improve my writing skills and to understand complex concepts better. It has also allowed me to develop a love of learning that has stayed with me throughout my academic career.
While reading has always been important to me, it wasn’t until recently that I realized how much it had shaped my identity. I have always considered myself shy, but I now realize that my love of reading has helped me become more confident and outgoing. Reading has given me the courage to express my own ideas and to share my thoughts with others. It has also helped me connect with people with similar interests and find my voice in the world.
Reading has indeed been a lifelong journey for me, one that has taken me to places I could never have imagined. It has taught me about the world, myself, and the power of words. I am grateful for the role that literacy has played in my life, and I hope that others can find the same joy and satisfaction in reading that I have.
Here are some original and famous examples of one’s literacy journey that you can read to get inspiration before writing your own story.
“Learning to Read and Write” by Frederick Douglass
Short description: In this essay, Frederick Douglass describes his experiences learning to read and write as a slave in the United States. He discusses how literacy gave him a sense of power and freedom and how it ultimately helped him escape slavery.
“The Lonely, Good Company of Books” by Richard Rodriguez
Short description: In this essay, Richard Rodriguez discusses his love of reading and how it has helped him overcome his life challenges. He describes how books have given him a sense of companionship and how they have helped him to develop his own identity.
“The Writing Life” by Annie Dillard ( Excerpt )
Short description: In this essay, Annie Dillard discusses the joys and challenges of the writing life. She describes how writing can be both a source of great satisfaction and a frustrating endeavor. She also reflects on how her own writing has changed over the years and how her life experiences have shaped it.
“The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie
Short description: In this essay, Sherman Alexie discusses how reading and writing helped him to overcome the challenges of growing up on a Native American reservation. He describes how literacy allowed him to connect with the world outside his community and find his place in it.
We hope these literacy narrative examples will help you write one on your own.
No matter what your experience with reading and writing is, you can write your personal essay on literacy that is meaningful and interesting to you. Here are some tips to get you started:
How to Write a Narrative Essay – essential steps required to write a good narrative essay.
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Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.
A narrative essay tells a story. In most cases, this is a story about a personal experience you had. This type of essay , along with the descriptive essay , allows you to get personal and creative, unlike most academic writing .
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What is a narrative essay for, choosing a topic, interactive example of a narrative essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about narrative essays.
When assigned a narrative essay, you might find yourself wondering: Why does my teacher want to hear this story? Topics for narrative essays can range from the important to the trivial. Usually the point is not so much the story itself, but the way you tell it.
A narrative essay is a way of testing your ability to tell a story in a clear and interesting way. You’re expected to think about where your story begins and ends, and how to convey it with eye-catching language and a satisfying pace.
These skills are quite different from those needed for formal academic writing. For instance, in a narrative essay the use of the first person (“I”) is encouraged, as is the use of figurative language, dialogue, and suspense.
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Narrative essay assignments vary widely in the amount of direction you’re given about your topic. You may be assigned quite a specific topic or choice of topics to work with.
You may also be given prompts that leave you a much wider choice of topic.
In these cases, you might have to think harder to decide what story you want to tell. The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to talk about a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.
For example, a trip where everything went according to plan makes for a less interesting story than one where something unexpected happened that you then had to respond to. Choose an experience that might surprise the reader or teach them something.
When applying for college , you might be asked to write a narrative essay that expresses something about your personal qualities.
For example, this application prompt from Common App requires you to respond with a narrative essay.
In this context, choose a story that is not only interesting but also expresses the qualities the prompt is looking for—here, resilience and the ability to learn from failure—and frame the story in a way that emphasizes these qualities.
An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” is shown below.
Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works.
Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.
Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.
A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.
The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.
If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!
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If you’re not given much guidance on what your narrative essay should be about, consider the context and scope of the assignment. What kind of story is relevant, interesting, and possible to tell within the word count?
The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to reflect on a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.
Don’t worry too much if your topic seems unoriginal. The point of a narrative essay is how you tell the story and the point you make with it, not the subject of the story itself.
Narrative essays are usually assigned as writing exercises at high school or in university composition classes. They may also form part of a university application.
When you are prompted to tell a story about your own life or experiences, a narrative essay is usually the right response.
