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ENGL U101 - Composition Asynchronous: Literacy Narrative

Getting Started with a Literacy Narrative

If you’ve been asked to write a literacy narrative, this page will help guide you through the process. A literacy narrative is a personal story about your experiences with reading, writing, or learning—often one that shaped how you think about language or communication. At this stage, the goal isn’t to produce a polished research paper, but to reflect on your own experiences and begin exploring how they connect to broader ideas about literacy.

đź“Ś Important: Be sure to follow your professor’s specific instructions. Every assignment is different, and your instructor’s expectations should shape how you approach your narrative.

Define Literacy Narative

A literacy narrative is an autobiographical essay that typically recounts the experience of learning to read or write. It involves reflective writing that illustrates the process and development of learning. Narratives serve as a means of sharing a personal story through recollection and self-reflection. This type of narrative focuses on the writer's journey and improvement in various literacy skills like reading, writing, and interpreting, rather than providing a general definition of literacy.

A literacy narrative is centered on life experiences, specifically your personal literacy journey, regardless of your affinity for reading and writing. It should explain how literacy changed the trajectory of your educational journey. Did someone inspire you? a teacher? family member? friend? What pivotal moments impacted your learning? was there an assignment? a class? a life event? Share a memorable experience/event where literacy played a significant role. When describing the setting, include a location and/or emotional context. Justify the significance of your story, share how it affeced you.

Organization Strategies

Usually, stories follow a chronological order, starting from the beginning and progressing towards the end. However, storytelling doesn't always have to adhere to this structure. You can begin at the end and incorporate flashbacks to the story's start, or kick off in the middle at a pivotal moment. This approach showcases the narrative arc, allowing the story to unfold in both forward and backward directions, illustrating progress.

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Examples of Literacy Naratives

Getting Started

Here are some guiding questions to help you get started. These questions primarily focus on reading and writing. Still, language and literacy are very complex topics, so you might ask these same questions about learning to use language in several ways. While answering these questions, use “thick description*” to create vivid detail, and don't be afraid to ask family and friends for help recollecting memories.

  • Who read to you when you were very young? Where did they read to you? What did they read to you? How did you feel while being read to?
  • Do you have vivid memories of your favorite childhood books?
  • How old were you when you remember being read to, being able to read for yourself?
  • What books were in your home? Where were they—in your room, playroom, in the living room, all over the place? What magazines or newspapers were in your home? Who read them? What was your family’s attitude toward reading and/or writing?
  • Who did you see reading when you were a child, at home and at school? What adults or other kids did you think of as “good readers” and what made you think that about them?
  • What challenges related to reading and/or writing do you remember? How did you overcome them?
  • Why did you read? For pleasure, out of boredom, because you were forced to, all of the above? Were you a library user or not?
  • What did you write, if anything, for pleasure (i.e. not for school assignments)? Stories? Poems? Comic strips? A journal? Songs? Letters? Newsletters? zines? Blogs? What motivated you to write these things?
  • How did you “publish” your writing? (Did you show it to a family member or friend, mail it to someone, turn it in as an assignment, post it on the internet, perform it, enter it in contests, tuck it into a drawer and read it again later, etc.)
  • What literacy-related event at school do you recall as interesting, humorous, or embarrassing?  Were there school assignments that made you think? Did you struggle to write?  Changed you and your approach to writing?
  • What did you read? What was your first favorite book? How old were you? Who did you talk about it with? What else did you read? Letters, emails, song lyrics, magazines?
  • Where did you do your independent reading? Under the bedcovers with a flashlight? At the kitchen table? In a beanbag chair at the library? At a coffee shop? Only at your desk at school?
  • What negative experiences did you have with reading or writing? Being forced to read something you hated, getting negative feedback on a piece of writing, getting fussed at or made fun of for reading the wrong thing, or at the wrong time, etc.

* Thick description involves detailing human social actions beyond physical behaviors to include context, emotions, and social connections that give actions meaning.