This assignment is worth 15% of your overall grade.
In Pearson 7.2 and 7.3, you will learn about Literacy Narratives. In Pearson 19.1-19.3, you will learn about open-form prose strategies. This assignment calls on you to put those lessons into practice by writing a Literacy Memoir. (Note: Our textbook uses the term “Literacy Narrative.” We’re using the term “Literacy Memoir.” These are basically the same thing.)
A Literacy Memoir is a type of autobiographical writing focused on personal experiences that have to do with education. It’s a story about a specific educational moment in your life. Usually literacy memoirs relate to literacy-related activities like reading or writing–but they can also be about other experiences relating to education. For example, you could write about . . .
A specific, early memory of learning to write or read.
The first book that made you love reading.
The writing assignment that made you hate writing.
The math class that made you feel dumb.
How you overcame a specific issue in your educational journey–a difficult assignment, teacher, subject; working with a learning disability; etc.
A specific academic achievement that involved a lot of hard work and what you learned about it.
An educational experience that made you see yourself in new light.
How the Coronavirus Pandemic and the resultant shift to online/hybrid learning in your high school or college classes has shaped the way you think about the process of learning and yourself as a learner.
Often literacy memoirs bring particular attention to the ways in which differences in one’s gender, race, class, (dis)ability or linguistic or cultural background, etc. shape literacy experiences. So you may focus on a specific experience in education where your identity (gender/race/class/ethnicity/ability/culture, etc.) was brought into sharp relief.
In this 3-4-page essay, you will narrate a specific story from your educational journey. In doing so, you will grow a deeper knowledge of yourself and your beliefs and values as they relate to education and potentially use this to re-imagine your future literacy development. The focus on this creative nonfiction genre is the use of innovative language, style, and personal voice—selection of details, organization, embedding of other genres. As you compose, consider the elements of good storytelling and autobiography as well as the strategies you need to use to engage your audience:
What could motivate the writing of a literacy narrative? For what audience?
What kind of theme do you wish to emphasize throughout your essay?
What kind of language or styles do you intend to use and to what intended rhetorical effect?
How will you build tension/ conflict to stir readers’ curiosity or anticipation?
Given that this is an open-form prose, what structure will you follow?
Make decisions about the techniques and compositional choices that will be most rhetorically effective for your own memoir. Feel free to be playful or experimental with this.
