English Writing Project 1: Literacy Narrative 850-1500 words

The purpose of the literacy narrative writing project is to help you understand yourself better as a reader and writer. Most commonly literacy refers to your own history habits and processes for reading and writing texts of all kinds. Literacy can also refer to your understanding of a specific subject area like the literacy of the COVID-19 Pandemic or public discourse and “Twitteracy” or the literal act of learning to read write and speak English. Fuller awareness of your literacy practices can help you develop greater control over them better understanding your learning process and increase your success in college and beyond. A common definition for “narrative” is that it is a written account of linked events. A literacy narrative is a story about your literacy journey… any literacy journey. To compose your literacy narrative you will draw upon those stories anecdotes memories experiences readings as well as other events and descriptions that allow you to offer readers the most vivid interesting and insightful explanations you can about yourself as a reader writer speaker and listener. In addition to the examples linked in the Purpose section of this assignment sheet you can find more literacy narrative examples in the Digital Archive of Literacy Narratives. The writing process for our major writing projects occurs in 5 phases: Invention Drafting Revision Editing and Publication. We talked about these phases during the Week 3 Tuesday Talk. In the sections below you’ll find detailed descriptions of each phase as well as linked resources to help you through the writing process. Invention is a fancy word for brainstorming; it’s the first step in the writing process. You can think of invention as an opportunity for you to pre-write brainstorm or just get some ideas down on the page. Your ideas don’t even have to be written in complete sentences! You can make a list draw a picture talk with someone about your ideas or map out your ideas in a graphic organizer. The MTSU Writing Center suggests using invention strategies throughout the writing process. For example you can brainstorm ideas in the beginning to generate ideas or in the middle to rethink focus. As part of your invention for your own literacy narrative take a few minutes to answer these brainstorming questions about your own literacy experiences. These questions may look familiar since they were included in Discussion Board 3: Drafting is the act of getting words down on paper; it can be a messy process but you don’t have to be afraid of it! One of the reasons we have “small writings” in this class is to help you get started with the drafting process with one little piece of the puzzle. The first part of your drafting process will occur as your compose Small Writing 1: Origin Story. Once you’ve written your origin story it’s time to start narrowing your focus for your literacy narrative. Remember the MTSU Writing Center suggests using invention strategies throughout the writing process. If you find yourself struggling with the drafting process you might find some of the invention strategies below to be helpful: Character Development: Describe a character from the narrative you plan to write in great physical detail: sound of their voice kinds of clothes they typically wear how they walk even how they chew their food. Include a list of likes/dislikes. Dont describe their personality; try to SHOW it through the details you decide to include in your narrative. Setting Development: Describe in great detail the setting you anticipate using in your literacy narrative: scent sound looks tastes if appropriate. Dont include your feelings about the place; try to SHOW through the details you include what your attitude might be.Fill in the Blank: Not sure what youll write about for your literacy narrative? Use one of these sentences filling in the blanks with inspiration words to start todays generative exercise and see where it takes you: Revision is the process of returning to a completed draft in to improve it in some way and produce the best writing possible. When writers revise they usually focus on concerns such as the need to add or delete ideas or paragraphs clarify information reorganize ideas and make stylistic changes. After you have a finished draft of your literacy narrative please share it with your peers in our peer review discussion board in D2L (Week 6). You might also find the MTSU Writing Center’s revision suggestions to be helpful as you’re revising your own work and helping your peers think about how to revise theirs. Editing is primarily about searching for and correcting grammatical and typographical errors. Editing will allow you to make changes to improve the overall quality of your writing in terms of language expression and style. People often proofread during this stage of the writing process as well. You’ll engage in the editing process after peer review and revision. The MTSU Writing Center has great tips for editing; one of my favorites is printing out a draft and reading it aloud. It’s amazing how many editing issues you can find when you read aloud! Publication or in the case of our class Submission is the last step in the writing process. You’ll submit all your writing projects to specific Dropboxes in D2L. Please don’t email assignments to me. As a general rule I collect all graded work in D2L. The Literacy Narrative is worth 75 points; it will be graded with the following checklist: Requirements: 850-1000 words How did you learn to write and/or read? What kinds of writing/reading have you done in the past? How much have you enjoyed the various kinds of writing/reading you’ve done? What are particularly vivid memories that you have of reading writing or activities that involved them? What is your earliest memory of reading? Your earliest memory of writing? What sense did you get as you were learning to read or write of the value of reading and writing and where did that sense come from? What frustrated you about reading or writing as you were learning and then as you progressed through school? By the same token what pleased you? What kind of writing/reading do you do most commonly? What are your current attitudes feelings or stances toward reading and writing? Where do you think your feelings about and habits of writing and reading come from? How did you get to where you are as a writer/reader? What in your past has made you the kind of writer/reader you are today? Who are some people in your life who have acted as literacy sponsors? What are some institutions and experiences in your life that have acted as literacy sponsors? How can I expand from my origin story? Should I focus on one pivotal event or should I write about a series of related events? Should I put events in chronological or would a different be more interesting? Should I begin in medias res (in the middle of the story)? Should I use dialogue descriptive imagery and other narrative strategies to tell the story (or stories) I want to? Where should I summarize? Where should I go into detail? What other texts (lines from poetry song lyrics or other creative works) can I quote or refer to that help me make an important point? The first book I remember was…. When I think of reading I think of ________ {fill in the blank and see where it takes you} It wasnt until I had {insert a teachers name} that I discovered the real power of reading or writing (choose one or both!)… Is the literacy narrative 850-1500 words? (50 points) Does the literacy narrative include an origin story? (5 points) Does the literacy narrative describe the author’s experience with functional or experiential literacy? (10 points) Does the literacy narrative include at least 5 storytelling elements (Theme Setting Plot Characters Dialogue Conflict Resolution Point-of-view Tone Style)? (5 points) Was the literacy narrative submitted by the deadline? (5 points) The first book I remember was….When I think of reading I think of ________ {fill in the blank and see where it takes you}It wasnt until I had {insert a teachers name} that I discovered the real power of reading or writing (choose one or both!)…