Reference no: EM132439549 , Length: 4

All quarter long, we've been exploring how language and stories are powerful. The ways in which we read, write, speak, perform, learn, and know, through language and stories, are bound up with our individual and collective identities. These identities--the ways we understand ourselves in relation to the world--may be fixed and stable, or they may change and grow over time.

• By reflecting on our identities through the lens of literacy, we can better understand how language and stories shape our ways of knowing and being. This third project of the quarter asks you to reflect on your own literacy experiences to deepen your critical understanding of who you are as a student, a writer, a professional, a citizen, etc, based on the values you have gained in the process of becoming a literate human being.
•  As you will see in Tolchin's example of a literacy narrative, this project should address a public/popular audience, including your classmates and me. But the audience also includes yourself, because this is a piece of reflective writing.

Question 1: How can you make your personal experiences relevant and interesting to a broader audience? An effective literacy narrative will do all of the following well: Develop a culminating idea or philosophy that explains how your experiences with literacy have shaped what you value and that shows readers why these experiences matter (claim and stakes). Use specific details and evidence in your narrative, with evidence drawn from: Your personal experiences "reading" and "writing" texts, and At least 2 outside sources beyond the texts central to your narrative.

• These sources should be meaningful to you, and/or they could provide a theoretical framework for your narrative (such as the writing center theory that Tolchin integrated into her narrative). Present a coherent and compelling story that uses the rhetorical and narrative strategies  to connect the different elements of your story with the culminating idea. If you choose to write a more traditional literacy narrative, your final draft should be 4-5 double-spaced pages, not including any images you might include.