The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.
Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.
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Caulfield, J. (2023, July 23). How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved July 4, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/narrative-essay/
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If you need topics, examples, and an extensive step-by-step on writing a stellar literary narrative essay, then don’t waste your time and effort trying to look for a better guide because we’ve taken it upon ourselves to gather all the information you’ll need to know to achieve that.
In this article we will go through the basics, guide you through every step of the process, and provide you with topics and literacy narrative essay 2024 examples. We recommend not skipping anything. Read through the whole thing, and you’ll be sure to know the ins and outs at the end.
Finally, it’s time to finish the brain fog and confusion that surrounds this topic. But, writing can be tough for some. Well, did you know that you can hire a professional writer from our narrative essay writing service to handle some writing tasks for you? Now, you do. Get in touch with them ASAP by clicking that link.
In the quest to express personal journeys with literacy through a narrative essay, high school seniors are also stepping closer to a significant milestone - transitioning to higher education. This transition, however exciting, brings along a financial consideration that cannot be overlooked. As you delve into what is a narrative essay about your literacy narrative, exploring your relationship with reading and writing, it's also an opportune time to explore scholarships that can support your academic endeavors ahead.
We will teach you how to write a literacy narrative essay. We will be going in-depth and learning all the relevant details there are to know. Moreover, we’ll explore narrative essay topics. Even as a beginner, with just the right amount of practice and research, you can write up an excellent paper.
This type of essay has a lot of elements that need to be included and to be taken into consideration, so to craft a well-rounded work that includes all these elements, we first need to know what we’re going to have to include in our writing.
So, what is a literacy narrative essay? This type of essay is an essay where the writer tells about their experiences in writing and reading. It’s meta. You can typically read about the writer’s sources of inspiration for their literacy, such as books, amongst other things.
The content and experiences one can read from this type of essay are pretty broad since everyone experiences something different from the other. The goal of this essay is to examine the importance of literacy in one’s own experience, how it’s shaped them, and sometimes it serves as a lesson to those who read it.
Firstly, let’s establish some basics, just like any other essay, this one will need to include:
And since this type of essay is about sharing an anecdote and trying to convey a lesson/message through one’s own experiences and realizations, it’s important not to write in a rigid and overly formal manner.
A personal literacy narrative essay example would typically feature:
Go through these bullet points and try to remember them. Obviously, by including all of them in your writing, you have more chances of getting a higher score on what you turn in. Stick around for college literacy narrative essay examples and narrative essay outline guides.
If you want to know how to write a literacy narrative essay, here’s an outline example of what you can write in your introduction to your concluding paragraph.
Key differences between literacy narrative & narrative essay.
Don’t confuse a literacy narrative prompt with a narrative prompt. These two essays are very similar, but they’re not the same. Key differences are:
Now that you’ve looked at one of our college literacy narrative essay examples, it’s time to finish it off by reading our tips on writing. You’ve been taught the fundamentals and have seen a reference, and our tips will help your writing get better.
Be sure to do a proper amount of research. Try to find credible sources. Colleges usually don’t accept anything less. For example, scholarly articles and peer-reviewed works can be used. Gather these sources and filter through them. Now you can move on to your college literacy narrative essay outline and then write your college literacy narrative essay.
Also, note that literacy narratives discuss memories from time to time. So your personal experiences can be just as good of a source, provided the topic is fitting. Don’t be scared to add some flare to your literacy story. Take your audience on a rough and exciting journey. Your personal literacy story has the advantage of being written not just in your own unique style but also from your own unique perspective.
Shape your own story from a hilarious and witty ride you’ve had with your friends, talk about your bully, remember some of your own love stories, and let your vast imagination free. That’s what a literacy narrative takes. And don’t worry about carefully planned words. That’s not how reading or writing a personal essay works. Your entire journey is about personal exploration. With their creative juices flowing, college students can utilize only a few sentences of written words to hit the spot. Even the wrong way will get you somewhere on this literacy journey. So make it a personalized story.
One thing that can become a serious challenge is writer’s block. Simply sitting staring at a blank page can have disastrous consequences for your productivity. If you find yourself stumped for words - look for literacy narrative examples to get you inspired. Read about the writing life of your favorite author.
