final draft paper

Literacy Narrative & Analysis Essay—WR 121 Tillinghast

Audience: Your audience is college writers. What story can you show them to convince them of

the value of your reading or writing learning experience?

Outcomes: Please “use scholarship on writing, rhetoric, and language/

literacy and locate, evaluate, and use sources to support your writing

goals” and “engage with composing as a means of reconsidering ideas

and discovering new ones, including evaluating and using teacher and

peer feedback,” to review and revise the essay for well-supported ideas and clarity.

Context: Describe and analyze an experience, and quote and analyze a literacy narrative writing

from the course (such as: Tan’s “Mother Tongue,” Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read,” Junot Díaz’

“Becoming a Writer” or Cisneros’ “On Writing House on Mango Street”).

Purpose: Communicate why this writing or reading

experience and evidence impacts writing long-term, especially

for those who are learning about the value of writing.

Directions: Write a story of a key learning experience in reading or writing. Consider retelling this event

or moment of learning in reading or writing that shaped your literacy identity in a meaningful way. Then,

connect your experience to one of the course readings by citing and analyzing them.

1. Tell the story of your learning experience in reading or writing and how it impacts your learning today.

2. Describe what happened using sensory details (sight, smell, taste, etc.) and dialogue to help readers experience with you.

3. Analyze the impact of the experience on your learning. If it didn’t change your learning, you may need a different experience.

4. Quote and analyze or explain examples from a literacy narrative or a course essay of a similar learning moment or learning tool. (Tan, Malcolm X, Brandt, Cisneros, etc.)

5. Through close reading and analysis of your circumstance, relate the experience to other college readers.

Consider borrowing from the following patterns or strategies:

A narrative is writing that tells a true story, often from events in

your life. A good narrative often includes a change in the narrator.

Description is the expression of what the five senses experience in

vivid language.

A description freezes the subject in time, evoking sensory details so that readers become one with the writer’s world (Buscemi 233).

Analysis is breaking a complex topic into smaller parts to gain a better

understanding. In analysis, the critic (you) interprets and argues for a

particular way of understanding a writing or experience.

In planning your essay include a beginning, middle and end. Often what helps writers tell a story is to consider a problem and

a solution—in this case, a real one. You want your reader to identify with the learning. Use vivid details (sensory), even

dialogue, to show what happened, how tension arose, and the way it was resolved.

Content & the Writing Process: 10 points/

1. Brainstorming, listing and freewrite in class 1/14 2. Polished draft for peer workshop beginning of class 1/16 (Spotlight writers due 1/15) 3. 650–850 word polished essay for a grade to Moodle 1/23 (digital): ▪ double-spaced ▪ with a strong reflection ▪ with a heading with course number and an intriguing title ▪ Completes a polished draft, which demonstrates evidence of using several stages of the writing process

(brainstorming, outlining, revision, reorganization, etc.)

Central Idea (answers): 10 points/

▪ What am I saying about this experience and its impact on my learning? How have I been changed by this experience?

▪ How will my writing, evidence from a literacy narrative (Cisneros, X, Tan, or Díaz) and description support this point? This answer offers a plan and sense of the essay’s structure.

▪ Why is this learning technique or strategy important to consider? Why is this learning

moment important to my identity? How could such an experience shape others, including my

readers? Answers the: “So what?”

Development and Support: 25 points/

▪ Content: reveals the importance of the learning to the writer & readers

▪ Shares a significant, personal and valuable story

▪ Strong introduction and conclusion frame and develop a complex, coherent and engaging learning moment

▪ The evidence (including the quote(s)) relates to the thesis through use of transitions and key words in topic sentences

▪ Offer specific examples from your past experience and explains them to college-level readers

▪ Presents adequate evidence and reasoning for thesis, including figurative language, dialogue, description, narration and analysis ▪ Uses sensory details, dialogue, illustration, figures of speech and other techniques to show

Paragraph Organization:

▪ Presents engaging progression of the learning ▪ The essay is organized to meet the needs of readers and the intended purpose

▪ Purposeful paragraphs cohere topic, utilizing effective transitions, evidence and supporting details.

Voice, Language and Conventions: 5 points/

▪ Chooses effective engaging and varied word choice and tone that fits the topic and audience with an appropriate voice

▪ Sentences are complete, varied and used effectively to aid reader understanding, avoiding awkward structures

▪ Has grammar-check set and correct agreement (subject/verb, pronoun antecedent, etc.) and is free of sentence fragments, comma-splices and run-ons; uses a variety of punctuation correctly (periods, commas, quotation marks, semi-colons, etc.)

▪ No distracting errors (ex: lowercase “I,” homonym misuse (their/there; it’s/its), spelling errors, or vague pronouns)

Review Moodle for rubric and scoring. Tip: Visit the Writing Center or Tutor for support.