what is literacy narrative essay

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Literacy Narrative Explained

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. To create a literacy narrative, you just need to find your story and use  descriptive text  to bring it to life. Learn how to write a literacy narrative through exploring original and famous examples.

Breaking Down a Literacy Narrative

A literacy narrative is a personalized story of your relationship with language. Not only do literacy narratives discuss memories, but they also walk through a person’s discovery, trials and triumphs with reading, writing and speaking a language.

This doesn’t have to be English either. It could be your experiences  learning a second language  and the impact that it has had on you. The point is simply to tell the world about your struggles and growth with language and communication. Literacy narratives can have different  themes , topics, styles,  moods  and  tones  that you can work to make your own.

Key Features of a Literacy Narrative

To start, a literacy narrative is a personalized story.

• Hook:  Begin with a hook  to draw the reader in. This could be your first experience with books or how reading and writing define you.
• Focus: Rounding out your first paragraph, you’ll want to give a short thesis that tells the reader the whole point of your story.
• Meaning: Throughout the remainder of your narrative, you’ll use stories and  vivid descriptions  to explore the meaning of this journey to you. You might discuss how your poetry has grown or your love of reading has turned into writing.
• Challenges: Explore the challenges that you’ve faced in your journey and how you’ve overcome them, along with how your ideas and thoughts have transformed.

Example: Relationship with Words

Explore how to write a literacy  narrative essay  through an original example for college level students. The following example is written by  Jennifer Betts .

Words were like a puzzle that I couldn’t quite solve. Listening to the teachers read the jumbled-up letters on the page, I was fascinated by how they could easily bring the pictures to life. The first day that I truly became literate, it was like another world opening up. My fingers couldn’t find books fast enough. My relationship with words has been a powerful, fantastical and even sometimes disastrous journey.

I would like to say that I’ve always known the power of words, but that simply isn’t true. The power that a word can hold jumped at me like a thief in the night the first time I encountered my own personal bully. They took the words that I’d proudly written and made them less meaningful than trash. However, it was that bully that forced my reading and vocabulary to grow. They made me realize the power that a few sentences could hold in an instant. Like swords in battle, they can quickly cut and decimate your opponent. Mastering the tactics of battle, you turn from the opponent to the victor. The need to be the victor drove me to books. And books opened my eyes to a whole new way of thinking.

I have that bully to thank for leading me to the  children’s book  Harry Potter. The moment I slid open those silken pages, my eyes couldn’t devour them fast enough. The story pushed the limits of my vast imagination and truly allowed me to soar. The moment the journey was over, I missed it. And there hasn’t been another book since that has truly satisfied that high.

While I had dabbled in writing my own love stories a time or two, my need to find another fantasy that consumed me like the Harry Potter series pushed me into trying my own hand at writing. The moment my fingers hit the keys, the words just started pouring out of me at a rate that even I couldn’t control. Who knew that the shy, introverted child had so much to say?

While my relationship with written words are the things of dreams, my plunge into speaking often has disastrous consequences. Never have I been a good public speaker. In school, it was the day that I dreaded. Despite my preparation, I would trip and stumble to the podium only to repeat my performance in my carefully planned words. While they say practice makes perfect, in my case, practice has made mediocre. But to get the world to hear your words, sometimes you need to find the courage to speak them.

Even if the delivery isn’t perfect.

Though my journey with words started in frustration, it turned to fascination and wonder in a minute. Even with many years of reading under my belt, I’m still humbled by the power that a single word can hold if used the right or even the wrong way. Sharper than knives or softer than a silk, finding the right words is always an interesting journey.

Famous Examples of a Literacy Narrative

Literacy narratives can make an impact. 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 excerpts from famous examples of literacy narratives.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard

Why are we reading, if not in hope of beauty laid bare, life heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Can the writer isolate and vivify all in experience that most deeply engages our intellects and our hearts? Can the writer renew our hope for literary forms? Why are we reading if not in hope that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so that we may feel again their majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and why love? We still and always want waking.

In “ The Writing Life ,” Annie Dilliard uses short essays to explore her journey with literacy and writing. Using her own unique style, Annie helps you to explore how and why she is a writer and what a rough and exciting journey it can be. You follow how writing can be torturous and transcendent all in the same moment.

Literacy Narrative by Kiki Petrosino

I wish to put my blackness into some kind of order. My blackness, my builtness, my blackness, a bill. I want you to know how I feel it: cold key under the tongue. Mean fishhook of homesickness that catches my heart when I walk under southern pines. And how I recognized the watery warp of the floor in my great-grandma’s house, when I dreamed it. This is what her complaining ghost said: Write about me.

Culture and writing and how culture affects writing are explored in “ Literacy Narrative ,” a personal essay by Kiki Petrosino. Kiki uses her experiences as a black woman and her history to show her relationship with words. She explores how her African American heritage drives her writing and how, through her journey with  descriptive poetry , she intermingles her poetry and race to create a compelling work.

Bird by Bird Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott

For some of us, books are as important as almost anything else on earth. What a miracle it is that out of these small, flat, rigid squares of paper unfolds world after world after world, worlds that sing to you, comfort and quiet or excite you. Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die.

Anne Lamott takes you through a hilarious and witty ride to finding her story in “ Bird by Bird .” Through showing you her journey into becoming a writer and finding literacy, she tries to help others find their own story in this  personal narrative . Starting with some words of wisdom from her father, this literacy narrative takes you through her entire journey with writer’s block and pushing your limits. This is a great example of the impact and depth that a literacy narrative can take.

Finding Your Words

Everyone has a literacy story. It can even be how you don’t like to read. In college, you often have to explore your personal literacy story through an essay. Using these tactics and examples, you can dive into the fun world of  personal expression  and exploration. If literacy narratives aren’t your jam, you might give poetry a try. There are several  poetry genres  perfect for personal exploration and introspection, too.

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The Power of Literacy Narratives

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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 Is a “Literacy Narrative?”

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.

How to Write Your Own Literacy Narrative

Ready to write your own literacy narrative but don’t know where to begin?

• Think of a story linked to your personal history of reading and writing. Perhaps you want to write about your favorite author or book and its impact on your life. Maybe you remember your first brush with the sublime power of poetry. Do you remember the time you first learned to read, write or speak in another language? Or maybe the story of your first big writing project comes to mind. Make sure to consider why this particular story is the most important one to tell. Usually, there are powerful lessons and revelations uncovered in the telling of a literacy narrative.
• Wherever you begin, picture the first scene that comes to mind in relation to this story, using descriptive details. 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 when you first felt that spark. Do you remember where you were when you first learned a new word in a second language?
• Continue from there to explore the ways in which this experience had meaning for you. What other memories are triggered in the telling of this first scene? Where did this experience lead you in your writing and reading journey? To what extent did it transform you or your ideas about the world? What challenges did you face in the process? How did this particular literacy narrative shape your life story? How do questions of power or knowledge come into play in your literacy narrative?

Writing Toward a Shared Humanity

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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Attribution

This guide is adapted from the Writing Guide with Handbook by OpenStax .

What is a literacy narrative?

• The Writing Guide: Literacy Narrative Link to the online, interactive chapter on Literacy Narrative.
• Literacy Narrative Chapter 3 from The Writing Guide As a PDF for downloading or printing.

