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Audience: Your audience is someone or some people who you wish to educate on how you became literate in two areas of your choice.

Purpose: The purpose of this assignment is to engage with a wordliteracyand share with your audience how that word has impacted your life through both growth and failure and in at least two areas–for example, sports literacy and social literacy.

As we discussed in class, think of literacy as beyond reading and writingyes, reading and writing are certainly fundamentals of literacy and definitionsbut think of literacy being more than a means of reading and writing. Think of it as a means of understanding the world around you and failing and growing within a learning community.

Think about the following questions with literacy in those two particular areas:

• • how it’s affected you?
  • why you think it matters?
  • how are they–at least two literacy modes–connected?

Some food for thought as you prewrite and compose that first draft:

• The literacy narrative is about not only reading and writing–you don’t have to limit your conversation there–but also other modes of learning. That’s part of the reason why we’re starting with this type of essay.
• Examples of literacy narrative focuses: traditional schooling, hobbies, careers, life experiences
• Examples of forms of literacy besides traditional schooling:
  • • workplace literacy: perhaps including ways of talking to customers, colleagues, and managers.
    • sports literacy: as a player, coach, or fan
    • artistic literacy: as an artist or appreciator of art
    • social literacy: learning to communicate with people of different ages or backgrounds
    • music literacy: you could focus on learning an instrument or even a song that made you literate in some capacity.
    • __________ literacy: consider hobbies and things you do daily that you might take for granted but had to learn how to do. In this context, think about the writing sample “Gym Literacy” that we discussed in class today.

• Avoid the urge to do research and worry about quoting / paraphrasing from outsides sources in this first essay–we will get into that can o’ worms later in the semester, so for now, keep your own mind, and think your way through your own ideas.
• Now is as good a time as any to blow the doors off some of the old methods, approaches, habits, etc. that many of us picked up along the way–5 paragraph essays, writing to the “correct answer,” suppressing our own voice and ideas, etc. Instead, why not say something and truly mean it? Let your writing begin breaking down the misconception that school and our daily lives aren’t necessarily connected.
• This first essay is a good means of calibration for both of us–for me to see how you write, and for you to see how I grade. That’s a good time for a lower point value.

Format: 12 point, Times New Roman font. Double-Spaced.

• cover page with thesis, name, title, and date. MLA doesn’t call for a cover page, but I do; use it to show me your thesis.

Required Length: 3 full pages minimum (roughly at least 900 – 1000 words)

There is no paragraph minimum (You dont have to base your structure on the classic five paragraph essay-intro paragraph, 3 body paragraphs, and conclusion paragraph).