If you’re having trouble finding good sources, then don’t hesitate to get a writer’s help on EssayService, but you can also just extend your research by getting leads from your professor or your coursemates. They should know some useful links that can help you.
Filter through your sources and note down relevant information in bite-sized chunks. The brain is better at remembering small blocks of information than it is at painstakingly long paragraphs. Do yourself a favor and segment your notes in this fashion - it will help you remember things much more easily.
You can also use colored notes to streamline this process, and for some students, memorizing becomes even easier this way, but this is optional. Just remember to take down notes on what matters and use these in your college literacy narrative essay outline.
After researching, figuring out your outline, etc. - it’s to write it all down. We hope you didn’t skip any of our prior tips since they truly do help the bigger picture. Use your notes and your research as a reference when writing. Don’t be scared to come back to them when writing, especially if you feel stuck. That’s what they are there for.
Read the literacy narrative essay sample we’ve provided above if you need inspiration or fresh ideas, or if you just want to grasp the concept of this type of essay. But don’t forget to use your own experiences, and not just that of someone else’s; otherwise, the whole purpose of it is defeated.
Write a rough draft if you need to, then polish it in the final version. Rough drafts are a great way to keep writing without overthinking since you know that you’ll easily erase the mistakes you’ll be making in the process. Don’t overthink. Just write.
Lastly, it’s time to proofread it for any errors in your writing and edit if needed. A perfect paper can sometimes be unattainable, but perhaps you’ll get a perfect score by being meticulous. Don’t forget to reread our free literacy narrative essay sample above and some more free samples at EssayService to help you with learning.
In case you want your writing to be perfect, ask your peer to proofread your paper for you instead of doing it yourself. Or you can proofread it and then let another person do the same a second time. Two are better than one sometimes, and one more person can detect errors you might have overlooked.
The good thing about this type of essay is that there should be no shortage of ideas or topics to write about since the majority of us in school have had experiences of coming into literacy one way or another.
People might have become literate much faster than some, but unless you’re completely illiterate, you should remember one thing or two from the past that can be used for your essay.
Here are some prompts for your memory and general narrative essay topics/ideas for topics:
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“What is Your Story?” Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash “A word after a word after a word is power.”
— Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale
Maybe you aren’t someone who writes much at all. Perhaps you don’t believe that there is really much purpose to writing. However, as a human being, you are, by your very nature, enthralled to the power of narrative. Stories shape the realities that we experience on a daily basis and on every level imaginable. Everything that you know or experience has been conveyed to you as a narrative of some sort, and you, in turn, depend on narrative to tell your story to the world. These narratives and the situations that they inhabit can be simple and commonplace–like you telling a parent or sibling about how your day went, from the difficulties that you faced to the good moments that kept you going. They can also be complex and unique–such as listening to a source that you trust and respect talk about what you should aspire to in life and what compromises you should and shouldn’t be willing to make along the way. Regardless, words and the stories in which they are enmeshed carry immense power, and they surround you in more ways that you might imagine.
This idea runs counter to common stereotypes of the literacy of our contemporary moment (or lack thereof). Phrases like “no one reads or writes anymore” are thrown about as if they are an unquestionable truth, but reality is another matter. In a landmark study of student writing habits at Stanford University in 2001, noted scholar Andrea Lunsford and colleagues discovered that their students were writing constantly and in an unimaginable range of environments: “These students did plenty of emailing, and texting; they were online a good part of every day; they joined social networking sites enthusiastically” ( “Our Semi-literate Youth?” ). Furthermore, these digital writing habits, rather than producing a shallower form of writing and reading comprehension, as many might assume, were “help[ing] them develop a range or repertoire of writing styles, tones, and formats along with a range of abilities” ( “Our Semi-literate Youth?” ). Writing and reading, then, are activities that happen all the time–even if their form has changed markedly during the past few decades.
