This morning in class you will compose a short essay in which you reflect on the processes of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. Questions to consider include the ones below. You don’t need to address all of these questions, focus on the ones whose answers reveal the most about your work.
- What aspect of the writing seemed the most challenging? Determining the focus of your narrative? Developing the story? Crafting the conclusion? Why did that aspect of the writing seem the most challenging?
- Did you change the subject of your narrative? If so, what was the original subject? What did you change it to? Why?
- Did you change the organization of the narrative? For example: Did you initially present the story chronologically, then change it?
- Did any of the sample essays we examined (“Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” “A Bridge to Words”) prove helpful to you as a model? If so, how? (Offer one or more concrete details to support your claim.)
- What do you consider the strongest element of your literacy narrative?
- At what point in the process did you decide on a title? Did you change the title during the writing process? If so, what was the original title?
- What image did you include that documents part of your writing process away from the screen? Why did you choose that particular image?
- What relevant website did you link to your blog post. Why is that particular site relevant to your narrative?
- In addition to metacognition, did any of the other habits of mind of successful college students play a significant role in your writing process? If so, which one? The other seven are curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, and flexibility.
Students who have their physical copies of Writing analytically have the option to earn a bonus point by integrating a quotation from the textbook into their reflection. See the directions and the example below.
Directions
- Read the section of Writing Analytically titled “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.”
- Choose a short passage from the section that is relevant to your writing process and include it in your reflection.
- Introduce the quotation with a signal phrase and end the sentence with a parenthetical citation. At the end of your reflection, include an MLA-style work cited entry. See the example below.
Example
The authors of Writing Analytically note that beginning a piece of writing on a computer can “lock you into a draft or a particular idea too soon” (Rosenwasser and Stephen 124). Early in the process of writing my literacy narrative, I found myself locked into an idea that I was able to discard only after I resumed writing longhand.
Work Cited
Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. 9th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. 2024. pp. 124-25.
Note that the title of the textbook section and the page numbers in the ninth edition may differ from the those in the eighth edition. Make changes as needed in your parenthetical citation and work cited entry.
Next Up
Wordplay Day! To prepare for class, revisit the Dictionary and World Builder pages on the Scrabble website, and review the blog posts devoted to Scrabble.
Jane Lucas 