Purpose: This assignment encourages you to reflect on and engage in your social literacy experience. This social literacy narrative asks you to ponder a moment that raises your awareness of a social issue (or issues) that directly impacts you and how this realization models how you communicate and interact with others. In other words, the social issue in your narrative, as we’ve studied in Weeks 2 & 3, guides you to understand how your lived experiences have intertwined with languages, identities, and power relations, as well as how your subject position (positionality) matters when you interact with others.
Instructions:
a.) Reflection. Before writing this assignment, carefully consider your definition of a”social literacy narrative.” For me (the instructor’s definition), a social literacy narrative reflects a rhetorical moment when a writer becomes aware of how a social issue (or issues) directly impacts them and how this moment changes the ways in which they communicate and interact with others, as Adichie, Tan, Lyiscott, and Anzaldúa discussed.
b.) Organization. Be familiar with different types of social literacy narratives. I encourage you to review/read our four study materials in Weeks 2 and 3 to understand how and why social issues deeply engage with the rhetorical moments these writers/speakers involve. Select some passages you might use in your social literacy narrative and organize your writing in a letter format.
b.) Introduction. In the first paragraph, begin your writing with a letter format and explain to the reader of the letter why they were chosen as addressee and why this social issue (or issues) proves crucial to them. Please elaborate on your argument in a well-developed paragraph.
c.) Interpretation. In the second paragraph, elaborate on how the experience(s) shared in this writing reflect on how languages are tied to the power dynamic and linguistic (in)justice. You are welcome to use supporting evidence to strengthen your argument. N.B.: You are not limited to only writing one paragraph in this interpretation part.
d.) Analysis. In the third paragraph, organize your viewpoints and analyze how and why we need to challenge this social issue (or issues). You can explicate the importance of valuing diverse voices in different rhetorical moments. You can also explore how these reflections can be integral to our lives. Most importantly, you need to develop your perspectives to contest how and why we need to recognize our own sense of identity, whether linguistic, cultural, or social, remains important.