Literacy narratives offer you an opportunity to reflect back on your own journey as a writer and reader, whether in a traditional or digital context. Perhaps most importantly, in revisiting your path up to this point and where you see the journey taking you into the future, you can gain a sort of perspective and agency that often isn’t possible in the moment. And, as this semester unfurls and your writing and reading abilities improve, you will, as Atwood indicates, gain increased power–both over the narratives that you author and put out into the world as well as those that you receive and which seek to gain your attention on behalf of their author. Such an author may be an individual very much like yourself or a corporation interested in convincing you to use one of their products. Regardless, your ability to engage, analyze, and respond to these outside narratives will give you increased agency in a world in which the number of narratives and authors are increasing exponentially. The literacy narrative assignment will provide an initial inroad for you on this path.
The foundation of this course is built on your ability to read closely and critically. To engage with this skill, and the multiple literacies we navigate on a daily basis, this first major essay is a personal piece in which you will explore a significant moment regarding your own literacy; you may approach literacy either in the traditional sense or using our expanded, modern definition.
As you move through this chapter and related course resources, remember that a “text” in the context of this assignment, and in twenty-first-century composition studies in general, is anything that conveys a narrative to you–regardless of the medium. This, then, can be a book, a song, a social media site, a film, a video game, anything at all. As philosopher Jacques Derrida famously said, “Everything is a text.” In this sense, writing about your experience creating art or making music would fall under the purview of a “literacy narrative.” When you think through the essay that you would like to create below, make sure that you choose a topic that is authentic to your own experience, your own journey, and, perhaps most importantly, something that you are interested in continuing to explore through writing and reflection.
Use the following content, which has been adapted from Leslie Davis and Kiley Miller’s First-Year Composition, to plan your literacy narrative assignment.
Assignment Sheet – Literacy Narrative
Literacy is a key component of academic success, as well as professional success. In this class and others, you will be asked to read and engage with various types of texts, so the purpose of this assignment is twofold. First, this assignment will allow you to write about something important to you, using an open form and personal tone instead of an academic one, allowing you to examine some of your deepest convictions and experiences and convey these ideas in a compelling way through writing. Second, this essay provides us an opportunity to get to know each other as a class community.
For this assignment, you should imagine your audience to be an academic audience. Your audience will want a good understanding of your literacy, past, present, or future, and how you seek to comprehend the texts around you.
Requirements:
Choose ONE prompt below to tell about an important time in your life when you engaged with or were confronted with literacy, using the traditional or broad definition. We’ll discuss various types of literacy, so you will identify and define the type of literacy you’re discussing.
Formatting:
Important Note About Topic Choice:
The format of this assignment provides you with quite a bit of leeway. Make sure that you choose your topic carefully. If you write about something that you are not interested in, you will have no one to blame but yourself.
The foundation of our course is built on your ability to read closely and critically. To engage with this skill, and the multiple literacies we navigate on a daily basis, this project is a personal piece in which you will explore a significant moment regarding your own literacy; you may approach literacy either in the traditional sense or using our expanded, modern definition.
What comes to mind when you hear the term “literacy”? Traditionally, we can define literacy as the ability to read and write. To be literate is to be a reader and writer. More broadly, this term has come to be used in other fields and specialties and refers generally to an ability or competency.
For example, you could refer to music literacy as the ability to read and write music; there are varying levels of literacy, so while you may recognize the image below as a music staff and the symbols for musical notes, it’s another thing to name the notes, to play any or multiple instruments, or to compose music.
Or, you may be a casual football fan, but to be football literate , you would need to be able to understand and read the playbook, have an understanding of the positions, define terms like “offsides” or “holding” as they relate to the sport, and interpret the hand signals used by the referees.
Educator and writer Shaelynn Faarnsworth describes and defines literacy as “social” and “constantly changing.” In this unit, we’ll explore literacy as a changing, dynamic process. By expanding our definition of literacy, we’ll come to a better understanding of our skills as readers and writers. We’ll use this discussion so that you, as writers, can better understand and write about “what skills [you] get and what [you] don’t, [and include your] interests, passions, and quite possibly YouTube.”
Reading is a necessary step in the writing process. One helpful metaphor for the writing process is the conversation model. Imagine approaching a group of friends who are in the middle o
f an intense discussion. Instead of interrupting and blurting out the first thing you think of, you would listen. Then as you listen, you may need to ask questions to catch up and gain a better understanding of what has already been said. Finally, once you have this thorough understanding, you can feel prepared to add your ideas, challenge, and further the conversation.
