What is a Literacy Narrative?

A literacy narrative is simply a collection of items that describe how you learned to read, write, and compose. This collection might include a story about learning to read cereal boxes and a story about learning to write plays. Some people will want to record their memories about the bedtime stories their parents read to them, the comics they looked at in the newspaper, or their first library card. Others will want to tell a story about writing a memorable letter, leaning how to write on a computer or taking a photograph; reading the Bible, publishing a ‘zine’, or sending an e-mail message.

Your literacy narrative can have many smaller parts, but they will all be identified with your name. For instance, you might want to provide a story about learning to read a as a child, a digitized image of one of your old report cards, a story about writing a letter as a teenager, a photograph of you as a young child; a song you learned when you were in school).

Sample Narratives and Clips

*Many of these are broken links so you will have to search archive.org for archived copies of the pages

Anonymous “Memory Work” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/53>
Anonymous “I am A Creative Being” <http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/728>
Anonymous “The Lost Art of Note Passing” <http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/287>
Kelly Smith “What is ‘Good’ Writing?” <http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1696>
Emily Schikora “Literacy as Transformation” <http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/2835>
John McBrayer “Adventures in Reading” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/862>
Megan Ahern “Where is the Love” <http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/950>
Laura Rotheram “Almost Pretty” <http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/2920>
John LaMotte “From Ludacris to Shakespeare” <http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/649>
Lindsay Hearts “Lindsay Hearts’ Literacy Narrative <http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1527>
Al Smith “Short Bus” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/1455>
Melanie Yergeau “Dropping out of High School” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/240>
Scott DeWitt “Staying in the Lines” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/488>
Karin Hooks “An Old Chalk Board” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/243>
Valerie Lee “Literacy Narrative <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/610>
Darius Streets “My Introduction to Love” <http://daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/887>
Lauren Elder “The Literacy of Recipes” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/881>
Glen Armstrong “Music Narrative” <http://hdl.handle.net/2374.DALN/576>
Terrance Tate “My Life” <http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1147>
Tonya Adams “Mommy Daughter Library Stories” <http://www.daln.osu.edu/handle/2374.DALN/1186>