Applying Liao’s Criteria to a Literacy Narrative We Read (45 min)

Open up page 87 in your textbook. To get a feel for what a literacy narrative is, read this one. Make at least one annotation on a place in the essay that makes you think about the kind of writing I’m expecting from you based on the prompt and Liao’s criteria for literacy narratives. You have 20 minutes.

Also: get your journals out. I’ll come around to check so I can give you credit for it.

REMEMBER: This essay is not written in the context of our assignment prompt, so it won’t be addressing technology or authenticity. However, like the literacy narrative you’ll write for our class, it does do the sorts of thing Liao outlines in her chapter of our textbook.

So, what is this kind of writing? What kind of stuff are you going to try out in your own writing? Let’s go over some things.

I’m going to put you in 5 groups of about 4 (depending on how many people we have today). Let’s do it by birthday months and see how that shakes out.

You’ll look through the essay again and get ready to explain how the essay addresses, in some way, the criteria as laid out by Liao. You will be in one of five groups; one for each of the criteria Liao mentions. From the prompt, here is my summary again:

1. A story where something changes. In other words, at some point there is shift between who you were as a language user, reader, writer, (or some related role) that was meaningful for how you understood your identity and relationship to the larger world around you.
2. Literacy narratives show and tell. You should be using specific examples from your life to help illustrate ideas about literacy that you have acquired from your lived experience.
3. Literacy narratives often begin with a single instance of reading, writing, language acquisition, a cultural tradition, a particular discourse community that the narrator joined, or some other moment of importance—as a jumping off point for the narrative.
4. Literacy narratives have some kind of takeaway for readers. What can you show about your world that others might otherwise miss?
5. You discover something through this writing. That is, before writing, you might not actually quite have the understanding of yourself, your language, your writing, etc. you did until you sat down to try to put your experience into words. Be open to surprises!

Okay, let’s share what we think.

What could you write about? What would be interesting? To think about this, why don’t we spend time working on Reading Response 1. There won’t be enough time to finish it now but while you get started it could help to write together to see if you have questions.

Finally, why write literacy narratives? What is the point of this kind of writing? What’s it do? What does it say about what one of the functions of writing can be?

Writing Process vs. Writing Practice (30-45 min)

For your first draft of your Literacy Narrative, the rhetorical situation would include information like the following:

• Purpose is to explore your history with certain technology and its relationship to how you can (or cannot) be your authentic self with the assistance of this technology
• Audience is me and your classmates; possibly others if you imagine writing this for other readers, too.
• Constraints include following our prompt’s guidelines for what I expect to see (e.g., word count, making sure you use examples), deadline of 9/18 for “half draft”, working in Microsoft Word (or whatever word processing platform) and what you can and can’t do there, and other circumstances in your life.

Once you have a sense of the rhetorical situation, it is time to figure out the full context of how you’ll do your writing:

1. the process we use for going from ideas to words on page (and back again to ideas and back to words and so on).
2. the practice you will develop to get you into a space to do some writing, reading, revising, etc. (e.g., the time you will write, the place you will write, the sounds you want to hear, the ways you’ll nourish your body)

So, on this Google Doc, share the order of ways you try to get writing done. What do the different stages look like for you typically? Try to describe it as best you can and in the best detail you can.

Some examples:

• outlining,
• brainstorming,
• editing,
• revising,
• writing a bunch at once,
• writing pieces here or there without thought for how they fit together,
• writing on note cards and piecing them together in different orders
• (however these labels and examples are very broad and not very detailed so try to get into much more detail than words like these–including when they happen and in what order and if it is linear or more recursive/circular).

Is your process always the same? When does it deviate? Should it deviate?

A writing practice is something different from a writing process.

A writing practice is carefully considering what environmental conditions help you read and write best and to try to set those conditions as much as possible when reading and writing.

What prevents you from getting writing done? Try to empty out all possible ideas privately, on your own, and will write it up here:

• writer’s block / not knowing what to write
• feeling overwhelmed, where to begin
• getting distracted by things like your phone
• getting really stuck on just starting
• get stuck on repeating and not moving writing forward
• not feeling motivated without looming deadline
• starting at a bad time like when you’re tired
• hungry
• friends
• not having right environment for you to write in
• job
• boredom
• not interested in what the assignment/task is for writing

What can we control? What conditions can we set to get it done? What can we control that can help?

A writing practice is carefully considering what environmental conditions help you read and write best and to try to set those conditions as much as possible when reading and writing.

Some examples are:

• What time of day do you write best?
• Do you like noise or silence?
• Do you prefer a desk or somewhere more informal?
• How do you manage distractions?
• If you like music to help, what kind of music works best for you?

For now, I just want you to think about how/when/where you do your best writing. We are going to do more on this in the next couple of classes, but I wanted you to think about this now because it is important. Writing is a fully embodied experience; it is not just your words on a page.

As you keep writing this semester, you will (and probably should) change your mind on much of this as you get more experience and reflect more.

Tell me about the last time you had what you would call a “successful” writing experience. Take that to mean what you want it to. For example: you were proud of your writing, you felt like you were in a “flow” and got a lot done, you enjoyed yourself (as much as you can if you don’t like writing that much!), etc.

Respond to these questions on the Google Form as well as providing a brief reflection on why your writing practice that day helped you have a successful writing session.

Okay, so we have a sense of the sorts of writing processes you typically use and the writing practices of a previous successful writing session to think about a writing practice.

What do you all want to work on? What is something you might want to try that you haven’t before (or maybe you have but want to try again)?

Refract Magazine (5 min)

Next Time (5 min)

-For September 13 by 11:59pm to Brightspace as a Word or PDF document, make sure to submit Reading Response 1

-Read “Suffer Less” by Kate Eickmeyer

-Create at least 4 annotations on this reading.

-Make sure you schedule a time to meet with me during the week of September 23

-For September 18, you have the half draft due, so start working on that

-Also for September 18, you have your weekly journal for at least 10 minutes of private writing. The prompt for next week is this: What’s something you don’t know how to do but would like to learn about? Why can’t you learn about it now? What’s getting your way? How can college help you learn more about it? Is it another language? Is it doing something physical like carpentry or boxing? Is it something artistic like poetry, sculpture, or DJing? Is it more about history? You have this time in college to learn. What do you care about? How can you cultivate it now and what might it be? Why? You don’t have to respond to all of these questions; they are just to help get you thinking about college as a time to learn things you really want to learn rather than only what you feel like you are “supposed to” learn.