Topics Covered

• Identity and Expression
• Literacy Narrative Trailblazer: Tara Westover
• 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 Artifact
• Lecture Slides for Literacy Narrative As a PDF for downloading or printing.
• How to Write a Literacy Narrative Guide with exercises to assist you in writing a literacy narrative.
• Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives The DALN is an open public resource made up of stories from people just like you about their experiences learning to read, write, and generally communicate with the world around them.
• Next: Visual Analysis >>
• Last Updated: Jan 12, 2024 7:36 AM
• URL: https://library.jeffersonstate.edu/Writing-Guide-OpenStax

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Literacy is experience, competency, and skill in communication. Literacy begins with language acquisition; learning words and speaking is the earliest form of productive communication. Developing listening and reading comprehension is classified as receptive communication. The acquisition of writing skills is a form of productive communication. Both types of communication are tools for learning. The definition of literacy has evolved through cultural change from oral, reading, and writing to include visual, musical, technical, numeracy, and information literacies.

To describe literacy, what other literacies would you include that facilitate learning?

A literacy narrative is a type of autobiographical essay that often tells the story of learning to read or write. It is reflective writing that describes the process and growth of learning. Narratives are a way of telling a personal story through remembrance and introspection.

A literacy narrative is based on life events. This means it is your experience of literacy, you may or may not love to read and write. Tell your story. To describe what you experienced, consider how to include specific details, who, what, when, where, why, and how.

• Who taught you?
• What changed or made an impact on learning?
• Recount a memory of the time when developing literacy made a difference.
• To describe where may include a place and/or an emotional state.
• Explain why it matters.
• Describe how literacy met a want or need and/or how it worked out.

Telling the Story

• Describe the setting of a main event.
• Blend in sensory images of sights, sounds, textures, smells, and tastes that manifest a personal experience.
• Incorporate dialogue, including what was said can add an emotional connection to a narrative.
• Include situations that build the plot: introduction, challenge, complication, inspiration, revelation, resolution to organize and add interest.

Stories are most often told in chronological order. Consider if that is the best way to tell the story.

• Chronologically, from beginning to end.
• Start in the middle.
• Start at the end.

Read your assignment and rubric to note the criteria, markers of quality, and rating scale and scoring before brainstorming your approach to the literacy narrative.

• If the assignment and rubric do not make clear what the professor expects, take the opportunity to ask questions.
• Typical criteria include writing style, focus, length, and due date(s).
• Typical quality markers include  clear  language and error-free, consistent organization, context, audience, purpose, evaluation, critical thinking.
• Typical rating scale may include how criteria determines elements of the narrative from mastery to inadequate.
• Last Updated: Mar 3, 2022 1:29 PM
• URL: https://jefferson.kctcs.libguides.com/literacy-narratives

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

Literacy Narratives: Overview

“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.

Everything is a Text!

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

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.

• Describe a situation when you were challenged in your reading or experience with a text (a book, song, film, etc.) by describing the source of that challenge (vocabulary, length, organization, content, something else). How did you overcome that challenge to understand what the text was saying? What strategies or steps do you plan to take in the future to make the process easier?
• Describe the type of texts you read (watch, listen to, play, etc.) most often. These texts can occur in traditional formal contexts or in the most informal situations (like group text message threads with your friends or posting on specific social media sites). What makes them easy or challenging to read and interpret? What strategies do you use to ensure that you fully understand them or can apply them in some form of productive context? How have they shaped you as a person?
• Describe your preferred mode of expressing yourself and communicating with the world. This, again, can be something more traditional like poetry, creating art, making music, or something more contemporary, like producing TikTok videos or curating an Instagram channel. It can even be something like cooking, playing a sport, or any other hobby or activity that gives unity, order, and meaning to your world. What have been some of the challenges that you faced as you learned how to create these types of texts? What have been some of your most memorable moments, and how has this mode of expression shaped you as an individual?

Formatting:

• Your professor will determine the exact length of this assignment, but a typical length for an essay of this sort is 1,000 words.
• Your work must be typed in size 12, Times New Roman font and double spaced, 1” margins, following MLA requirements.

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.

Section One: Rhetoric and Personal Narrative

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.

Exploring Literacy

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.”

Checking In: Questions and Activities

• Consider our expanded definition of literacy. In what ways are you literate? What activities and/or hobbies do you value? How do they help give meaning to your world?
• When, where, and how do you read and write on a daily basis? These activities can occur in traditional formal contexts or in the most informal situations (like writing in group text message threads with your friends or posting on specific social media sites).
• Thinking of traditional literacy (reading and writing), what successes or challenges have you faced in school, at home, in the workplace, etc.?

Close Reading Strategies: Introducing the Conversation Model

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,

• Within close reading, your processes could be further broken down into pre-reading, active reading, and post-reading strategies. What do you focus on before and after you read a text?
• There are many ways to read closely, and being an intentional reader will help ensure you process what you read and recall it later. However, there are many ways to actively read.

Consider assignments you’ve been given in the past:

• Have your instructors asked you to annotate a text?
• Do you find yourself copying down important lines, highlighting, or making notes as you read?
• What strategies do you rely on to actively and closely read?
• What are your least favorite strategies?

The Rhetorical Situation

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:

• Ask yourself: Who created this?
• Ask yourself: Who is likely to, or supposed to, see this?
• Ask yourself: What am I looking at?
• Ask yourself: Why was the text created?
• Ask yourself: When was this created? How did it get developed? Where was the text published? What shaped the creative process?

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.

• Author : You! While you have a unique background, you’re a student in this course, and your individual writing experience will influence what you write about.
• Audience : Your classmates and instructor. This is a collaborative course, and your instructor will read what you produce.
• Text : Literacy Narrative. This type of text has different goals and requirements. We’ve examined literacy already, and we’ll review narratives soon. Together, these guidelines will help us construct this specific type of text (rather than a poem about reading or your personal memoir about how you became a writer!).
• Purpose : To reflect. To introduce yourself. To define your literacy. These are all goals of this assignment. Throughout your assignment, you’ll want to check in with yourself and ensure that you’re accomplishing these goals. If not, you won’t meet the demands of the assignment.
• Context : This assignment — the assignment sheet above has specific requirements that will influence what you create. Your writing background — no one else has the same life experience with reading and writing as you. The goals of the course — there are specific tasks to accomplish with this project that are specific to course outcome objectives. Each of these aspects will influence how you put the project together. Since you didn’t just wake up and decide to write about literacy, the context of this assignment will determine what you create.
• Which of the elements of the rhetorical triangle influence your writing decisions most? Why?
• Are there any elements you don’t consider? Why don’t they seem as important?

Section 2: Defining Narrative and Organization

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.

Introducing the Literacy Narrative

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:

• Describe a situation when you were challenged in your reading by describing the source of that challenge (vocabulary, length, organization, something else). How did you overcome that challenge to understand what the text was saying? What strategies or steps do you plan to take in the future to make the process easier? This can range from reading a difficult novel to trying to play a particularly complicated song.
• Describe the type of texts you read (watch, listen to, etc.) most often. What makes them easy or challenging to read and interpret? What strategies do you use to ensure that you fully understand them or can apply them? Again, remember that these activities can occur in traditional formal contexts or in the most informal situations (like writing in group text message threads with your friends or posting on specific social media sites). Listening to music and watching true crime documentaries also count as listening to and watching texts.
• Describe what kind of texts you think you will have to read or interpret in the future and where you will encounter these texts (i.e. future classes, your career, etc.). How do you think they might challenge you? What strategies will you use to overcome these difficulties?
• What non-traditional topics could you write about for this project? What activities and/or hobbies do you value? How do they help give meaning to your world?