Similarly, when writing, the first step is to read. Like listening, this helps you understand the topic better and approach the issues you’re discussing with more knowledge. With that understanding, you can start to ask more specific questions, look up definitions, and start to do more driven research. With all that information, then you can offer a new perspective on what others have already written. As you write, you may go through this process — listening, researching, and writing — several times!
This unit focuses first on the importance of reading. There are two important ways we’ll think about reading in this course. Close reading and critical reading are both important processes with difference focuses. Close reading is a process to understand what is being said. It’s often used in summaries, where the goal is to comprehend and report on what a text is communicating. Compared to critical reading, an analytical process focused on how and why an idea is presented, close reading forces us to slow down and identify the meaning of the information. This skill is especially important in summaries and accurately quoting and paraphrasing.
Close reading, essentially, is like listening to the conversation. Both focus on comprehension and being able to understand and report back on what is written or said. In this project,
Consider assignments you’ve been given in the past:
You may have heard of “rhetorical questions” or gotten frustrated watching the news when a commentator dismisses another by saying “that’s just empty rhetoric” — but what does rhetoric mean? With definitions dating back to Aristotle and Plato, this is a complex concept with many historical and contemporary definitions. We define rhetoric as the ways language and other communication strategies are used to achieve a purpose with an audience. Below, we’ll explore the rhetorical situation, examining how many different factors contribute to how a writer can achieve their goals, and what may influence them to make different decisions.
The rhetorical situation is composed of many interactive pieces that each depend on the other. Let’s start by defining each component:
Each of these categories intersects and influences the other. When we think about a complete rhetorical situation, you’ll need to define all these different pieces to best understand the text. As we begin practicing close reading, drawing the rhetorical situation will be a helpful tool.
Let’s examine this project, the literacy narrative.
Now that we’ve reviewed some basics, let’s take a look at the assignment more fully, begin drafting, and work more closely with feedback from others. A literacy narrative is a specific type of genre, so there are certain requirements for this text. Using examples from other students, we’ll begin to develop your first draft.
narrative : a method of story-telling
A literacy narrative is a common genre for writers who want to explore their own experiences with writing. Just Google “literacy narrative” and find endless examples! While this assignment will respond to specific prompts and follow a more specific structure than some of the examples you’ll find on Google, there is a common theme in each essay that revolves around your relationship with literacy. Section One defined literacy, but what about narrative? Narrative can be defined as a method of story-telling. In the simplest terms, your goal in this literacy narrative, in this assignment, is to tell the story of your personal experience with literacy, either from a past event, something you’re working with now, or looking to the future. Let’s review the three sets of prompts from the assignment sheet:
Each of these prompts gives you the chance to tell your story and examine your experience with a specific type of literacy. As you consider the prompts, think about how you could tell a story to answer these questions. With this frame of mind, review the questions and activities below.
Each prompt includes three questions, which we’ll use as the starting point for three paragraphs. In each set of prompts, your first paragraph will describe the text; remember, when thinking about reading a text, we can interpret this broadly, like with music and sports. The second paragraph will explore the challenges or successes you’ve experienced. Then, the third paragraph will focus on strategies and techniques for improvement. This way, you can tell a more complete story of your experience, sharing the details and emotions along the way and making readers feel like they’re right there with you. But how do you capture all this detail in a way that helps you organize your thoughts and keep your reader interested in the story?
We’ll use a formula for the paragraph structure called PIE, which stands for Point, Information, and Explanation. This method will help you plan what you want to say, and then give examples so you can show why each step was so important to you. Let’s review each part of the paragraph, and then we’ll look at how this applies to your literacy narrative with a student sample.
Together, these pieces all come together to create a strong, developed paragraph that responds to the question from the prompt more fully.
Now that we’ve reviewed all the components and the foundation for this assignment, you’re ready to begin your draft! We’ll focus just on the first paragraph here, but you can use these steps for each paragraph to construct your draft.
