Overview Write an essay recounting an experience in your life related to literacy (reading, writing, speaking, or other types of literacy). The paper should focus on a remembered event, describe it in a narrative style, and leave the reader with a clear impression of why the event was significant. In your essay, you should use describe the setting and key people and use a narrative (story-like) writing style. You should also consider what the point of this story is. Consider the following questions: Why was this event significant? What did you learn? Why have you remembered it? What did it reveal about you or someone else? How did it shape who you are today? You may choose the subject of your paper. Here are a few suggestions for brainstorming ideas: Read back through your diary or journal (if you keep one) or even social networking messages such as blog posts, Tweets, Facebook posts, etc. Think about various times in your life (different ages, places you lived, schools, etc.). Does anything stand out as being significant to a particular period of your life? Recall any events that gave you greater understanding about who you are or a new insight into someone else. Review the sample literacy narratives in Chapters 10 and 61. Take note of the different types of literacies explored: musical, automotive, linguistic, literary, artistic, cultural, etc. Try to find a subject that is neither too broad nor too specific. You should be able to write enough on the topic but not so much that its difficult to stay within the page limit. Keep in mind that your classmates will be reading this paper later in peer review, so choose an experience that you are comfortable sharing with others. See also the section on Choosing a Topic in Chapter 10: Writing a Literacy Narrative. Indepth methods for generating content are also presented in Chapter 29 Generating Ideas and Text. The paper should contain a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. For information and guidelines on writing a literacy narrative, see Chapter 10: Writing a Literacy Narrative. We will also be discussing how to write a rough draft of this paper during class. Requirements Length: at least four pages double spaced (1,000 words minimum) Formatting/Documentation: Modern Language Association (MLA) style must be used in the paper Research is not required for this assignment, but if you do include information from other sources, proper in-text citations, or parenthetical citations (Bullock et al. 548, 551- 557) and Works Cited entries (549-551, 558-586) must document the material If you include an image in your paper and did not make the image (take a photo of the item or create the image yourself), then you should cite the image in a sentence as well Literacy Narrative Assignment Guidelines 2 as in the Works Cited, too. See the audio, visual, and other sources section on page 550 to see which resource you should use to cite the visual. Visual Aids (optional): one or two images at most An image should not substitute for content but add to understanding the content. The words in the paper should use the image to help the audience see something complex that is not easily described in words. An image will not substitute for words, and the word requirement must still be met. How to Insert an Image into Microsoft Word (Optional) 1. Click the Insert tab then Pictures. Locate the image on your computer, then click the Insert button. The picture will appear in the page. 2. To resize the image, click on the image. At the top of the page, click the Format Picture Tools tab. 3. On the right of the ribbon, you will see the Height and width boxes, and you can adjust the image to a reasonable sizeone that does not interrupt the audiences reading patterns, such as 3 or 4. 4. Finally, to wrap the text around the image, click Wrap Text and select either Square or Top and Bottom, whichever interrupts the text least. To display the differences, Figure 1 was resized to 4 wide, and under the Wrap Text option, Top and Bottom has been selected. Figure 2 has been resized to a height of 2.5 and the wrap is Square. 5. The picture can also be captioned by right-clicking on it then left-clicking Insert Caption. Click into the Caption box and type a brief description. Click OK. In the text of the paper, the figure should be referenced as shown above