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.

• Which prompt from the assignment sheet will you address? Why does this prompt appeal to you?
• Consider the brainstorming you did about the ways that you are literate. Which prompt matches those skills best? Are these skills you struggled with at first, skills you currently practice, or a skill that you’re learning and will use in the future? Use these notes to decide which set of questions you’ll focus on in this project.

Organization: PIE Method

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.

• In the literacy narrative: Since each paragraph responds to a question from the prompt, the Point of each paragraph should tell readers which question you’re answering. By rephrasing the question in your Point, you can signal to your classmates and instructor so that they know which question you’re answering.
• In the literacy narrative: Most of your evidence, in a narrative, will be from your experience. Report what happened, what you read, or what you learned. Naming these details can help your readers see through your eyes when you give specific examples.
• In the literacy narrative: Help your readers get inside your head and feel like they’re with you. Keeping the Point in mind and showing how all these ideas relate will bring the paragraph together by developing each example clearly and offering a thoughtful response to each prompt. How did you feel about the examples from the Information? Why was it was so significant? Why should your readers care about this experience? Answering these questions will help show your readers what you experienced so they can understand the significance and connect with you.

Together, these pieces all come together to create a strong, developed paragraph that responds to the question from the prompt more fully.

• Below is a sample paragraph that follows the PIE structure. It is coded for the different parts of the paragraph above, with the Point in bold , the  Information in italics , and the  Explanation underlined . The second paragraph has been shortened and has not been coded. First, review the parts of the coded example. Pay particular attention to how these elements work in harmony to build the paragraph. Then, review and identify the PIE elements in the second paragraph.

Planning a Draft

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:

• Describe a situation when you were challenged in your reading by describing the source of that challenge (vocabulary, length, organization, something else).  
• Describe the type of texts you read (watch, listen to, etc.) most often.  
• Describe what kind of texts you think you will have to read or interpret in the future and where you will encounter these texts (i.e. future classes, your career, etc.).  
• Describe your preferred mode of expressing yourself and communicating with the world.

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.

• In your Point, rephrase one of the questions above. You can borrow some of this same language to signal to your readers and show which question you’re answering. Remember, this only introduces the main idea — no details yet!
• Review your brainstorming. Did you name specific examples? Add these to your paragraph to develop the Information. Name at least two examples. Each example you give should connect to the Point, providing evidence from your experience.
• Review the examples and start to Explain. How did you feel about the examples from the Information? Why was it was so significant? Why should your readers care about this experience? Ask yourself these questions for each example you include.
• Depending on your drafting process, it might be easy to tackle all three paragraphs at once and get everything down, or you might prefer to write one paragraph at a time.
• Throughout the course, practice with drafting one paragraph per day, or setting a timer to see what you can write in a specific amount of time.
• Review what you’ve written, and see if there are more details to add. Remember, the goal is to get as much as you can out of your head. Revisions will take place next.

Section Three: Peer Review and Revision

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:

• Observe : Make a statement or summarize what you see. Identifying a pattern in your peer’s work or repeating what you think your peer is saying can help your peer know if they’re communicating clearly. Using the rhetorical triangle to support these observations could be a helpful strategy!
• Explain : Critique what you see, explaining if the writer has a strong idea or if it might need work. U sing adjectives to describe what’s going well or what’s not working is important so that you peer can learn more about your observation. Was this “clear” or “confusing”? Is the writer “engaging and interesting” or is the writing “plain and repetitive”?
• EXAMPLE: 1) You give a few examples for information, then a sentence of explanation. 2) It doesn’t look like this meets the word limits from the assignment sheet, and I’m not sure which part you’ll focus on as the main form of literacy. 3) Could you clarify this? More explanation about why these are important could help you meet the word limit, too!

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

• Will clearly and accurately define a specific type of literacy, explaining the connection and development of literacy. Will clearly establish the identity of the writer and the influence and importance of literacy.
• Will communicate significant experiences to an academic audience. Will give the reader something new to consider. Will interest the reader through storytelling.
• Will remain focused on literacy and the individual prompts. Will include specific details from a variety of experiences. Will engage readers with details and examples. Will explain the connections and development of growth through chosen examples.
• Will follow PIE structure closely.
• Will be clear and readable without distracting grammar, punctuation or spelling errors.

A “B” (good) summary (80% +):

• The concept of literacy may not be as clearly connected or central  to the writer’s development.
• More attention could be paid to engage or interest the readers. May lack context to help the reader understand the writer’s experience.
• Focus may lack through discussing events outside of the prompts. May include few specific examples. May lack explanation to show connection between examples.
• PIE may not be followed in one paragraph. Either the point, information, or explanation could be further developed or clarified within a paragraph.
• The writer may need to work on communicating information more effectively. The narrative will be generally clear and readable but may need further editing for grammatical errors.

A “C” (satisfactory) summary (70% +):

• Literacy is not defined or explained clearly in connection to skill.
• Awareness of audience is lacking, making sections confusing for an unfamiliar reader.
• Prompts may not be clearly connected to the paragraphs. Examples are not included or are not clearly explained.
• PIE may be missing or underdeveloped in multiple paragraphs.
• “C” narratives may also need more editing for readability.

A “D” (poor) summary (60% +):

• Will show an attempt toward the assignment goals that has fallen short. May have several of the above problems.

An “F” (failing) summary:

• Ignores the assignment.
• Has been plagiarized.
• Review the same sample paragraph below from a previous student. Identify one strength and one area for improvement in the draft, following the 3-step method above. As you review, consider how to balance praise and criticism. Something is going well in your peer’s draft, and something can be improved!

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.

Applying Peer Review: Taking Suggestions and Revising

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.

Sources Used to Create This Chapter

• The majority of the content for this section has been adapted from OER Material from “Literacy Narrative,” in First-Year Composition  by Leslie Davis and Kiley Miller is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Media Resources

Any media resources not documented here were part of the original chapter from which this section has been adapted.

• “What is Your Story?” Photo by Etienne Girardet  on  Unsplash

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.

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3.3 Glance at Genre: The Literacy Narrative

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Read and compose in several genres to understand how genre conventions shape and are shaped by readers’ and writers’ practices and purposes.
• Match the capacities of different environments to varying rhetorical situations.

Over time, people have developed specific ways of writing for particular rhetorical situations. These distinctive ways of writing can be referred to in part as genres. You may have heard the term genre in reference to publishing categories, such as novels or memoirs, but the term can refer to any type of writing that conforms to specific forms and benchmarks. Many genres include stories of different kinds—for example, folktales, short stories, accounts of events, and biographies. As author Jonathan Gottschall says in his 2012 book of the same title, humankind is “the storytelling animal”; people of all cultures have engaged in telling stories, both as storytellers and as audience members. Simply put, narrative stories are essential to many genres of writing.

Exploring Narrative: Elements of Storytelling

Narratives, whether about literacy or anything else, include these key elements:

• Plot. Authors of narratives tell about one or more events. In fiction, the plot is the sequence of those events. In nonfiction, a plot is often referred to simply as the events, but nonfiction texts follow similar plot patterns, including exposition or introduction, a series of events leading to a climax or discovery, and events following the climax or discovery.
• Characters. The events in the story happen to characters, or individuals who are part of the story. In nonfiction, these characters are usually real people. The audience should feel a connection to the main character or characters. Readers may like or dislike characters, blame them or feel sorry for them, identify with them or not. Skilled writers portray characters through the use of dialogue, actions or behavior, and thoughts so that readers can understand what these individuals are like.
• Setting. Stories, fiction and nonfiction, take place in settings, which include locations, time periods, and the cultures in which the characters or real people are immersed.
• Problem and Resolution. In narratives, the characters generally encounter one or more problems. The tension caused by the problem builds to a climax. The resolution of the problem and the built-up tension usually occurs near the end of the story.
• Story Arc. Most narratives have a story arc—a beginning, a middle, and an end—but not necessarily in that order. The story arc, or order of events, may occur chronologically, or the story may begin in the middle of the action and explain earlier events later in the sequence.

