Introduction and Alignment
The Literacy Narrative essay begins the course with a personal, reflective, essay in which you will describe an experience that shaped your overall viewpoint of reading/writing/working literacy. Literacy Narratives tell a non-fiction story to make a point (thesis). It is often beneficial to begin with what you know, and search your memories for a particular experience.
Remember even though this is a story about yourself, your essay must make a point:
Why tell us this story?
To show WHAT point?
What have you learned about yourself from this story/experience?
How can it help you in the future in your personal life and with your present or future work?
Before you start writing this essay, you may want to decide exactly what is meant by literacy, and spend some time thinking about what literacy means to you. Discuss it with your family and friends. Find definitions on Google or look in the dictionary.
Upon completion of this assignment, you should be able to:
Demonstrate the basics of paragraphing, organization, thesis, audience, and basic APA formatting of a title page and body pages.
Resources
Read: Chapter 5, “Literacy Narrative: Reading the Genre” section in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage. (See sample by Laura Grisham.)
Read: Chapter 52, “APA” section in Ruszkiewicz & Dolmage..
Writing Resources
Review: APA Style and Formatting Guide (Links to an external site.)
Watch: APA Formatting Cover Page – Student Paper 7th Edition (Links to an external site.) (6:18)
Assignment Step 1: make sure you have completed 1.5 | Pre-Writing Discussion to get you started.
Step 2: Write at least 5 full paragraphs (an appropriate paragraph size is 10-13 lines per paragraph. Lines are not the same as sentences. “Lines” refers to the number of lines if you count down the side of the margins).
Introduction paragraph: set up your story, what does your audience need to know to understand your story? Where do you want to start?
3 Body paragraphs (see the prewriting exercise questions to guide you. You do not need to answer every single question, so in your Pre-Writing, think of which questions you want for your focus).
Conclusion paragraph: (describe, or summarize, what you’ve learned, your future, how what you’ve learned will help you in your present or future career roles, etc).
Use Times New Roman font, size 12, with 1.0 margins.
Include a Title Page in APA format using the step-by-step instructions offered in APA Formatting Cover Page – Student Paper 7th Edition (Links to an external site.) (6:18)
No sources or quoted material is required.
Use the grading rubric to guide your efforts and apply the current APA edition formatting style.