A critical literacy narrative is a type of literacy narrative that narrates and analyzes the roles that reading, writing (or other forms of language use), and community have played in your life. Critical literacy narratives often critique and investigate how attitudes toward language shape social and power inequalities.
The audience for this project should be your fellow classmates. Remember that you are writing for this essay to be read by others, and just an instructor who is grading it. Be sure to define and explain any words, terms, or literacy practices that your classmates might not be familiar with.
As you are brainstorming, explore the language practices of the communities you have long been a part of. Next, focus on two or three pivotal events in your literacy development. Finally, consider the ways your literacy practices might become valued or devalued in contexts of formal education. Your critical literacy narrative will need to explain the following:
The chosen feature of your literacy development and reason (exigence) for narrating this subject.
The way your narrative speaks to larger cultural conversations on language, literacy, and schooling.
As you are drafting, carefully consider the elements of successful narratives. By creating or retelling a sequence of occurrences that relates to your literacy development, you will be using narration for a specific purpose: to argue a point, create a mood, or provide an example or a series of examples for your rhetorical audience. Whatever your purpose, you’ll need to determine exactly what point you want to make: it should be a general point that you’ll bring to life with specific, relevant, and representative examples. The key to writing a successful narrative is to choose: you need to select the most important details, characters, and dialogue to make certain that the setting, point of view, and organizational pattern work to your advantage.