Specific Details and Other Conventions

To immerse the audience in the story, authors provide specific details of the scenes and action. Many authors, and teachers, call this strategy “showing, not telling.” These aspects can include the following elements:

• Sensory Details: Full, literal or figurative descriptions of the things that the characters see, smell, hear, touch, and taste in their surroundings.
• Dialogue: Conversation between characters.
• Action: Vivid portrayal of the events in the story. Writers often use short sentences and strong verbs to indicate physical or mental action.
• Engaging Language: Sentence structure and word choices, including tone (vocal attitude of the narrator or characters), diction (language used by the narrator or characters), and varied constructions (different kinds of sentences), that provide specific, clear, and compelling information for the audience.

Establishing the Significance

Most importantly, the audience must feel that the story has some significance. While the author’s main point may only be implied, rather than stated outright as in a conventional academic essay, readers should understand the point of the story and believe that it matters.

For example, in the prologue to her memoir about the importance of education for girls, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (2013), Malala Yousafzai (b. 1997) writes, “The day when everything changed was Tuesday, 9 October 2012.” Yousafzai provides reference to an exact date, the precise moment when a Taliban gunman shot her in the head because she had spoken publicly in favor of girls’ right to education. Identifying the date in this way is a technique that serves a variety of purposes. This technique provides a focal point to draw the audience into the story, identifies details that serve as rising action that the audience can assume will culminate on this date, marks the setting in both time and place for the audience, and ultimately foreshadows a climax of action for the reader. The following elements, therefore, are crucial for writers of narratives to consider when creating content for their writing.

• Audience. Narratives are designed to appeal to specific audiences; authors choose storytelling elements, details, and language strategies to engage the target audience.
• Purpose. Authors may tell stories for different reasons: to entertain, to reinforce cultural norms, to educate, or to strengthen social ties. The same story may, and often does, fulfill more than one purpose.

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How to Write a Literacy Narrative – Explained With Examples

A literacy narrative is a form of free writing that brings life experiences into account.

Piece of Advice

It is easy to write in difficult words, but difficult to write in easy words. ― Anonymous

A literacy narrative is a first-hand narrative about reading, writing, teaching, and composing in any form of context. It is a form of autobiographical writing such as an essay, which can help you learn and evaluate the role of literacy in your life. It can unravel your attitudes and abilities, along with how you have developed as a reader, writer, thinker, and communicator.

It can prompt you to explore and reminisce the choices, moments, experiences, or stages of your personal development. It will also help you realize your growth in terms of writing, reading, communicating, thinking, and even listening.

It allows you to be face to face with your life’s influential events, scenes, people, stages in your life, turning points, epiphanies, failures, successes, passages into new, different kinds of language, reading, writing, communication, and thinking. It can be sad, happy, remorseful, funny, informative, incidental, etc.

It could also be an account of your triumphs, when someone gave you a chance, or you lost chances, and life’s lessons that you learned or that were taught to you by people at the church, school, performances, presentations, etc.

Tips for Writing a Literacy Narrative

You need to remember that literacy narratives are theme-based and open-formed, and do not have a strict structure or thesis.

✑ Choose a topic that means something to you. You could write about personal challenges like overcoming difficulties, early memories of listening to a story or reading it, or simply write about your favorite book, poem, etc.

✑ Make a list of a few ideas that you would like to cover in your literacy narrative. These should be written in a sentence form. This is because a literacy narrative is not just about writing about your favorite literature, it is more personal than that. It is about realizing why you liked reading the literature, what attracted you to it, etc.

✑ Begin writing the first draft of your very first literacy narrative. Do not go astray from your topic; stay focused on the theme. If you are unsure about your theme, work on it simultaneously.

✑ Revise the draft and clear any mistakes that you’ve made.

✑ Use a lot of imagery as this will transform your audiences to your memory, allowing them to connect to you, your experiences, and events. This method is also known as reflecting.

✑ Describe everything well and use other sensory details, viz., smell, touch, and taste.

✑ Give a suitable title for the paper.

✑ Include some dialogs as this keeps the reader/listener captivated to the literature.

✑ Get a peer to review it.

✑ If required, reedit your literacy narrative with the help of your seniors, parents, teachers, etc.

✑ Give it another good read and you are done writing your literacy narrative.

Things to Remember

You will need to ask the following questions time and again while and after writing your narrative.

✑ What do I want to do? What do I want to convey?

✑ What were the crucial moments and details in the event?

✑ Does my literacy narrative have a title?

✑ Am I staying on the topic?

✑ Does this make sense to someone who doesn’t know anything about me or a literacy narrative?

✑ Describe the characters and settings well.

✑ Does it have an open-form structure?

✑ Is it generic or does it have some personal experiences?

✑ Have I used sufficient examples?

✑ Is it appropriate for my audience? As in, is the diction, tone, and language appropriate for the purpose of my literacy narrative? Is it too casual or too formal?

✑ Is it clear? Are the terminologies, examples, events, etc., understandable?

An Example of a Literacy Narrative

Power of a prayer.

One winter, when I was eight years old, my father and I had taken a ride to aunt Sally’s house. Halfway back home, the car began to wobble and slow down. Dad realized that the car had a flat tire. To make things worse, we were stranded in the middle of a snowstorm. I could hear the helplessness in my dad’s voice as he said, “We could sure use a Christmas miracle right about now.” I remember how much I detested that old red car, mainly because the radio didn’t work. Nothing really worked in that car, but luckily, dad got his miracle! The heater suddenly sprung into action and we were quiet thankful that we didn’t freeze to death. We waited there in the middle of nowhere for someone to come along and help us out.

The cold wind started blowing in through the little gap in the door frame and the window. It whistled and moaned and scared me half to death. The breeze that blew in was pricking my nose and cheeks. I could smell the pine tree in the air; given the fact that we had one tied to the roof, Christmas was just a few days away. Dad and I both began search for some way to clog that thin gap to keep the cold out. As I reached into my jacket pocket, I realized there was a piece of folded paper in it. I pulled it out, only to realize that it was the lyrics of the carol, Hallelujah. I was overcome with the sudden burst of the singing spell, and I began to sing it. Dad too pitched in now and then. By the time I sang Hallelujah after the second verse, the cold winds had stopped. As we sang, “… and every breath we drew was hallelujah”, we heard a familiar honk coming from behind us. And what do you know, it was my Uncle Mitch coming our way with help!

Topics for a Literacy Narrative

✑ What is your earliest memory of learning to read or write?

✑ Which story or book was significant to you in your adolescent life?

✑ Who taught you to write?

✑ How did your attitude towards reading and writing develop?

✑ The first time I wrote a letter/love letter/poem/novel.

✑ The time I won or lost a crucial debate.

✑ The time I forgot my lines in a play.

✑ The first time you wrote something on your own.

✑ My favorite bedtime story as a child.

✑ The time I felt like an illiterate.

✑ The time I won a prize for reading/writing.

