Assignment: Literacy Narrative
Mike Peterson, Ph.D.
Utah Tech University
Essay Assignment:
Write a personal essay (at least 1000 words) in which you investigate some aspect of your own literacy. You don’t need to use any outside sources—just your own experiences. Format your essay to MLA standards. See Canvas for due dates on such things as the rough draft, the revised draft, and the final version of the essay.
What is Literacy?
Literacy, broadly defined, is our ability to make sense of the world around us. It can include reading, writing, math, science, music, art, speaking, language acquisition, and even sports (believe me, when it comes to reading a football field and making decisions, Tom Brady is much more literate about football than I am). We are all literate in many different ways. What aspect of your own literacy do you want to write about? Is there something you’re particularly good at? Something you’re attempting to learn and master? Something that is difficult for you? Remember, literacy isn’t just about reading and writing—it is anything related to the acquisition of skills and knowledge and making sense of the world.
What is a Literacy Narrative?
A literacy narrative is a personal essay in which you use first-person point of view (words like I, me, my, and mine) to share stories, thoughts, and opinions in order to investigate some aspect of your own literacy. To do this, you’ll need to make a claim about that literacy (also known as a thesis statement), and then back up the claim with stories, examples, descriptions, observations, and anything else you can think of.
Examples of Claims (Thesis Statements) Other Students Have Written About:
“I thought I hated poetry until I realized that the music lyrics I was writing were actually poems.”
“I used to love reading until my ninth-grade speed-reading class; now, reading anything longer than a paragraph gives me anxiety.”
“If it weren’t for Harry Potter, I probably never would have graduated high school.”
“I thought I knew everything about football until I was forced to take over as quarterback my senior year.”
“I never understood English grammar until I learned Spanish on my LDS mission to Puerto Rico.”
Don’t write an autobiography, starting at birth and ending at the present day, listing every book you’ve read. Rather, write about a specific experience or set of experiences. Your essay could either be organized around one big story, or it could be a lot of small stories.
Write your essay for an audience of peers sympathetic to but not knowledgeable about your experience. You’ll want to employ the narrative devices that make a story engaging, ensuring that you make this essay interesting to more than just those who know you. Determine the structure most effective for telling your story, provide effective details, explain concepts/moments that might be foreign to your audience, develop your scenes, and, most of all, clarify why this experience was significant to your development, understanding, or view of the world around you.
Additional Readings to Help You Write Your Essay:
Writing an Essay (Explains what an essay is and isn't)
Narrating (Explains how to effectively use stories in your essay)
Literacy (Explains what literacy is and isn't; especially good if you're struggling to think of a topic)
How Your Essay Will Be Graded:
Your final edited and revised essay will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
Are there adequate details and descriptions?
Is there at least one story told well?
Is there a blend of storytelling and personal reflection (i.e. analysis of those stories)?
Does the essay adhere to assignment instructions (such as meeting the minimum word count)?