WRITING A LITERACY NARRATIVE

KEY FEATURES

• A Well Told Story
• Vivid Detail
• Some indication of the narrative’s significance

A WELL-TOLD STORY

• As with most narratives, those about literacy often set up some sort of situation that needs to be resolved. That need for resolution makes readers want to keep reading. Some literacy narratives simply explore the role that reading or writing played at some time in someone’s life — assuming, perhaps that learning t read or write is a challenge to be met.

VIVID DETAIL

• Details can bring a narrative to life for readers by giving them vivid mental sensations of the sights, sounds, smell, tastes, and textures of the world in which your story takes place. The details you use when describing something can help readers picture places, people, and events; dialogue can help them hear what is being said.

NARRATIVE SIGNIFICANCE

• By definition, a literacy narrative tells something the writer remembers about learning to read or write. In addition, the writer needs to make clear why the incident matters to him or her. You may reveal its significance in various ways. The trick is to avoid tacking a brief statement about your narrative’s significance onto the end as if it were a kind of moral of the story.

ACTIVITY

• To be completed as informal writing:
• Write about a memory of reading or writing in which you realized something. What were all of the details.
• Respond by reading what others have said, noticing patterns, differences, etc.

WAYS OF ORGANIZING

• Listed on page 88 of the Norton

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