UCF Literacy Relationship and Life Experiences Outline Upload a complete outline of your Literacy Narrative including one overarching statement about your relationship with literacy and supporting life experiences that demonstrate that statement or discuss the impact. Your outline should be fully formatted in MLA, and your Instructor will provide specific expectations.
Rubric
Criteria Ratings Pts
This criterion is linked to a Learning OutcomeDescription of criterion
15.0 pts
Holistic Score for Excellent Performance
A writer demonstrates excellent performance by meeting and exceeding the assignment structure through highly innovative strategies.
12.0 pts
Holistic Score for Very Good Performance
A writer demonstrates very good performance by meeting and exceeding the assignment structure through innovative strategies.
10.0 pts
Holistic Score for Good Performance
A writer demonstrates good performance by meeting the assignment structure in competent ways.
8.0 pts
Holistic Score for Average Performance
A writer demonstrates average performance by meeting the assignment structure. However, some areas of improvement are needed.
5.0 pts
Holistic Score for Poor Performance
The writer has demonstrated poor performance. A number of areas of improvement are needed.
2.0 pts
Holistic Score for Failing Performance
The writer has demonstrated failing performance. Because many areas of improvement are needed, the writer should contact the instructor for guided support.
0.0 pts
No Submission
The writer has not submitted the assignment.
15.0 pts
Total Points: 15.0 5.3 Outlining the Literacy Narrative
Attached Assignment: Upload a complete outline of your Literacy Narrative including
one overarching statement about your relationship with literacy and supporting life
experiences that demonstrate that statement or discuss the impact. Your outline should
be fully formatted in MLA, and your Instructor will provide specific expectations.
Outlining the Literacy Narrative
You have probably worked with an outline at some point in your academic career, and
the idea might conjure images of Roman Numerals or bullet points. When we talk about
outlining, we do mean the physical act of structuring a research design, and you can
use Roman Numerals or bullet points or any schema or structure that works for you. But
like writing, outlining is a process not just a product.
Outlining is a mental act as much as a physical artifact. When we outline our
assignments, we are adding the step of thinking through and visualizing all the pieces of
our product and all the steps of the process so that we can see where they are headed
before we commit to a design. The process also allows us to arrange and rearrange
pieces into the most effective order without the fear of losing our work along the way.
Much of the work associated with learning takes place in our minds through a number of
processes that can range from intentional and formal thinking to simply allowing
thoughts about course concepts and content to run quietly through the back of brains in
search of connections. Both the purposeful and the organic contemplations can produce
ideas that pop up and out and into our consciousness at different points throughout the
day in different forms. The result of recognizing one of those good ideas that has been
marinating in your mind can be to write a note to yourself or send an email to yourself or
to tell your friend about your brilliant idea with the hopes that you will remember. All
these acts are working as part of your outlining process.
When we are aware of this process and pay attention to how it works in our minds and
lives, we can take an active role in optimizing the act and the outcome of outlining. The
practice of outlining is connected to the practice of thinking critically and to the methods
and approaches and terms related to the processes of research design and analysis.
There are different ways to approach and structure the outlining process. All three of our
major projects include an outline, In Projects 2 and 3, we will also use gridding to
visualize our sources, which will serve as an element of our outlining process. For our
Literacy Narrative, the outlining process will serve as the explicit step of connecting your
thoughts and ideas with the assignment in an effort to organize your design into a
successful telling of your story to your audiences.
Adding thoughtful elements of design is necessary in any project, and trying to skip the
step will generally result in spending more work on a product that is less successful.
The narrative genre does allow for more freedom and creativity than other academic
genres, but the conventions of formal, academic writing are still expected. Although
source material is not required, if it is included, it should be cited according to MLA
format.
We have all been impacted by written words or writing words in some way. Literacy can
be about books, but it is about far more. Once you have thought of a few examples, see
if you can find a connection across them. Or perhaps one experience is so defining and
extensive that it can stand alone. As you continue to think of these experiences, try to
remember sights, smells, and sounds.
You are the main character in your literacy narrative, and your readers want to see how
the main character developed as a result of interaction with people and texts and
contexts. Your development is the real moral of your story, and textual engagement is
one of the motivating factors that contributed to your development.
