Literacy Border Narrative

For English 406 class:Literacy, border, and Counternarratives.

Purpose: You will compose an autoethnographic literacy narrative that highlights one “border” moment your development or experience as an active reader and/or writer. You may focus on school or non-school literacies as you theorize your own development as a critical language user. The concept of “border” is broadly defined here; consider the ways you map, limit, create edges for and otherwise bound your understanding of your literate self. Your aim is to explore this moment through critical observation by examining who/what sponsored it, how it emerged, why and to what end.

How to get started: Choose a literacy-infused memory. You might consider literacies of coming to and participating in college life or a literacy moment that forces/d you to consider your sense of self. You might journey back to elementary school, junior high, or high school to explore interactions with teachers or peers, or you might consider your access to literacies at home and explore a particular angle of your literacy training. You might consider your relationship to language or the kinds of literacy that hold currency in another specific community you belong to. Your aim is to choose one moment or event and do a close reading of the literacy dynamics and border it illustrates through an autoethnographic lens.

*Evaluation: Your essay will be evaluated on your ability to balance narrative with critical reflection and analysis. In other words, you should use a moment or event in your literate past to demonstrate your emerging thinking on literacy as influenced by gender. Your essay should include a title, page numbers, and contain clear transitions and polished prose. You are invited to incorporate readings from this class or elsewhere, if you like.

Details: 5-6 double-spaced polished essay, standard 12pt font, standard 1 inch marginsDue Date: February 11 (20% of final grade)*An autobiography works to share (and sometimes interpret) a portion of one’s life story; an autoethnography works to share and make sense of a portion of one’s life story in a particular sociocultural context. Autoethnography is reflexive, asking writers to both remember and research their own memories with attention to issues of language choice, representation, and cultural context.