Yesterday in class, we examined the model literacy narrative “A Bridge to Words,” and you and two or three of your classmates collaboratively composed a piece of writing that addressed these elements of the essay:
- Appositives
- Scene
- Figurative language
- Gaps in memory/what the narrator doesn’t know
- The story’s significance, how the writer conveys it subtly
The sections that follow focus on the elements listed above, ones you should aim to include as you continue to revise your own literacy narrative.
Appositives
Using an appositive–a group of words that renames or defines a noun or noun phrase–not only helps you develop your writing but also enables readers to better relate to your writing through the specifics that the appostives offer. Examine each of the four passages below, and note how each appositive expands on the ideas presented in the noun, the noun phrase, or the noun clause that precedes it.
- Early in the essay, I write that “[m]y sister, who was three years older, had her very own news source, The Mini Page, a four-page miniature paper that arrived at our house as an insert in the Sunday edition (par. 2).
- I incude another appositive to specify the gesture and the words of a family member: “I remember only the gesture and the words: someone handing me the Sunday comics and saying, “You can read part of the funny page, too. You can read Henry” (par. 3).
- When I turn to an appositive again, I do so define a term that may be unfamiliar to some readers: “As the last word in the first line, ‘abhors’ serves as the lead-in to an enjambment: the continuation of a sentence or clause in a line break” (par. 7).
- Lastly, I fashion an appostive in the conclusion to convey the significance of the memories I have recounted: “The former wakes and stretches out in my mind as a bridge to the latter: a spot in the world of words I’ve inhabited ever since” (par. 8).
Scene
With the words, “[f]inally, one Sunday,” I shift from summary to scene for the first time (par. 3). The previous paragraphs describe the reading ritual that occurred every Sunday.
Figurative Language
Instances of figurative language in the narrative include “as if covered by a shroud” (par. 1), “like links in a chain” (par. 7), and an extended metaphor in the conclusion, where I personify the comic strip Henry and The Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense, depicting them as slumbering in my brain:
“Perhaps rereading Art Spiegelman’s graphic memoir Maus with my students has aroused the wordless Henry and the word-filled Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense from the corner of my brain where they’ve slumbered. The former wakes and stretches out in my mind as a bridge to the latter: a spot in the world of words I’ve inhabited ever since” (par. 8).
Gaps in the Writer’s Memory as Part of the Narrative
Twice in the essay, I use a strategy employed by Helen Keller in “The Day Language Came into My Life,” specificaly, I note what I cannot recollect. I first use that strategy when I write, “Whether it was one of my parents or my sister, I don’t know” (par. 3). I draw on it again when I write, “Why these particular early memories visit me now, I don’t know” (par. 8).
Conveying the Story’s Significance
As I noted in class, there are a number of ways that I convey the significance of my experience without stating explicitly that the events were noteworthy. The vivid details of the narrative demonstrate their importance. Those details that are vivid in my mind are subsequently lifelike on the page because their significance permeates them. Some groups offered as examples details about my sister, Jo, reading to me from The Golden Book of Fun and Nonsense. One group noted “the word ‘abhors’ . . . which appealed to me” (par. 7). Another group mentioned my “uncontrollable giggles” (par. 7).
As you revise, review these notes and incorporate some of these elements into your own literacy narrative.
Work Cited
Lucas, Jane. “ENG 1103: Model Literacy Narrative, ‘A Bridge to Words’ and Writing Analytically.” Jane Lucas, 8 September 2025, https://janelucas.com/2025/09/08/eng-1103-model-literacy-narrative-a-bridge-to-words-and-writing-analytically/.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday, you will compose a short reflective essay focusing on the process of planning, drafting, and revising your literacy narrative. If you are still in the process of completing your essay on Wednesday (since you have until Friday morning’s hard deadline to post it) your reflection will address your work in progress. Before tomorrow’s class, be sure to complete the short reading assignments in Writing Analytically as well as the accompanying planning exercise in your journal. The details are outlined in yesterday’s blog post.
Jane Lucas 