These considerations and a number of the tasks you completed earlier should help you
construct an overarching statement that summarizes your relationship with literacy—the
moral to your story. Your thesis will make a clear statement about your relationship with
literacy, and your narrative will share the experiences that explain the statement.
Your story is yours, and you can share as much or as little personal information as you
would like. Work where you are comfortable, and remember that you have multiple
audiences for this assignment. On some level, you are always writing for and to
yourself. Because this is a graded assignment, you are writing for your Instructor, who
will have specific preferences, so don’t forget to make choices and moves that tailor to
audience. And you will share parts of your story with your peers through attached
assignments and in-class discussions. You will also upload your narrative to the DALN,
which can be done with your name or anonymously.
Reading the narratives on the DALN gives you an idea of many different approaches to
writing a literacy narrative, and writing it for a course at USF also provides you with an
audience you know has specific expectations (formal, academic writing and the
associated conventions). As you think through these higher order considerations and
the intellectual expectations of the assignment, also consider the details of the
assignment.
Assignment Details
We know that part of fulfilling any assignment is understanding what it expects. Look
closely at the concrete elements of the assignment early in your outlining process. You
are to write 750-1000 words. Depending on the font and size, 1 page double spaced is
about 250 words, which is approximately 3 paragraphs. The Literacy Narrative, then,
would call for approximately 3-4 pages totalling approximately 9-11 paragraphs. An
introduction and conclusion will take up 2 of those leaving 7-9 paragraphs to weave
your story. Think through how you want to allocate that space to tell your story.
You probably know by now whether you tend to write long or short paragraphs, and
knowing your writing style is an important part of planning your writing approach and
developing your personal writing process. For instance, if you know that you write long
paragraphs and are more likely to write over 1000 words than under 750 words, you
might want to plan your outline with 8 paragraphs—an introduction and conclusion with
6 paragraphs for the body. Or you could know that you are incredibly concise and
should leave 9 paragraphs for your body. Students tend to write too much instead of too
little, and it is easier to add than delete, so if you’re unsure, aim low. You can always
add more imagery to build the story.
Your introduction and conclusion will outline the paper and state your thesis, so those
6-9 paragraphs in the middle are where your outline develops and your story unfolds.
Those paragraphs can tell one, extended story or can bring a few experiences together.
For instance, if reading Harry Potter over an extended time helped you through the loss
of your parent and you want to write about that time in your life for 6 paragraphs, do.
The structure we looked for when reading fiction can even be used to frame that one
extended story by building your outline on the major plot points from your story.
If you want to follow one extended event, make sure you can break it into a few clear
points so that it works to progress across a plot. Or if you read a series over a number
of years and different books aligned with different rites of passage in your life, focus on
a few. Or mix up a few different things you read or wrote and connect them with a time
and place or an outcome or meaning that tie to an overarching statement.
More than 3-4 events would be hard to fit in the allotted space, so be sure to think
through the layout before you start outlining. And recognize that while literacy is what
holds the events together, the story is also about you and your experiences. Just make
sure that literacy is a major character in the plot.
We probably have a wide range of experiences with literacy, and while some students
could write thousands of words about their story, others might not feel like they have
anything to say. One valuable outcome of constructing a defined narrative about our
lives and experiences is that it allows us not only to see that who we are impacts our
processes of reading and writing and learning and that who we are is valuable in
academic settings. Writing a structured narrative also allows us to practice merging
personal experiences and creativity with a structured academic assignment being
prepared for a specific purpose and audience.
Recognizing that the assignment, genre, and audience impact the approach is a very
important aspect of learning to write and communicate in ways that transfer across and
beyond institutions, environments, and situations. For instance, while you may
encounter assignments with instructions that explain why and when you would want to
avoid using first-person point of view, it would be odd if not impossible for you to attempt
a literacy narrative without the explicit inclusion of the stated voice of the main
character: you in the form of I.
Layout options
There are a number of ways to layout your narrative. If clear events or texts do not stick
out to you right away, considering organization approaches might help. Here are a few
options.
Chronological: elementary, middle, high school, college . . .
People: mom, brother, teacher, uncle, friend . . .
Platform: book, online, social media, texting, email . . .