✑ The time I got my first computer/Facebook account/e-mail account, etc.

✑ The first time I recited holy scriptures at the church/temple/or at my Bar or Bat Mitzvah.

Remember this little piece of advice―you can write anything using a complex and difficult language. But, the point behind your writing will not be achieved if the listener/reader of your work is unable to comprehend it. Keep your language clear, plain, and simple as this will help your message to be understood easily.

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Literacy Narratives

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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)”).

• Reflection & Overcoming Resistance : In this article, the author chooses to use words like “exorcism” and “scar tissue;” however, those words seem a little too simple to encompass what literacy narratives can actually do. Literacy narratives offer students a chance to examine past experiences—be they pleasant memories, uncomfortable baggage, voices, scars, etc.—and allow them to write through those experiences. While reflecting on these experiences, some students can then go further and use their writing as a way of overcoming the resistance found in those moments, and in turn, they have a successful product that shows their resilience. Now, I’m not saying that literacy narratives turn classrooms into a “Dead Poets Society” sort of scenario (cue the scene from the movie, “Oh captain, my captain!”) However, assignments like literacy narratives really do give students opportunities to deal with sometimes tough, uncomfortable issues, and that is a great learning experience.
• Connection : When working on literacy narratives, sometimes professors have students work in groups to brainstorm or revise their ideas/papers. This can seem a little awkward at first, (that’s natural!) but working with others and opening yourselves up via literacy narratives can really help students learn to connect with one another. In fact, these experiences working with group members can help students collaborate with others in the future.
• Scaffolding : Not only can literacy narratives be extremely cathartic, but they can also be fun. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s almost blasphemy to say that an assignment can be fun, but it’s true! Compared to other assignments that students have in other classes, a literacy narrative may not be seen as challenging. In fact, many students often take pleasure in literacy narratives because it gives them time to focus on themselves, (instead of the rest of their never ending homework) to reflect, and to write.

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:

• First thing is first: follow the prompt! Everyone has their own different ideas of what a literacy narrative is, so what your professors asks you to write about will ultimately affect where you start and what you write about. Make sure you understand exactly what it is your professor wants you to explore in your literacy narrative and you will be good to go.
• Sarah from Letterpile suggests that you ask yourself some thought-provoking questions to get yourself started. She writes, ““Generate a few topics that are meaningful to you. Ask yourself, what do I want to write about for my literacy narrative? Do I want to write about my favorite book? Do I want to write about writing poetry? Do I want to write about overcoming a big hurdle? List those topic ideas” (Letterpile).
• After you consider these questions, decide what exactly you want to write about. The Norton Field Guide to Writing also offers some great ideas to get you started, such as:

*(Courtesy of   https://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/write/fieldguide/writing_guides.asp )

• Once you choose a topic, then you can start to consider other things, like your audience and the story you want to tell!
• The Pen & The Pad also suggests using “vivid details” to help your narrative really sparkle! They also emphasize the importance of reflection, and recommend that you take some time to reflect “on how the event you’re writing about changed or shaped you” (The Pen & The Pad).

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/

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What is a literacy narrative?

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.

In other words, how did you become the literate person you are?

Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives

• Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives The DALN is an open public resource made up of stories from people just like you about their experiences learning to read, write, and generally communicate with the world around them. Read or listen to others people's literacy narratives to get inspiration for your own.

Featured Narratives from DALN

• Marcus Jackson Marcus Jackson discusses his entry, introduction, and travels through poetry.
• College and Baby Mariah, an incoming Freshman in Columbus, Ohio, describes her literacy narrative and her journey with her daughter.
• Sports Addict Josh Brodesky talks about being a young athlete growing up with an English professor father, and how he stopped reading at nine years old to play sports all the time.
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Literacy narrative resources, example literacy narratives.

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• Literacy Narrative Explained From CUNY Academic Commons, learn more about literacy narratives with examples.
• Literacy Narratives From the UNC Charlotte The Writing Resources Corner, this resource provides information on what literacy narratives are and how to write one.
• Purdue OWL: Narrative Essays When writing a narrative essay, one might think of it as telling a story. 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. Many times, in college, your professors will ask you to write paragraphs or entire essays using a narrative style.
• Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives An open public resource made up of stories from people just like you about their experiences learning to read, write, and generally communicate with the world around them.
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What is a Literacy Narrative?

A literacy narrative is simply a collection of items that describe how you learned to read, write, and compose. This collection might include a story about learning to read cereal boxes and a story about learning to write plays. Some people will want to record their memories about the bedtime stories their parents read to them, the comics they looked at in the newspaper, or their first library card. Others will want to tell a story about writing a memorable letter, leaning how to write on a computer or taking a photograph; reading the Bible, publishing a ‘zine’, or sending an e-mail message.

Your literacy narrative can have many smaller parts, but they will all be identified with your name. For instance, you might want to provide a story about learning to read a as a child, a digitized image of one of your old report cards, a story about writing a letter as a teenager, a photograph of you as a young child; a song you learned when you were in school).

Sample Narratives and Clips

*Many of these are broken links so you will have to search archive.org for archived copies of the pages

Anonymous “Memory Work” < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/53 > Anonymous “I am A Creative Being” < http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/728 > Anonymous “The Lost Art of Note Passing” < http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/287 > Kelly Smith “What is ‘Good’ Writing?” < http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1696 > Emily Schikora “Literacy as Transformation” < http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/2835 > John McBrayer “Adventures in Reading” < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/862 > Megan Ahern “Where is the Love” < http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/950 > Laura Rotheram “Almost Pretty” < http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/2920 > John LaMotte “From Ludacris to Shakespeare” < http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/649 > Lindsay Hearts “Lindsay Hearts’ Literacy Narrative < http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1527 > Al Smith “Short Bus” < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/1455 > Melanie Yergeau “Dropping out of High School” < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/240 > Scott DeWitt “Staying in the Lines” < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/488 > Karin Hooks “An Old Chalk Board” <h ttp://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/243 > Valerie Lee “Literacy Narrative < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/610 > Darius Streets “My Introduction to Love” < http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/887 > Lauren Elder “The Literacy of Recipes” < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/881 > Glen Armstrong “Music Narrative” < http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/576 > Terrance Tate “My Life” < http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1147 > Tonya Adams “Mommy Daughter Library Stories” < http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1186 >

• What Is A Literacy Narrative. Provided by : Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. Located at : https://web.archive.org/web/20170407190655/http://dalnresources.org.ohio-state.edu/whatis.html . License : CC BY: Attribution
• DALN Resources. Provided by : Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. Located at : https://web.archive.org/web/20170406114733/http://dalnresources.org.ohio-state.edu/resources.html . License : CC BY: Attribution

How to Write a Literacy Narrative Essay Examples, Topics

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 2022 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 essay writers from our persuasive 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. Scholarships emerge as a beacon of hope in such scenarios, providing the much-needed financial relief. As you delve into 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. Discover a curated list of the best scholarships for high school seniors that can provide a financial cushion as you embark on your college journey. Balancing your passion for literacy with the practicality of securing scholarship aid will not only enrich your narrative but also set a strong foundation for your academic future.

A Few Things To Consider

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.

Overview: What Is a Literacy Narrative Essay? 

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. 

Keep reading for the chance to peek at some good narrative essay topics, and don’t miss out on the chance to hire a professional writer to do the work for you from narrative essay writing service made for troubled or burnt-out students.