Consider the first question from each prompt, copied below, to decide if you’ll focus on a past experience, the present, or the future:
Literacy Narrative Rough Draft
Using your brainstorming from previous weeks, and using the student sample as a reference, begin drafting using the PIE structure, following these steps below to build the first paragraph of your draft. This is just a first draft, so let yourself write freely! This doesn’t need to be perfect or even good — instead, the goal is to put ideas on paper.
Peer review.
Peer review is an important part of the drafting process. It helps us learn from our classmates and see our own work in a different way. Writing can be a lonely and isolating experience that makes the process frustrating and unsatisfying. Getting to share your work with others can break that uncomfortable pattern!
That said, you may be new to sharing your work or have different experiences with peer review. Good peer reviews can spark creativity, help build on good ideas, and revise the rougher ideas. But, sometimes peer review can be challenging if your peer is too critical or too complementary, or maybe you can’t read and understand what they wrote! The tips below will help reinforce best practices, as well as avoid some common mistakes with peer review.
When completing peer review, one important rule is to focus on the big picture and NOT to edit. Think about it like this: If you add a comma, then you’ve helped make one sentence of the paper better. In a paper that’s 1,000 words long, that’s not so helpful! Instead, consider the rhetorical triangle. If you can make observations and ask questions to help your classmate understand the audience or the genre better, then the entire paper is going to improve, because you focused on a higher order concept that affects not just one sentence, but the paragraph and the whole paper. Throughout these projects, we’ll practice several strategies for peer review so you can see several example methods and find what works best for you.
Peer workshop
When you sit down with your peer’s paper, we’ll practice a three-step process. This gives you a chance to explain exactly what you mean while offering specific advice for your peer. Review the steps below:
All together, these comments will need to be a few sentences long. Since we’re NOT focused on grammar or editing, the changes that your peer can make will have a big effect on the final product. With these more developed comments, your goal is to make 1-2 comments per paragraph. Give your classmate something to consider, using our course vocabulary, to really help them improve. As you read and practice this method, it’s likely that you’ll get ideas for your own paper, which makes this process doubly helpful!
Assignment Rubric
A “B” (good) summary (80% +):
A “C” (satisfactory) summary (70% +):
A “D” (poor) summary (60% +):
An “F” (failing) summary:
Most of this week revolves around drafting activities. This week brings our first revisions and peer reviews, an important part of the writing process. With your peers, you’ll get to review what they’ve been working on while receiving feedback on your own work. Similar to the sample, it will be your responsibility to identify strengths and praise your peers’ writing, as well as identify areas for improvement and explain why this is an important revision they must make.
Once you’ve completed peer review, you’ll likely have lots of ideas — reviewing others’ work often ignites a creative spark for your own work! You should feel free to apply strategies from your peers and reexamine your work, but you want to focus on your peers’ suggestions for you. This way, you can see how your ideas and their commentary lines up. In our 3-step feedback process, the last step is to make a suggestion. While the notes from your peers should be valuable, it’s ultimately your draft and your decision about what feedback to include. As you read through the commentary, review the assignment sheet, and begin making changes to the draft. This is one of the most important steps in the writing process and what makes the difference between a rough first draft and a polished, complete draft.
Media Resources
Any media resources not documented here were part of the original chapter from which this section has been adapted.
Works Referenced
Lunsford, Andrea. “Our Semi-literate Youth? Not So Fast.” Stanford University. Nov. 2010. https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20220129004722/https:/ssw.stanford.edu//sites/default/files/OPED_Our_semi-literate_Youth.pdf
Starting the Journey: An Intro to College Writing Copyright © by Leonard Owens III; Tim Bishop; and Scott Ortolano is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.
Video description.
Video contains detailed explanation of the aspects of an effective outline.
College essays that worked and how yours can too.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - JULY 08: A view of Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University on ... [+] July 08, 2020 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have sued the Trump administration for its decision to strip international college students of their visas if all of their courses are held online. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)
The college essay is a pivotal piece of the college application showcasing your individuality and differentiated outlook to admissions officers. What makes an essay truly shine? Let’s dive into the words behind three standout essays highlighted by university websites and a school newspaper's brand studio so you can get into the right mindset for crafting your own narrative.