Places: School, home, grandma’s, the community center, church . . .
Theme: joy, struggle, education, family . . .
Genres: academic, sci-fi, fan fiction, personal communications
Subject/text: Magic/Harry Potter, Romance/Twilight, Fantasy/Eragon . . .
Classes: English, History, Psychology, Band . . .
Types of reading: formal and informal, academic and entertainment, news and
magazines
Phases: when you were into My Little Pony, then soccer, then Pokemon, then
Halo, then Demi and Ariana, then . . .
You can also follow a literary device to create a theme: seasons, rain, dinner table . . .
As you create your outline, you may combine any of these elements:
● When I was 10 and reading Creepypasta at our dining room table
● When I was 12 and reading a Biology textbook at our dining room table
● When I was 17 and reading my USF acceptance letter at our dining room table
These three experiences already share a connection to reading and a physical location,
but how can they connect to an overarching theme that makes you the main character
in a good story? As you look across those three events, what changed, and what didn’t?
Who were you with, and who were you? What will you be reading where and with whom
years from now? Can these snapshots work together to tell a larger story?
And don’t forget what you know about stories. A narrative should tell an interesting
story, which requires that consideration be given to the elements of storytelling. An
exposition will let us know where the story is situated. The rising action of your story
might include a conflict in need of resolution. The climax might be the change in you.
And while there is an end to your paper, it isn’t the end of your story, so feel free to look
forward in your denouement.
Often it can seem that academic work is all research and sources and that stories exist
solely in another world or at least another genre. But genre lines blur, and it is valuable
to practice writing across lines and genres and audiences. These shared spaces will be
what you occupy and navigate in much of your writing life.
Remember that there are a number of ways to arrange your events into a compelling
story, so think through a few options before you pick or create the right choice for you.
Whichever schema you apply should tie all the elements to a thesis.
Thesis
Your experience(s) with literacy will ground your story and serve as a through line, and
the impact of those experiences should connect to form your thesis. Identifying the
relevance of each experience and then connecting the impacts is one way to create a
thesis. What statement can connect your literacy events:
● Where I read may have stayed the same, but my relationship with reading slowly
transitioned from joy to fear as the informal childhood texts of elementary school
were replaced with the formal, academic texts of high school.
● Writing in my journal opened me to a love of writing that eventually merged with
my love of drawing.
● Most of my reading is on screens: phone screens, video game screens, and
laptop screens. But all of my reading connects me to the people on the other side
of the screens.
● My sister’s love of reading has been the main influence in my literacy life.
● When I think of reading, I think of reading music.
● I never thought of myself as a reader until I realized how much time I spend
reading and writing to my friends and how those friends and those
communications helped me become who I am.
Some of these statements stand alone, and others start a thread to be expanded, but all
require support from a structured narrative that tells the story under the statement. Once
you have a thesis and know what events or experiences you will share, start building an
outline. Outlining is often associated with more formal writing that does not draw from
personal experience and does include scholarly sources, but all formal writing requires
outlining. If you have a thesis and plan to write two paragraphs each for the three
events and then wrap it up with a conclusion, you already have your basic outline!
Mapping your plan before you start writing allows you to weave threads that connect
your story on multiple levels. Perhaps your first paragraph starts out with you in your
dorm where you are doing your homework for this assignment, which makes you think
of your childhood bedroom where so much of your reading took place. And then you
can state your thesis and dive into the three elements. At the end, you could tie it all
back to your dorm and what you are reading now and what where you hope to be in the
future.
After you have thought through your basic outline, begin the process of formalizing your
formatted outline in writing, which should provide an overview of the topic of each
paragraph in addition to your thesis. Your thesis will likely develop as you build your
outline into a full story. If you plan to use source material, have it formatted and cited in
MLA as part of your outline. Your Instructor will provide information on how to tailor your
outline for him/her/them.
The tasks throughout Project 1 have already started to develop content that can fill your
outline and feed your Literacy narrative, so feel free to start with those tasks if you’d
like. Or you can select new experiences that you thought of after the tasks or that you
now think will work together better to create a clear thesis and tell a compelling story.
To start, just narrow down three main events or texts and a thesis to connect them.
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