English 101

Much of your writing during college will ask you to synthesize information gained from analysis of texts or observations, but your individual experience is still an important source of knowledge, and a well-crafted narrative can provide an effective example to support your claims. However, not all stories will be equally effective. While your experiences always matter, which experience you choose and how you present that experience can make a significant difference in whether your story achieves your intended purpose with your intended audience. This project is designed to help you sharpen your narrative skills while actively considering your rhetorical situation and evaluating the effectiveness of your choices. Task Part 1: Narrative Before you enrolled in English 101, you had years of experience with learning in school, family, and community settings. These experiences come with you to the classroom and inform how and why you communicate today. For this assignment, you will write a narrative essay about a significant personal experience with learning that influenced you in some impactful way. Topic: For this assignment, we will use a broad definition of literacy as any skills or knowledge in a specific area or discipline. Traditionally, literacy means the ability to read and write, but you can also think about learning a language or a new sport, learning how to operate certain kinds of technology (digital or not), learning how to live in a new culture, or how to play a musical instrument. While looking for a topic for your narrative, think about various kinds of knowledge and skills you have: how did you acquire them? What was your learning process? Was there a specific person that helped you learn or influence your learning in some way? How do these skills influence you on a personal level? You can also reflect on the connection between the different types of literacy and your family and social life. Your narrative can focus on a specific event, person, or object (e.g. a significant book youve read), or a combination of the three. Your purpose is to present a significant experience with learning new knowledge or skills that has made you who you are as a person, a student, or a writer today. Your narrative should describe a particular experience, and it should also explain what role this experience has played in your life. Make sure your main point is not too broad or generalized. For example, something like Learning to read and write helped my life in many ways sounds like an important point, but it might not work so well because it lacks originality and specific focus (whose life wouldnt be affected if they could not read or write?). While you’re not required to bring in what you learned from the Enneagram exercise, you are invited to bring in your insights from that activity and incorporate them into your narrative. Finally, consider how your personal experience fits in with the larger context: what kind of issues in our society does it relate to? You can think of political, social, economic, or cultural problems that your narrative can connect to; these connections are what makes people interested in reading literacy narratives. Important Elements to Include: Your narrative should describe your experience, so you need to tell a story. Use descriptive language to create a vivid depiction of the setting, event(s), and/or people (you can describe these things using sensory images, metaphors, similes, etc.). You can include dialogue. Besides describing what happened, you also need to provide your reflection on the experience. Show your readers why this experience was important to you and how your it connects to larger social, cultural, political, or economic issues. The introduction should grab the readers attention, announce your topic, and indicate how you plan to proceed. The body of the paper should develop your story and include your reflections and thoughts on the experience you describe. The concluding paragraph should tie your points together and highlight the significance of your narrative. The narrative should have a creative title that will grab the readers attention. Make sure your narrative is organized in a logical way and that you provide enough details for your readers to follow your story. Include at least one multimodal component into your narrative. It can be a picture of the setting or people involved in your story, an image that can illustrate an idea, or even a video or an audio podcast that can be a meaningful addition to the story. You can add this element (or multiple elements) at any point in the paper where it will help illustrate a point. For example, you can use an image on the very top of the first page if that image corresponds to the general message of the narrative; or you can add an image next to a specific paragraph if the image illustrates a specific moment in your story. Make sure to add a caption next to your multimodal element explaining what it is and its relation to your narrative. (See sample student papers for some examples.) Part 2: Process Notes As you write, keep track of the rhetorical decisions that you make using annotations on the narrative itself, a log of your writing process, or a combination of the two. You are expected to identify and explain 8-10 rhetorical choices related to your narrative. Some examples of rhetorical choices you might choose to explain are: What message you wanted your narrative to communicate Why you chose a specific experience to achieve your purpose with your audience Why you chose to include (or not include) a particular multimodal element Why you chose a sincere, humorous, agitated, friendly, formal, or informal tone Why certain details were included These process notes and the explanations for the choices you make should provide insight into your understanding of the rhetorical situation and its application during the writing process. To that aim, you should actively use the language of rhetoric that you’ve learned to discuss your writing choices. After completing your process notes, add a final paragraph discussing what you have learned about rhetorical situations by completing this project. Post It Note Icon About Use these directions to check if your final draft fulfills all the expectations for the assignment! Requirements Length: 4 to 6 full MLA pages (the multimedia component is not included in the length requirement; text needs to be at least 4 full pages). The narrative (Part 1) needs to be at least 3 full MLA pages; the process notes need to be at least 1 full MLA page. Genre: literacy narrative Audience: your classmates, your instructor, and anybody interested in the topic Due dates: First full draft: Wednesday, Week 4 Final draft: Friday, Week 5 Multimodality: at least one multimodal component required (audio, image, or video). Audio, such as a podcast of you reading the essay, can be uploaded. Images can be embedded into the paper, and videos can be added as web links. Writing Center: You can arrange a virtual or in-person Writing Center visit at any stage of the writing process. This session will be no longer than an hour outside of regular class time, and you can schedule an appointment at any stage during the writing process but at least 24 hours before your final draft is due. See the syllabus for more information on visiting the Writing Center. Inform your tutor that they should inform me, your professor, of your visit, and say something about your session in your process notes. Schedule your appointment early because availability tends to go quickly! Points worth: 100 (Completion of this writing project will finish our work in Unit 1, which is a total of 25% of the final grade) IMPORTANT: Use this MLA template to begin composing your essay. Take this template and adapt it to your essay right from the start of your writing process. You need to save the document to your OneDrive cloud (you can also use Google Drive, but as is mentioned in the syllabus, MS Word is the most preferred word processing software); when your final draft is due, you will need to upload your document to Canvas. Change the file NAME to your LastName-FirstName-Essay# For grading details, see the grading criteria and rubric below. Grading Criteria Content choices and rhetorical knowledge – 60 points The literacy narrative presents a significant personal experience related to literacy. Ideas and personal experience are chosen to reflect the purpose and engage the audience. The literacy autobiography uses narrative and descriptive strategies such as concrete details, vivid language, and an unexpected or surprising element. The writer makes a clear connection to the larger cultural context and demonstrates the significance of his/her experiences in a mature and insightful manner. The process notes use rhetorical terms correctly in context The process notes contain a detailed analysis of the rhetorical situation with clear explanations about how your choices in the narrative relate to the specifics of the situation Genre conventions – 25 points The literacy narrative meets the genre conventions including a specific title, an engaging introduction, unified body paragraphs, a satisfying conclusion, and appropriate transitions. Choices related to word choice and sentence structure are appropriate for the audience and purpose. The narrative is free of distracting spelling, punctuation, and grammatical errors. Both documents apply standard genre conventions Both documents use language that fits the particular rhetorical situation Writing Process – 10 points The writer created multiple drafts of the narrative and participated in peer review. Successive drafts of the essay demonstrate the ability to explore and develop ideas, learn from instruction, apply feedback, and self-correct. Multimodality – 5 points The narrative includes multimodal components that make a meaningful addition to the text of the narrative. The visual elements are appropriate and not distracting from the text and message of the narrative.