20 Mar Literacy Narrative

Literacy Narrative 2.0

High Stakes Assignment One – ENGL 327W – Weddington

Length: Approximately 1250-1750 words

Due Date: February 23, 2022, end of day

What role does writing play in your memories, your life, your identity?

For this formal assignment, you will zoom in on one compelling moment from your life to tell a true story (narrative) about writing. You will interweave reflection with this narrative, offering an interpretation of the larger social significance of the event(s) chosen. You’ll draw connections between the younger writer/student/human you were when this event took place and the writer/ student/human you are today. Finally (though perhaps not in this order), you will connect your story to that of others–via any of the theory or craft texts or literacy narratives texts that we’ve read thus far this semester. While you are welcome to include outside texts, the primary focus of this conversational essay should be your story and its significance; the secondary focus is how your story connects to other stories about writing. Additional research is not required for this assignment.

While choosing a story to tell, know that you don’t have to sever your writing-self from your reading-self or speaking-self or critical understanding-self, but the construction of yourself as a writer must be foregrounded with this particular essay. You won’t be able to discuss every aspect of your writing life in this essay. Choose what’s most compelling and see if you can understand and work toward a unifying theme. Here are some thematically-telling title examples to get you started: 

• Vulnerability and writing

• My love affair with adjectives

• Writing and receiving letters to/from my grandma

• How Reddit saved my writerly mojo

• Red ink: classroom writing as cultural control

Be sure to offer vivid and concrete details throughout your writing. Develop a scene or scenes (using dialogue, sensory experiences, actions, feelings in that moment, thoughts in that moment) to allow readers to experience the event from which the essay’s meaning is constructed. Try to interweave meaning-making with scenes/anecdotes so that your essay doesn’t end up with a moral tacked onto the end, like a parable. Morals don’t typically come so easily or neatly in this style of writing. Moveover, try to allow that same voice that can draw meaning from this literacy event to incorporate connections to outside literacy narratives or literacy theory/craft. These connections are typically made via informal citation (mention of the author and text in the body of the sentence, but not an MLA citation). If this feels uncomfortable to you, try using Chicago Style footnotes, which are more commonly used in magazines that publish conversational or exploratory essays. Again, however, this is not required if the informal citation is clear. 

Lastly: be sure to pay attention to style–i.e., diction, syntax, figurative language when appropriate, sentence length variation, paragraph breaks, etc. The use of first person is always appropriate in the writing we’ll do in this class, but try not overdo “I think” or “I believe” or “I feel that”; minimizing these constructions (while not minimizing any doubt that these often point to) is one way to maximize the confidence of your voice on the page. Finally, this is an appropriate space to incorporate “other Englishes” or “all your Englishes” when and if that makes sense for your story and your voice. 

By completing this assignment, you are demonstrating that you can

• slow down and focus on an activity that you may have never considered this closely before (self-awareness, analytical ability, work ethic);

• put together an engaging set of thoughts by being honest and creative in presentation (style, enthusiasm);

• put yourself in the shoes of a reader and consider what an engaging essay on this subject might say and how it might be effectively structured (rhetorical awareness).

Here’s what I’ll focus on when I grade your essay:

• Care taken in grammar, usage, and style (basic readability)

• Degree of intellectual engagement: are you offering specific examples to illustrate thematic points? Are you analyzing your own writing in deep, honest, and careful ways? Are you avoiding the vague, the obvious, and the filler words that can clutter thinking/composing/reading?

• Uniqueness of voice: is the profile engaging to read? Does it demonstrate creativity in not only content but in the approach taken in writing style and structure?

As this is a writing class, we’ll focus on process as well as product. As such, you’ll develop a draft (due 2/16/22)  that you’ll first share with your peers for feedback (due 2/20/22). Then, you’ll edit as you see fit. You’ll submit a draft to me (due 2/23/22) that I’ll grade based on the criteria above. I’ll also offer feedback, which you’ll incorporate as you see fit into a final revised version in your showcase ePortfolio at the end of the semester (due 5/1/22)