Essay Excerpt: ‘Bra Shopping ’ (Harvard)
Featured by the Harvard Crimson Brand Studio , Orlee's essay recounts a student's humorous and insightful experience of bra shopping with her grandmother, weaving in her unique family dynamics and challenges at her prestigious school.
What Works:
For Your Essay : To write an essay that embraces your uniqueness, start by identifying a quirky or challenging experience that reflects who a key insight into your experience. Think about how this experience has shaped your perspective and character. Use humor and honesty to bring your story to life, and focus on how you have embraced your differences to become stronger and more resilient.
Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, finding connections: humor and self-reflection.
Essay: ‘Brood X Cicadas ’ (Hamilton College)
As an example on Hamilton's admissions website, Nicholas writes about the cicadas swarming his hometown every 17 years and draws a parallel between their emergence and his own transition to college life. He uses humor and self-reflection to create a relatable and engaging narrative.
For Your Essay: To infuse humor and self-reflection into your essay, start by identifying an ordinary experience or object and think about how it relates to your life. Write down funny or insightful observations about this connection. Use humor to make your essay more engaging, but ensure it still conveys meaningful self-reflection. This balance can make your essay both entertaining and profound.
Essay: ‘ Facing The Hot Griddle ’ (Johns Hopkins University)
In this essay published by Hopkins Insider, Rocio uses the process of making tortillas to explore her multicultural identity and the challenges she has faced. Her story beautifully weaves together her Guatemalan heritage and her experiences growing up in the United States.
For Your Essay: To write an essay that explores your identity through a metaphor, start by thinking about an activity or tradition that holds significant meaning for you. Consider how this activity relates to your life experiences and personal growth. Use detailed descriptions to bring the activity to life and draw connections between the process and your own journey. Reflect on the lessons you've learned and how they've shaped your identity.
A winning college essay isn’t simply about parading your best accomplishment or dramatizing your challenges. It’s not a contest for which student is the most original or entertaining. Rather, the essay is a chance for you to showcase your authenticity, passion, resilience, social awareness, and intellectual vitality . By sharing genuine stories and insights, you can create an essay that resonates with admissions committees and highlights your unique qualities.
For you to have the best possible essay, mindset is key. Here’s how to get into the zone:
The secret to a standout college essay lies in its authenticity, depth, and emotional resonance. By learning from these successful examples and getting into the right mindset, you can craft an essay that not only stands out but also provides a meaningful insight into who you are. Remember, your essay is your story—make it a piece of writing that you will always be proud of.
COMMENTS
Literacy Narrative Examples for College Students. A literacy narrative is quite simply that: it is a story of how you became literate and how it has affected your life. ... Going beyond a short essay, a literacy narrative can even become an entire book that explores your literacy journey. To get your creative juices flowing, look at a few ...
The term "narrative" means story; thus, a literacy narrative essay is an essay that tells the story of your literacy. It highlights times in your life during which you have gained knowledge or developed skills. ... "Embracing My Culturally Diverse Literacy" by Sarah Royer; College Essay Example #5 for Cornell College of College of Arts ...
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Dialogue can help bring a narrative to life. Some indication of the narrative's significance. By definition, a literacy narrative tells something the writer remembers about learning to read or write. In addition, the writer needs to make clear why the incident matters to him or her. You may reveal its significance in various ways.
Assignment Sheet - Literacy Narrative. The foundation of this course is built on your ability to read closely and critically. To engage with this skill, and the multiple literacies we navigate on a daily basis, this first major essay is a personal piece in which you will explore a significant moment regarding your own literacy; you may ...
If you do not, that is okay. Skip this step. Write the first draft of your literacy narrative. Remember to stay focused on the theme. If you do not know yet what your theme is, work toward a theme during this stage of writing. Read over your draft. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses.
Assignments - Literacy Narrative (1000 - 1500 words) Overview. A Literacy Narrative is a type of autobiographical essay -"The Art of Eating Spaghetti," for example - that focuses on personal experiences with literacy (speaking, writing, reading, and the like) in order to confirm the importance of these rhetorical experiences in a person's life.
These essays are often anecdotal, experiential, and personal—allowing students to express themselves in a creative and, quite often, moving ways. Narrative Essay. Narration is a rhetorical style that basically just tells a story. Being able to convey events in a clear, descriptive, chronological order is important in many fields.
