Literacy Narrative Essay Assignment
Humans are naturally sophisticated communicators and storytellers. The strength or success of a story may be a matter of some debate, but we believe that everyone has rhetorical strengths. As a way of connecting with those strengths, we ask you to recall a time when you were successful rhetorically and to tell us that story.
Traditionally, literacy narratives tell stories about how a person learned to read or write. We would like to extend that definition to include instances when you, as a writer or speaker, or through some other medium (music or art, for example), achieved the goals you were shooting for with your particular medium.
Think of times you convinced people to take some action, lend you a car or donate to a cause, for example. Think of times you won an argument or wrote a letter that had just the effect you’d hoped for.
Maybe you learned to read by surveying the morning headlines with your mother while seated at the breakfast table. Maybe you learned American Sign Language on your own in order to talk to a neighbor.
Maybe you have learned new ways to use language and emoticons for social media. The subject for the essay is up to you, but take care to reflect on your experiences in order to come up with vivid memories strong enough to sustain an essay.
Once you think of an experience from your past that fits the bill, write a narrative about it. As a narrative, you are telling a story in the form of a personal narrative essay. You will need to include important details about the context. What was the situation?
What led up to the situation, and what was at stake? Who was your audience? What was your thinking process as you prepared to speak, write, etc? What strategies did you use, and why were they successful?
Alternate Assignment Focus: Write your literacy narrative about a time you failed as a communicator.
Length & Format
Minimum 1,000 words for Essay 1 Final
MLA format
In-text citations are not required for this assignment
Purpose
To present a story in a logical manner using vivid, specific details
To work collaboratively with other students
To practice the recursive writing process through drafting, peer response and revision activities
Course Learning Objectives
Construct texts by working through varying stages of the writing process.
Demonstrate awareness of audience, purpose, and context through making informed decisions about forms of appeal, style, genre, and modality.
Exhibit knowledge of writing conventions related to expectations such as clarity, cohesion, organization, paragraph structure, grammar, and mechanics.
Maintain a controlling purpose for research and writing that emerges from a clearly-defined research question.
Criteria
Provide a clear explanation of the issue and its importance to the writer.
Clearly communicate the life experience or events that “connect” the writer the issue he or she has chosen to research.
Include rich details about people, places, and events that contributed to or were involved in the writer’s connection to the issue at hand.
Employ narrative strategies to engage the reader: conventions of storytelling such as descriptive writing, characterization, non-fiction plot, dialogue, flashbacks, etc.
Demonstrate a recursive writing process that that includes invention, drafting, and revision.
Exhibit effective editing and proofreading skills.
