My Journey towards Literacy

Rodriguez tells the story of growing up, leaving home, becoming educated entering the world, of his identity in the sphere of home versus in the academic arena, of moving away from the past:
“Here is no fabulous hero, no idealized scholar-worker. The scholarship boy does not straddle, cannot reconcile, the two great opposing cultures of his life. His success is unromantic and plain. He sits in the classroom and offers those sitting beside him no calming reassurance about their own lives, He sits in the seminar room—a man with brown skin, the son of working-class Mexican immigrant parents.”
Or consider Adrienne Rich’s own narrative: “My own luck was being born white and middle-class into a house full of books with a father who encouraged me to read and write. So for about twenty years I wrote for a particular man, who criticized and praised me and made me feel I was indeed “Special”. The observes side of this, of course, was that I tried for a long time to please him, or rather, not to displease him […] The myths and images of women have on all of us who are products of culture.”
Whether we’re analyzing an author’s story which is based on gender, race, class immigration, assimilation, everyone has their own story to tell about their own experiences of their first exposures to reading and writing and books or readings which have particularly inspired them (or perhaps done the opposite), whether it be through the classroom (high school English class) or even earlier on (your mom reading When a Mouse Eats a Cookie to you as a young child, for example). Consider the following questions when beginning your personal narrative that describes your own journey towards literacy (but doesn’t have to be in the traditional definition of the word if you’ve come into academia in a different way than by the standard academic trajectory):
• any early memory about writing or reading that you recall vividly
• someone who taught you to read or write
• a book or other text that has been significant for you in some way
• an event at school that was interesting, humorous, or embarrassing
• a writing or reading task that you found (or still find) difficult or challenging
• the origins of your current attitudes about writing or reading
• How much have you enjoyed particular kinds of reading and writing that you did in the past? Why?
• Has there ever been a sense of reward or punishment associated with reading and writing form your past?
• perhaps more recent challenges to think about are the influences of social media and technology intervening in our daily writing lives
 
Describe the setting; remember to use five senses:
• What do you see? If you're inside, what color are the walls? What's hanging on them? What can you see out any windows? What else do you see? Books? Lined paper? Red ink? Are there people? Places to sit?
• What do you hear? A radiator hissing? Air conditioners? Leaves rustling? The wind howling? Rain? Someone reading aloud? Shouts? Cheers? Children playing? Music? The zing of an instant message arriving?
• What do you smell? Sweat? White paste? Perfume? Incense? Food cooking?
• How and what do you feel? Nervous? Happy? Cold? Hot? A scratchy wool sweater? Tight shoes? Rough wood on a bench?
• What do you taste? Gum? Mints? Graham crackers? Juice? Coffee?
 
