In this assignment, you have an opportunity to reflect on your experience as a reader and writer.
Here, you will describe how you learned to read or to write, as well as your previous experiences
reading and writing. You may choose to trace a few important experiences over the course of your
life and education and reflect on how they changed you as a reader and writer.
Before you write, consider the questions below.
Why were your asked to write your literacy narrative? How is it related to your course
objectives? How may your story connect to stories of other students like you (on your campus, on
other campuses)? How may your perspective be different from that of others (think about age,
gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, economic or geographical background) and what is most
important about your perspective?
• What is the purpose of your narrative? To recount your literacy history as part of your
family history? To reflect on the importance of reading and writing in your life? Or maybe to
understand how certain reading and writing experiences have prepared you for college? Your
answers will help you to shape your narrative.
• Who might be interested in reading what you have to say? What do they already know
about you as writer? What experiences might they have with their own writing? Thinking
about your audience may help you to decide what to include and what leave out.
• What do you want to tell about in your narrative (e.g., key events, people) and
why? Think of two or three snapshots, or anecdotes, that illustrate moments in your reading
or writing history that are most important. What details would you need to include or leave
out to keep your focus on those moments? What would be the best way to present this
information? Would you need to use dialog?
• What makes a narrative different from other organizational strategies? How is a
narrative similar to and different from a story? How is it organized? You may decide to read
more about narrative as a genre from the Purdue OWL website and to hear or read accounts
of literacy by other writers, noting what they talk about, what their purpose and audience
might be, how they organize their narrative, and even what words or phrases they use to
transition from one thought to another