According to the Literacy Narrative Essay assignment, a literacy narrative is a story you write about your own "stories, anecdotes, memories, experiences, readings, and other events and descriptions" that paint the best picture of your experiences learning to be a reader and writer. ... College and Baby. Mariah, an incoming Freshman in Columbus ...
Essay 1 — Literacy Narrative. Write a 300—500 word (1—2 page) autobiographical narrative that focuses on an experience you've had with reading, writing, or language. A literacy narrative uses the elements of story (plot, character, setting, conflict) to recount a writer's personal experience with language in all its forms-reading ...
1.7 - NARRATIVE STRUCTURE & Sample essay. This lesson covers... how to tell a good story. By the end you should... understand the basic elements of a narrative essay and be able to apply them to your own writing. Time. 3 minutes. College Essay Essentials. paperback: 14-19 | ebook: pages 15-20.
Glance at Genre: The Literacy Narrative; Annotated Sample Reading: from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass; Writing Process: Tracing the Beginnings of Literacy; Editing Focus: Sentence Structure; Evaluation: Self-Evaluating; Spotlight on … The Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives (DALN) Portfolio: A Literacy ...
Tell us where you were, who you were with, and what you were doing in this specific moment when your literacy narrative begins. For example, a story about your favorite book may begin with a description of where you were when the book first landed in your hands. If you're writing about your discovery of poetry, tell us exactly where you were ...
A literacy narrative is a story about your own experience with writing and reading, as well as your knowledge on a particular subject of your choosing, whether it be music, learning a new language, the story of how you learned to read—anything! In assigning literacy narratives, professors are asking students to take what they've learned ...
A literacy narrative essay is a first-person account of learning how to read or write. It often discusses the significance of books and other written materials in a person's life and the role of literacy in society. Most literacy narratives discuss memories, which means they are based on actual events from the writer's life.
Interactive example of a narrative essay. An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt "Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself," is shown below. Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works. Narrative essay example.
Personal literacy narrative of my past as a reader and writer is long and detailed, mainly because I can feed my mind as much as I want, and it will never get full. The uniqueness of my personality has created a filtration system for all the things I have read and the style of my writing. As I have grown up over the years my abilities in ...
A personal literacy narrative essay example would typically feature: A personal tone of voice since the main goal is to write about an anecdote related to literacy. A literacy narrative example essay will, of course, include personal stories. Dialogue and monologue if context-appropriate. Visual and colorful language.
Literacy Narrative 11 September 2018. For years African Americans have fought a grueling battle for equality in the United States. My first day of college on August 27, 2018, I was introduced to the Norman Rockwell's painting, "The Problem We All Live With" in class, which to me is a clear representation of the struggle for equality in ...
A literacy narrative is a common genre for writers who want to explore their own experiences with writing. Just Google "literacy narrative" and find endless examples! While this assignment will respond to specific prompts and follow a more specific structure than some of the examples you'll find on Google, there is a common theme in each ...
Video Description. Video contains detailed explanation of the aspects of an effective outline.
Dialogue can help bring a narrative to life. Some indication of the narrative's significance. By definition, a literacy narrative tells something the writer remembers about learning to read or write. In addition, the writer needs to make clear why the incident matters to him or her. You may reveal its significance in various ways.
Find your story and bring your own literacy narrative to life by exploring original and famous examples of this type of writing.
A winning college essay isn't simply about parading your best accomplishment or dramatizing your challenges. It's not a contest for which student is the most original or entertaining.
A timeline and narrative account of the development of the city-wide MutualAidNYC and neighborhood groups in 2020-2021 ... This role will support the Teens P.A.C.T. summer program under the Harlem Health Initiative's Health Equity and Literacy Program (HELP) to ensure that the team meets greater program goals and deliverables in a timely and ...
2001 Ed.M. Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY . Concentration: Philosophy of Education, Cultural Studies and Urban Education ... Guest Lecturer, "Testimonio Narrative as Research," Freedom & Justice Studies 340, CSUCI (February 2016) ... "Dialogues on Adolescent Literacy" sponsored by CUNY, Fund for the City of New York