Need help writing an Essay: Literacy Narrative
In a minimum of 750 words, write a short literacy narrative about yourself. Literacy narratives
can often have slightly different focuses, so you have a small amount of room for creativity, but
they primarily deal with detailing a person’s path to reading and writing (education and
experiences as a reader) and/or the impact that reading and writing has on their lives. Keep in
mind that the focus here is on “literacy” (the act of reading and/or writing) and not as much on
“literature” (which we’ll be talking about in class). Your literacy narrative can involve your
experiences with various “great” books, but it will more likely encompass your experiences with
a variety of texts, from internet reading, to newspapers, to comic books, to whatever you tend to
read or even write in your spare time.
Introduction: You set a context for why it’s important to discuss the place of reading and
writing in our lives. How has your experience in these areas shaped your values? What
can other people learn from the story you have to tell? You may use a specific anecdote
or episode from your life to illustrate your point.
Thesis: You state in 1-2 sentences your main idea. The thesis is the culmination of your
introduction.
If you are writing about your experience becoming literate (learning to read
and write), you will probably take a narrative approach, detailing your first experiences in
school or your first memories of books or the first time reading or writing seemed to
make a big impact on your life. You will want strong transition from paragraph to
paragraph, and your paragraphs should be around six sentences in length to be fully
developed. Your organization will probably be chronological, moving from stage to stage
in your life.
Conclusion: You want a conclusion that avoids
summarizing what you’ve just said. You also don’t want to say, “In conclusion….” Your
aim in a conclusion is to place the discussion in a larger context. For example, how might
those experiences be similar to or different from those of other individuals? How do you
envision the role of reading in your life in the future?
