University of South Florida Literacy Narrative and Political Leadership Paper

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 and should form 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 a parent and you want to write about that time in your life, perhaps you will need all six paragraphs. 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 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.