Last week, we defined a literacy narrative as an essay telling the story of how

Last week, we defined a literacy narrative as an essay telling the story of how the author learned to read or write. More broadly, this could also be the story of how the author “became literate” in music, coding, cooking, or any other craft, social activity, or hobby. Up to this point, we have defined “proficiency” as the point where someone has gained enough skill, knowledge, and practice to be able to perform the task at hand or to participate in the learned activity independently (e.g., being able to read, make tortillas, excel on a test). As you consider the readings and discussion prompt this week, it may be helpful to consider “proficiency” in a slightly more complex manner:
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Proficiency will be defined differently depending on the type of literacy being examined.
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Proficiency is not necessarily a threshold one crosses, but often more of a spectrum of one’s expertise.
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Definitions of proficiency may not always be broadly agreed upon, as the concept of proficiency can often rely on value judgements or personal subjectivity, and sometimes even prejudices. Composing Our Literate Lives
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?For our first major writing assignment, we will consider the different literacies we hold, as well as the processes we have moved through to arrive at a level of expertise. Following the literacy narratives we read together in class, tell the story of your own journey toward proficiency in a certain literacy you rely upon regularly. You may choose to write about literacy in the most basic definitions of the term (reading or writing the English language, for example), or you may examine your experience with more complex or loosely defined literacies (reading sheet music, decoding images, finding information on the web, or gaming, to list a few). You may even choose to contrast similar literacies and describe your learning process from one to the other (writing for pleasure vs. writing for school, for example).
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A successful literacy narrative will:
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• Follow the general conventions of narrative writing and the literacy narrative genre.
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• Define a specific literacy, the parameters of its proficiency, and the steps toward this proficiency.
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• Use personal experience and memory as informal “research” from which claims are mined and developed.
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• Explores strategies to make claims relevant to an audience of peers and others.
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• Uses details through narrative to support claims.
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• Be proofread and follow conventions and standards of edited academic English.
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THIS IS MY STORY OF HOW I LEARNED ENGLISH
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I’m a Colombian girl who came to the USA at 21 as an au pair, taking care of 4 kids in Seattle. These kids became my best friends and English teachers. I wanted to learn a new language and create new memories. With no family around, my host family became my support system. They not only taught me English but also introduced me to American culture and food. Every night, I read books to the kids, their favorite being “The Cat in the Hat,” and started watching shows like Friends to improve my English. I had to learn the language from scratch, but reading books for kids over time really helped me. I got married, and my husband also became my English teacher, correcting my pronunciation. Now, I live in NJ and am about to graduate with a social work degree.