A literacy narrative is a narrative in which a writer explores his or her experiences with reading, writing, or both.

Your literacy narrative should reflect on the reading, writing, and language experiences that shape a part of who you are today. Rather than trace your learning from struggle to triumph, you should zoom into a particular moment from your life when language and literacy impacted you, for better or for worse. The specific moments you write about should form the basis of your narrative, though analysis and reflections may be added to help make sense of the moment’s significance and implications.

What a literacy narrative needs:

A well told story – usually starts with a situation that needs to be resolved. That need for resolution makes readers want to keep reading. Some literacy narratives simply explore the role that reading or writing played at some time in someone’s life—assuming, perhaps, that reading or writing is a challenge to be met.

Vivid detail – details can bring a narrative to life for readers by giving them vivid mental sensations of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of the world in which your story takes place. This can help readers picture places, people, and events—dialogue can help them hear what is being said

Indication of the narrative’s significance – by definition, a literacy narrative tells something the writer remembers about learning to read or write. In addition, the writer needs to make clear why the incident matters to him or her. You may reveal its significance in various ways.

A narrative doesn’t necessarily need to be in chronological order- could start from the end and then go back to the beginning and describe how you got there

500-700 words

First draft due (sent to your peer review partner and myself): Monday, September 7th.

Final draft due (upload to blackboard writing assignments page): Thursday, September 10th.