Literacy Narrative Reflection

Adam Tran

ENC 1101-0M04

My Journey

            My literacy narrative was the journey that I have taken to become the writer that I am today. In order to write this piece, I began by deeply thinking about how it all began. I recalled specific events and experiences that occurred in my life that may have somehow altered my reading and writing. I thought all the way back to when I first began to read and write, and traced it back to my present day literacy.

The hardest part for me was the beginning of the essay, which is normally the case. I had a difficult time remembering the very early times of my literacy and had to ask my parents for details. I also had difficulty putting the events in the correct order, as my memory of the sequence of events was a little hazy. Once I was able to gather my memories and get my information straight, the essay got much easier to write. Once I had a vague memory of an event, ideas and memories of the event just flowed to my head and I was able to speak about it in detail.

I found it somewhat difficult to find a main theme in my literate past. I was able to put my thoughts onto paper but could not seem to find a connection between my experiences. After some deep thought, I realized that my theme was flexibility of reading and writing. Once I established that, it all made sense to me and the theme could not seem more apparent. I was glad that I figured out the main theme and that it all came together.

Mr. Longhany and some peers encouraged me to include more detail in my paper. I made observations and analyzed them, but needed to make more connections between them instead of leaving them as separate thoughts and entities. I was commended for the observations that I had made, but needed to do a better job of linking my thoughts together to show their connection.

In order for me to write this essay, I had to strategize and plan. This was not a paper where I could just begin writing and let my writing take me away. I had to thoughtfully plan out what I statements I would make. From there, I had to elaborate on those statements and include examples and details to back them up. Lastly, I had to connect these experiences and form an overall theme that would be apparent to the audience.