What to Include in a Literacy Narrative Essay

Firstly, let’s establish some basics, just like any other essay, this one will need to include: 

• An introductory paragraph with a hook and a thesis. 
• Body paragraphs to extrapolate on the points made in the introduction.
• A concluding paragraph to sum it all up.

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:

• 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.
• Literary tools such as metaphors and similes help the descriptive elements of this essay.
• Use of active verbs.

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. 

Outline Example 

Writing an outline is crucial. It helps reduce mistakes, gives structure to your ideas, and streamlines the writing process. Speaking of writing, EssayService has a plethora of writing services, including report writing services , essay writing, and even proofreading.

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. 

• Introduce the main issue/problem: in the introduction, highlight the issue you want to provide an answer to. This will typically revolve around being illiterate or the importance of literacy. 
• Give a solution: through sharing your own experiences, you can give a solution by sharing the realizations and lessons you’ve learned through these said experiences.
• Give further advice: write how your readers can explicitly apply the advice you gave for their problems. Help them understand how to use this knowledge. 
• Sum up: conclude the most relevant points you made to persuade your readers to care about the problem and consider your advice.

Literacy Narrative Essay Sample

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:

• A literacy narrative essay is strictly an essay that showcases a story/anecdote of how this person became literate. No matter how different the story may be from one person to another, it always revolves around this. 
• A narrative essay can be any story. It can be anecdotal, personal, etc. A narrative essay’s purpose is to show the readers that the writer knows how to use storytelling techniques.

Stick around to look at literacy narrative essay examples from our political science essay writing service .

Tips On Writing 

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. 

Prepare and Find Sources

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. 

Take Notes On Relevant Information 

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. 

Time To Write It 

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. 

Proofread And Edit Your Essay

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. 

You can address to our nursing essay writer if you need to edit your task or to buy case study .

Literacy Narrative Essay Topics 

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:

• The First Thing I Read
• The First Thing I Wrote
• Languages I Learnt
• How to Encourage Early Reading Skills
• Computer Literacy Among Teachers
• The Role of Public Libraries in Modern Education
• What Do Low Literacy Rates Imply?
• How Important Is Computer Literacy?
• The Impact of Instant Messengers on Literacy
• Cultural Impact of Online Communication
• Factors Affecting Literacy Rates
• Balanced Literacy Teaching Methods
• Literacy and Cultural Awareness
• Phonemic Awareness and Child Literacy
• The Role of Literacy in Research
• The Cornerstone of Early Literacy
• Literacy History Throughout Ages
• Defining Literacy Concept
• An Early Literacy Intervention
• Today’s Problems of Literacy

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Narratives of Reading, Writing, and Other Literacies

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Definitions

• Literacy – familiarity, facility, or competence with using at least one area of communication, including receptive (such as reading and listening comprehension) and productive areas of communication (such as written, spoken, and visual communicative competence). As a multimodal communication center, we interpret literacy broadly to include writing, oral communication, visual design, nonverbal communication, and other modalities.
• Literacy Narrative – A literacy narrative is a reflective document in which a writer composes a story regarding their process and growth in developing different forms of literacy, including reading, writing, viewing, interpreting, etc. The literacy narrative does not have to define literacy generally, but rather should consist of an exploration and re-definition of literacy in the context of a single individual’s experiences . University instructors in education and other fields often assign literacy narratives in courses as a way to help prospective teachers re-examine their own experiences, lenses, beliefs, and perspectives on literacy and raise questions about what it means to be literate prior to their embarking on a career supporting and guiding students in their individual journeys toward literacy.

For more information on literacy narratives, click here .

All of the literacy narratives that will appear in this archive will respond to the same prompt:

“Write and record a story that reflects on one or more formative experiences you have had with at least one area of literacy, including speaking, listening, visual design, writing, reading, etc. Discuss the influence that the experience has had on your journey toward literacy and how it has become a linguistic resource for you. Your story should in some way convey what the notion of literacy has meant in your life and how it has equipped you with the skills needed to be a consultant and an active global citizen.

This tightly focused, reflective personal narrative should be 1000–1500 words and should be a true story written in prose. An effective personal narrative shows rather than tells (i.e. it relies on concrete details and avoids abstraction) the reader the significance of the experience. Research is not required. Your literacy narrative should adhere to current MLA formatting guidelines.”

The author of a narrative must appeal to the needs and values of their audiences by tailoring their narrative to address those needs within the conventions of the document. This is not a journal entry, but rather a personal narrative describing specific aspects of an individual’s development as a communicator and creating connections between their experiences and the work they do in the center.

These literacy narratives are published in three ways to promote accessibility and dissemination: 1) linked .pdf files, 2) web content, and 3) audio recordings.

Getting Started

Any literacy-linked experience from your life is fodder for a literacy narrative. For example:

• Do you remember learning to cook or bake from a recipe card? Did someone in your life teach you to assemble ingredients and appropriate measuring implements? Did you ever knead bread, reading through your fingers the texture of the dough?
• What was your favorite book when you were growing up? Was there a character you identified with? Was it Hermione?
• Or did you prefer reading the comics section of the newspaper with a parent or a sibling, guffawing when a favorite character landed once again in one of their usual sticky situations?
• Did you hate playing Scrabble and other word games with your aunt because she always beat you? Or was Risk your go-to game? What did the fruits of global domination taste like? What did games of any sort teach you about group dynamics or communication?
• Did you like drawing flowers with acrylic paint at the kitchen table, sometimes spilling on the table cloth even though you have been told over and over that you needed to put something under your paper?
• Do you remember the first time you tried to deliver an oral presentation in middle school, and nobody acted like they cared?
• What was your favorite joke in fifth grade? Were you a knock-knock joke teller like your grandpa, or did you prefer more sophisticated jokes like Tom Swifties, A Book Never Written jokes, or other forms of humor taken from the Highlights  magazine?
• Did you prefer to  Zoobooks or National Geographic ? Did you read for the photos or the articles?
• Do you really think  Citizen Kane is the great example of American cinema? What would you replace it with? How have all of the movies based on Nicholas Sparks’ novels changed your life?
•  What was your first word? How has that word come to define everything about who you are as a person? (Note: If the word was ma-ma or  da-da , I would like to remind you that your parents do not define you.)

If you need other ideas for brainstorming, click here .

Be specific with that first story. It may come first in your narrative or it might come later, but having an interesting and specific story to build around will help you construct the story of your literacy journey.

Once you identify that key story, start to identify the common threads or patterns in your story and then find a way to connect them to what you do as a consultant in your center.

If you have questions about getting started on your literacy narrative or how to contribute to the archive, email the Naugle CommLab ([email protected]) or Jeff Howard ([email protected]).

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Narrative Essays

Narrative: The spoken or written account of connected events; a story

Narrative Introductions

The introduction of a narrative essay sets the scene for the story that follows. Interesting introductions—for any kind of writing—engage and draw readers in because they want to know more.

Since narratives tell a story and involve events, the introduction of a narrative quite often starts in the middle of the action in order to bring the reader into the story immediately, as shown in examples 1, 3, and 5 below. Other effective introductions briefly provide background for the point of the story—often the lesson learned—as in 4 below and the first example on the reverse side.

Below are some strategies for writing effective openings. Remember your introduction should be interesting and draw your reader in. It should make your audience want to read more. If it's a person , begin with a description of the person and then say why that person mattered. If it's an event , begin with the action or begin by reflecting back on why the event mattered, then go into the narrative.