Assignment timeline:
1. For Assignment#1, we’ll be working on the thesis (in-class)
2. After, you’ll be taking quotes from the texts we read and integrate them into the narrative you’ve started writing in class
3. Next, I’ll be collecting a draft of your outline
4. Paper #1 due
Your assignment is for Essay #1 is to write a Literacy Narrative.  Deadlines & related assignments are given in the WR 121 Course Plan.  WR 121 Course Competencies you will be developing in this assignment and Evaluation Criteria used to grade this Essay are attached to this handout.  So what is a Literacy Narrative Essay?
First, a Narrative Essay tells a (non-fiction) story to make a point (thesis).  Narrative Essays are typically autobiographical, and draw heavily on the author's memory and personal experience, looking back, re-viewing, and (re)interpreting one's past from the vantage point of the present.  Often, the goal is to help us better understand who we are today, why we are who we are, how we came to be who we are.  In My Name's Not Susie: A Life Transformed by Literacy, Sharon Jean Hamilton explains the value of such remembering and self-reflection:  "...I must also be the author of my own life, and . . . in choosing which of my memories I wished to foreground and which to forget I was not only shaping my past but also my present and potentially my future" (qtd. in Thompson).
Literacy Narratives are (non-fiction) story-telling that re-creates and examines significant past experiences in which reading, writing (or perhaps speaking, listening) figure prominently; literacy narratives focus on key stages or events in one's development as a literate (reading, writing, thinking, speaking, listening) person.  A Literacy Narrative is autobiographical, and writing such essays can help you discover and evaluate the role(s) literacy has played in your life, reveal the sources of your present attitudes and abilities, deepen your understanding of how/why you have developed into the kind of reader, writer, thinker, communicator that you have become.
A Literacy Narrative prompts you to explore, remember, reflect upon, analyze important moments, experiences, or stages of development in your own personal writing, reading (speaking, listening, thinking) history: e.g., influential events, scenes, people; stages; turning points or moments of insightful realization; failures and/or successes; "border crossings" or passages into new, different kinds of language, reading, writing, communication, thinking.  Alternatively--since there are many kinds of "literacies"--Literacy Narratives can also address other kinds of literacies, such as visual literacy, computer literacy, science literacy, film literacy, etc.
Essay #1 Requirements and Guidelines
Essay Length:  The Final/Revised Draft of Essay #1 should be 3-to-5 typed / word processed and double-spaced pages long--about 550 words--using a standard sized font and point size (e.g. 12-point Times New Roman), printed in black ink on only one side of standard-sized (8 1/2" X 11") white paper, with one-inch margins at top, bottom, and both sides.  You should also use MLA formatting (double spaced).
Topic Scope: Keep the above essay length recommendation in mind as you focus topic and draft Essay #1 for the Literacy Narrative.  (Tips: If you can't achieve at least 3 typed/word processed & double-spaced pages, you need to either provide more specific development of your narrative, or expand the scope of your topic.  On the other hand, if you have reached page 7 in drafting your essay and you still have much more you want to narrate to make your thesis point, you need to narrow down the scope of your topic.)
Topic Focus of Your Essay #1 Literacy Narrative may be:
One single experience (story, event, moment, scene, encounter with an influential person, stage of development) in your personal literacy history, that you will recount, interpret, and analyze to make your thesis point
Two or three related experiences (stories, events, moments, scenes, encounters with influential person[s], stages in your literacy development) whose inter-connections you can show and explain--and, taken together, all contribute to supporting/developing your essay's thesis.
Experience(s) that you choose to narrate may be, but do not have to be, drawn from your formal schooling; life experiences with literacy outside of formal education
Arriving at an Essay Thesis (i.e., Your Theory of Meaning/Significance and Your Response to the imaged readers' "So What?" Question that your audience will expect you to present and develop).  You must write in the genre of the essay.  You must use your narrative to make a point.  This means you must do more than simply narrate and describe your experience: you must analyze, interpret, explain the meaning/significance of the experience--and do so fully enough that even uninformed readers can understand why the experience is significant to you--and perhaps to others of us as well.  You may not know what your thesis is at first: you may wish to write a "discovery draft" recounting your experience--then reflect and analyze it to discover what it means and why it is significant to you.  The following leading questions may help:
• Why do I remember the experience(s) I narrate?  Why does it stick with me, even perhaps years later?
• Why do the experience(s) seem important and influential to me now?  How did the experience shape or influence the kind of reader, writer, thinker, speaker, and/or listener I am today?  
• What role have encounters with language and literacy (reading, writing, speaking, listening) played in my life, in creating who I am and how I think today?
• What is my essay narrative saying about how/why developing literacy (reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking) has, or has not, been important in my life up to now?  And do I consider this an advantage or disadvantage: that is, have the narrative experience(s) helped or hurt me, or both?
• What have I learned from the experience(s)--about myself, others, the world?  By the way, failures and/or successes can be addressed (for we sometimes learn as much, if not more, from our failures).
Guidelines for Literacy Narrative:
• A well-told story. Bring your narrative to life by using concrete and vivid details. Details can bring a narrative to life for readers by giving them vivid mental images of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of the world in which your story takes place.
• Narrative’s significance.  Make clear why the incident you narrate matters to you now by explaining its significance.
• Well organized.  Whatever strategy you use (narrative or descriptive), make sure that your         organization (beginning, development, and conclusion) is effective, engaging, and clear.
• Thesis Statement:  State the main idea of your essay somewhere in your introduction in a Thesis Statement. Then make certain that every supporting paragraph relates to and supports that main idea.
• Use concrete, vivid descriptions and focus on a specific event.
• Consider using dialogue between the characters in your narrative.
• Demonstrate growth and improvement from the first drafts to the final revised draft.