Honors Literacy Narrative

For the Honors class, we are currently working on an essay called The Literacy Narrative. As our first "essay," it may prove difficult to grasp because it is both an essay and a personal narrative about an important event or moment in your own life.

The "Ideal Jeopardy Categories" activity was designed to get you to think about things on which you are an expert. It was a prewriting activity. From that, you composed a document called a "Process Paper" in which you outlined the steps of how to do one thing. This was another prewriting activity.

The literacy narrative is supposed to recount a moment or experience in which you realized you had developed a specific knowledge on a topic or a skill. The essay is not just a story about acquiring that knowledge. In fact, the essay is supposed to illustrate how that knowledge has influenced you and your success in other aspects of your life or in later endeavors related to that initial literacy moment.

To help you, I distributed an example paper entitled "Hydrophobia vs. Hydrophilia." Please use it as a guide or a model.

I expect the essay to include a thesis. As we discussed in class today, your thesis should make your point and serve as a brief outline of what you will talk about in your essay.

The thesis should be the last sentence of your introduction. The introduction allows you to have some freedom. You could introduce by explaining how literacy is not just about words and letters, but in fact, sports and other skills require a specific literacy. Your introduction could be a narrative paragraph that tells the story of your "Literacy Moment." There are many strategies for introducing an essay.

Futhermore, your essay may require different rhetorical strategies. You may write in chronological order, but you may also consider cause/effect, effect/cause, or problem solution as viable options for your rhetorical strategy.

A great essay will include reflective analysis of how you learned your literacy and details on how you've adapted this literacy in other aspects of your life.

Also, you should have a conclusion paragraph that ties everything together. Do not stop just because you told your story to its end. Restate your thesis in new words and sum up the lessons explicated in your essay.

This essay should end up being 3 or 4 pages long in MLA format like the first book report.

The draft workshop we started in class should give you some ideas for how to improve the draft you brought today. Please use it to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of your document.