• "Potter...take off!" my coach yelled as I was cracking yet another joke during practice.
• Why do such a small percentage of high school athletes play Division One sports?
• It was a cold, rainy night, under the lights on the field. I lined up the ball on the penalty line under the wet grass. After glancing up at the tied score, I stared into the goalkeeper's eyes.
• My heart pounds in my chest. My stomach full of nervous butterflies. I hear the crowd talking and names being cheered.
• Slipping the red and white uniform over my head for the first time is a feeling I will never forget.
• "No football." Those words rang in my head for hours as I thought about what a stupid decision I had made three nights before.
• "SNAP!" I heard the startling sound of my left knee before I ever felt the pain.
• According to the NCAA, there are over 400,000 student-athletes in the United States.

Narrative Story

• Unified: Ensure all actions in your story develop a central idea or argument.
• Interesting: Draw your readers into your scene(s), making them feel as if they're experiencing them first-hand.
• Coherent: Indicate changes in time, location, and characters clearly (even if your story is not chronological).
• Climactic: Include a moment (the climax) when your ending is revealed or the importance of events is made clear.
• Remember the 5 W's : Who? What? When? Where? Why?
• Write vividly : Include significant sensory information in the scene (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste) to make readers feel they are there
• Develop " Thick Descriptions "

Clifford Geertz describes thick descriptions as accounts that include not only facts but also commentary and interpretation . The goal is to vividly describe an action or scene, often through the use of metaphors, analogies, and other forms of interpretation that can emote strong feelings and images in your readers' minds.

"The flatness of the Delta made the shack, the quarters, and the railroad tracks nearby seem like some tabletop model train set. Like many Mississippi shacks, this one looked as if no one had lived there since the birth of the blues. Four sunflowers leaned alongside a sagging porch. When the front door creaked open, cockroaches bigger than pecans scurried for cover [...] walls wept with mildew."

—from Bruce Watson's Freedom Summer

Narrative Checklist

• Does the story have a clear and unifying idea? If not, what could that idea be?
• If the story doesn't include a thesis sentence, is the unifying idea of the story clear without it?
• Is the story unified, with all the details contributing to the central idea?
• Is the story arranged chronologically? If not, is the organization of ideas and events still effective and clear?
• Do the transitions show the movement from idea to idea and scene to scene?
• Are there enough details?
• Is there dialogue at important moments?
• Is there a climax to the story—moment at which the action is resolved or a key idea is revealed?

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1 Literacy Narrative

The foundation of our course is built on the 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. 

Course objectives

• Develop rhetorical knowledge
• Develop critical and creative thinking
• Develop experience in writing Recall previous experience with various types of reading

Module objectives

During the process of completing this assignment, writers will:

• Recall previous experience with various types of reading
• Identify personal goals for academic reading and writing
• Distinguish the different purposes for academic reading and writing
• Give examples of familiar genres

ASSIGNMENT SHEET

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 approach literacy either in the traditional sense or using our expanded, modern definition.

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.

• Describe a situation when you were challenged in your reading by describing the source of that challenge (vocabulary, length, organization, something else). How did you overcome that challenge to understand what the text was saying? What strategies or steps do you plan to take in the future to make the process easier?
• Describe the type of texts you read (watch, listen to, etc.) most often. What makes them easy or challenging to read and interpret? What strategies do you use to ensure that you fully understand them or can apply them?
• Describe what kind of texts you think you will have to read or interpret in the future and where you will encounter these texts (i.e. future classes, your career, etc.). How do you think they might challenge you? What strategies will you use to overcome these difficulties?

Formatting:

• Narratives should be between 500-600 words (around 2-3 pages). Be concise, and choose your details carefully.
• Your work must be typed in size 12, Times New Roman font and double spaced, 1” margins, following MLA requirements.

Week 1: Introducing Rhetoric

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.

Exploring Literacy

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.”

Checking In: Questions and Activities

• Consider our expanded definition of literacy . In what ways are you literate?
• When, where, and how do you read and write on a daily basis?
• Thinking of traditional literacy (reading and writing), what successes or challenges have you faced in school, at home, in the workplace, etc.?

Close Reading Strategies: Introducing the Conversation Model

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,

• Within close reading, your processes could be further broken down into pre-reading, active reading, and post-reading strategies. What do you focus on before and after you read a text?
• Have your instructors asked you to annotate a text?
• Do you find yourself copying down important lines, highlighting, or making notes as you read?
• What strategies do you rely on to actively and closely read?
• What are your least favorite strategies?

The Rhetorical Situation

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:

• Ask yourself: Who created this?
• Ask yourself: Who is likely to, or supposed to, see this?
• Ask yourself: What am I looking at?
• Ask yourself: Why was the text created?
• Ask yourself: When was this created? How did it get developed? Where was the text published? What shaped the creative process?

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.

• Author : You! While you have a unique background, you’re a student in this course, and your individual writing experience will influence what you write about.
• Audience : Your classmates and instructor. This is a collaborative course, and your instructor will read what you produce.
• Text : Literacy Narrative. This type of text has different goals and requirements. We’ve examined literacy already, and we’ll review narratives soon. Together, these guidelines will help us construct this specific type of text (rather than a poem about reading or your personal memoir about how you became a writer!).
• Purpose : To reflect. To introduce yourself. To define your literacy. These are all goals of this assignment. Throughout your assignment, you’ll want to check in with yourself and ensure that you’re accomplishing these goals. If not, you won’t meet the demands of the assignment.
• Context : This assignment — the assignment sheet above has specific requirements that will influence what you create. Your writing background — no one else has the same life experience with reading and writing as you. The goals of the course — there are specific tasks to accomplish with this project that are specific to CO1 objectives. Each of these aspects will influence how you put the project together. Since you didn’t just wake up and decide to write about literacy, the context of this assignment will determine what you create.
• Which of the elements of the rhetorical triangle influence your writing decisions most? Why?
• Are there any elements you don’t consider? Why don’t they seem as important?

Week 2: Defining Narrative and Organization

This week, you’ll review 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.

Introducing the Literacy Narrative

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. Week 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.

• Which prompt from the assignment sheet will you address? Why does this prompt appeal to you?
• Consider the brainstorming you did about the ways that you are literate. Which prompt matches those skills best? Are these skills you struggled with at first, skills you currently practice, or a skill that you’re learning and will use in the future? Use these notes to decide which set of questions you’ll focus on in this project.

Organization: PIE Method

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.

• In the literacy narrative: Since each paragraph responds to a question from the prompt, the Point of each paragraph should tell readers which question you’re answering. By rephrasing the question in your Point, you can signal to your classmates and instructor so that they know which question you’re answering.
• In the literacy narrative: Most of your evidence, in a narrative, will be from your experience. Report what happened, what you read, or what you learned. Naming these details can help your readers see through your eyes when you give specific examples.
• In the literacy narrative: Help your readers get inside your head and feel like they’re with you. Keeping the Point in mind and showing how all these ideas relate will bring the paragraph together by developing each example clearly and offering a thoughtful response to each prompt. How did you feel about the examples from the Information? Why was it was so significant? Why should your readers care about this experience? Answering these questions will help show your readers what you experienced so they can understand the significance and connect with you.

Together, these pieces all come together to create a strong, developed paragraph that responds to the question from the prompt more fully.

• Below is a sample paragraph that follows the PIE structure. It is coded for the different parts of the paragraph above, with the Point in bold , the  Information in italics , and the  Explanation underlined . The second paragraph has been shortened and has not been coded. First, review the parts of the coded example. Then, review and identify PIE in the paragraph.

