Literacy Story

Personal Literacy Story Prompt:
For this two page paper you will be writing a literacy story – a story about an experience you had with a specialized discourse or with literacy in general. This story may be about how you used a specialized language successfully, about a moment you enjoyed or had trouble with the learning of a specialized language, or a moment where you did not succeed or did not understand a language/discourse.

Students in the past have written about difficulties with performing and talking about music, about Dungeons and Dragons, about sports, and many other topics. The challenge for this paper will be slowing down to focus on one moment & assessing that moment. To do this, you should show, not tell, and you may want to think about yourself as a part of your story, not just the narrator.

As will be discussed in class, an A paper will tell a personal literacy story that has a strong and consistent authorial voice. An A paper will tell a specific story grounded by one event, text (interpreted loosely), or period of time. An A paper will describe the event in specific and tangible (think: the senses) terms; remember that readers will have a voyeuristic interest in the specifics! An A paper will appear refined and will be organized thoughtfully.

Part 2:


The revision of your literacy paper will be broken down into two elements:

1. A revision of your literacy narrative and,
2. A critical reflection on your literacy narrative

These elements together should constitute a five page paper.

While you will be revising and improving your literacy narrative, the second part of this paper asks you to address your narrative by considering how ideas like learning, social circumstances, etc. played factors in how your story turned out. To help accomplish this goal, you will find three critical sources, one of which may be Gee's or Ong's reading from class. Keep in mind that critical sources are generally considered peer-reviewed journal articles.

A strong paper will have a cohesive story dealing with a personal situation involving literacy and a reflection that addresses how your narrative played out from both a critical and personal perspective.