Project 1: Literacy Reflection
Overview
Writing for an audience of your 1100 classmates you will narrate and reflect on a significant event in your life involving literacy, by which is meant speaking, reading, and/or writing, broadly defined to include visual texts such as film and photographs. Your purpose in telling your classmates about this event will be to convey and explain the significance of the event and to suggest what your reader might learn from the experience. As Lester Faigley explains in our textbook, “A successful reflection challenges readers to find out something about themselves.” We will look at several sample reflections in class to give you a better idea of the kinds of events you might describe and the strategies you might use to explain their significance to your readers. You must carefully describe event(s) for your audience, keeping in mind that most of your classmates are not familiar with your individual background.
Schedule
Monday
Objective: Introduce elements of reflective writing
* Prior to class, students will have been asked to read and annotate parts of chapter 7 titled “Reflections” which addresses writing reflections, what is an effective reflection, how to read reflections, and how to write a reflection in their text Writing: A Guide for College and Beyond, Brief Second Edition by Lester Faigley.
Activities:
- Check annotations for completion
- Small groups to share/discuss annotations
- Large group review of reflective writing
- Read an example together and point out elements of this text
Homework: Read, annotate, and identify elements of reflection for each assigned reflection text
Wednesday
Objective: Analyze different texts for elements of reflection writing
Activities:
- Check annotations and identification for completion
- Small groups to share/discuss annotations and identification
- Large group to review annotations and identification of elements
Homework: Discussion board posting – What is the value of reflecting? What is something you experienced, later reflected on, and saw the situation differently? How did seeing the situation differently affect your understanding of what had happened?
Friday
Objective: Idea generation for writing assignment
Activities:
- Introduce writing assignment
- Freewrite at least 2 important literacy events
- Small groups to share freewrites
- Select literacy event for project
Homework: Complete the Let’s Get Started… Handout
Let’s Get Started…
Answer the following questions to help you generate ideas for your Literacy Reflection. Complete for our next class.
- What is the event you want to describe?
- Set the scene – How old are you? Where are you? What does it look like? What does it smell like? Who is with you? Why are these people there? Do you know all of them? What are you doing? What is everyone else doing?
- What is significant about this event?
- What is the image, phrase, word, color, feeling, person, thing you remember most about this event? Why do you think this stands out to you so much?
- What did you learn from this event/moment? How has this affected you?
- What can someone else learn from your experience?