Planning a Draft

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:

• Describe a situation when you were challenged in your reading by describing the source of that challenge (vocabulary, length, organization, something else).  
• Describe the type of texts you read (watch, listen to, etc.) most often.  
• Describe what kind of texts you think you will have to read or interpret in the future and where you will encounter these texts (i.e. future classes, your career, etc.).  

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.

• In your Point, rephrase one of the questions above. You can borrow some of this same language to signal to your readers and show which question you’re answering. Remember, this only introduces the main idea — no details yet!
• Review your brainstorming. Did you name specific examples? Add these to your paragraph to develop the Information. Name at least two examples. Each example you give should connect to the Point, providing evidence from your experience.
• Review the examples and start to Explain. How did you feel about the examples from the Information? Why was it was so significant? Why should your readers care about this experience? Ask yourself these questions for each example you include.
• Depending on your drafting process, it might be easy to tackle all three paragraphs at once and get everything down, or you might prefer to write one paragraph at a time.
• Throughout the course, practice with drafting one paragraph per day, or setting a timer to see what you can write in a specific amount of time.
• Review what you’ve written, and see if there are more details to add. Remember, the goal is to get as much as you can out of your head. Revisions will take place next.

Week 3: Peer Review and Revision

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:

• Observe : Make a statement or summarize what you see. Identifying a pattern in your peer’s work or repeating what you think your peer is saying can help your peer know if they’re communicating clearly. Using the rhetorical triangle to support these observations could be a helpful strategy!
• Explain : Critique what you see, explaining if the writer has a strong idea or if it might need work. U sing adjectives to describe what’s going well or what’s not working is important so that you peer can learn more about your observation. Was this “clear” or “confusing”? Is the writer “engaging and interesting” or is the writing “plain and repetitive”?
• EXAMPLE: 1) You give a few examples for information, then a sentence of explanation. 2) It doesn’t look like this meets the word limits from the assignment sheet, and I’m not sure which part you’ll focus on as the main form of literacy. 3) Could you clarify this? More explanation about why these are important could help you meet the word limit, too!

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

• Will clearly and accurately define a specific type of literacy, explaining the connection and development of literacy. Will clearly establish the identity of the writer and the influence and importance of literacy.
• Will communicate significant experiences to an academic audience. Will give the reader something new to consider. Will interest the reader through storytelling.
• Will remain focused on literacy and the individual prompts. Will include specific details from a variety of experiences. Will engage readers with details and examples. Will explain the connections and development of growth through chosen examples.
• Will follow PIE structure closely.
• Will be clear and readable without distracting grammar, punctuation or spelling errors.

A “B” (good) summary (80% +):

• The concept of literacy may not be as clearly connected or central  to the writer’s development.
• More attention could be paid to engage or interest the readers. May lack context to help the reader understand the writer’s experience.
• Focus may lack through discussing events outside of the prompts. May include few specific examples. May lack explanation to show connection between examples.
• PIE may not be followed in one paragraph. Either the point, information, or explanation could be further developed or clarified within a paragraph.
• The writer may need to work on communicating information more effectively. The narrative will be generally clear and readable but may need further editing for grammatical errors.

A “C” (satisfactory) summary (70% +):

• Literacy is not defined or explained clearly in connection to skill.
• Awareness of audience is lacking, making sections confusing for an unfamiliar reader.
• Prompts may not be clearly connected to the paragraphs. Examples are not included or are not clearly explained.
• PIE may be missing or underdeveloped in multiple paragraphs.
• “C” narratives may also need more editing for readability.

A “D” (poor) summary (60% +):

• Will show an attempt toward the assignment goals that has fallen short. May have several of the above problems.

An “F” (failing) summary:

• ignores the assignment.
• has been plagiarized.
• Review the same sample paragraph below from a previous student. Identify one strength and one area for improvement in the draft, following the 3-step method above. As you review, consider how to balance praise and criticism. Something is going well in your peer’s draft, and something can be improved!

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.

Applying Peer Review: Taking Suggestions and Revising

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.

Suggested schedule and pacing

This module is intended to take 3 weeks and would work well as a first, introductory assignment or as a final, reflective assignment. Each unit is designed to help instructors offer feedback at critical stages of the drafting process, assisting writers strategically before they offer their drafts for peer review. This does require a quick turnaround from instructors; for planning this three-week unit, drafts would be due to you after the two-week mark, and peer review is recommended to take place a few days after, once your feedback can be reviewed and used for revisions. This necessarily leads to less intensive feedback on the final drafts, helping to disperse workload and making for faster turnaround of final submissions.

Writers may experience typical growing pains throughout these assignments, especially when used as a first assessment and adjust to your style and teaching practice. Overall, writers seem motivated and engaged in the narrative aspect and less intimidated when starting the course with a less formal, less academic assignment. This is intentional so that everyone begins from a familiar place. As a last, reflective project, this can be used to help writers process and digest rhetorical concepts and their growth throughout the semester.

This unit focuses on close reading skills and introspection to allow students to orient themselves to writing in a constructive and open-minded way. By focusing on literacy and setting the tone for the semester, students tend to be more receptive to rhetorical concepts and understand the time investment required for this course.

Assessment notes

Through this three-week unit, students will explore their past  literacies and expand the definition of literacy  beyond  the traditional sense  to grow comfortable and familiar with the idea of reading and writing in academic English.   

the ability to read and write; more broadly, a specific ability to navigate a specialized discipline

Close reading is a process to understand what is being said.

the ways language and other communication strategies are used to achieve a purpose with an audience

a method of story-telling

First-Year Composition Copyright © by Leslie Davis and Kiley Miller is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Dr. Mark Womack

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.

Literacy Narrative 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 and writing, acquiring a second language, being an insider or outsider based on literacy level, and so on. Your narrative should focus on a single incident or event. You might explore a positive or negative experience you’ve had in learning to read or write and show how that experience changed the way you thought about the value and importance of literacy. Or you might present a breakthrough moment in your development as a literate person and explain how that moment created a new sense of yourself as a reader, writer, or learner.

The following questions may help you think of an event for your literacy narrative:

• What obstacles have you encountered (and perhaps overcome) in learning to read or write?
• What are your most vivid memories of reading or writing?
• What unexpected problems with learning to read or write have you encountered in school?
• What issues have arisen from: learning a second language? being bilingual? speaking a nonstandard dialect? having a speech or hearing impediment or a learning disability?
• What teachers or mentors have helped or hindered your development as a literate person?

Thesis Your paper must have a thesis. For your literacy narrative, your thesis will be an explicit statement of the insight your story provides about the significance of reading, writing, or language. The thesis will state what you learned from the experience or how it changed you.

Evidence To make the insight articulated in your thesis powerful and convincing, you must support it with concrete evidence. Your narrative will provide evidence from your own experience to support your thesis. The more vivid and compelling your story is, the stronger your evidence will be.

Structure The structure of a good college essay depends entirely on its Thesis Statement. A well-structured essay presents an explicit thesis early on that forecasts the essay’s structure. Every element of the essay helps support and develop that thesis. The Introduction engages the reader’s interest in the issue the thesis raises. Each paragraph in the Body of the essay develops and supports a single point that helps confirm the thesis. (Body paragraphs should always begin with a one-sentence statement of the paragraph’s main point: a Topic Sentence.) The Conclusion restates the essay’s thesis and summarizes its argument. In a well-structured essay, a reader could read just your thesis and your topic sentences and have a perfectly comprehensible outline of your essay.

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.)