Richi Barua

Professor Ewan

FIQWS

11 March 2019

My Journey on Writing the Literacy Narrative

The Literacy Narrative is the first major writing assignment assigned in FIQWS writing composition. I expected this assignment to be difficult, and it was because I didn’t know what to do. I was very frustrated since I didn’t know how to write it. It was indeed very difficult to write the paper, but I am happy that I wrote it. Writing the Literacy Narrative was a great experience because it pushed me to explore my writing and learn from my mistakes.

In order to start writing the narrative, I tried to use old approaches to find my topic. I practically made a list of possible topics, just like I did for the Introductory Letter. Employing this approach was successful because I was able to pick a topic for myself. After confirming my topic, I immediately started to gather evidence in order to assemble the essay later. Throughout this particular process, I learned that my writing process has changed a lot. Now, I like to outline my writing, which helps me to avoid missteps. This change of mine is very beneficial because it can develop me into a better writer.

I had decided to write my paper about my Bengali literacy journey. As I was gathering evidence for the assignment, I learned a lot about myself. I was able to examine my evidence and break it down. Doing that made me remember how committed and passionate I was back then. This discovery changed my thoughts on using evidence because I learned to analyze evidence more closely. This critical thinking skill can be used in any future paper because analyzing evidence can result in more details, which always makes a paper better.

The Literacy Narrative is actually very similar to the Introductory Letter. The similarity between them is that I had to write about myself in both papers. The difference between them is that the Literacy Narrative is only about a literacy journey. Anyway, writing the Introductory Letter did help me prepare me for the Literacy Narrative because by writing the letter, I learned about certain aspects of MLA format. One of them was that the use of punctuation in order to emphasize a point is prohibited. Learning this pushed me to use my words in order to emphasize specific points, which made me learn more about my writing. Writing the introductory letter was definitely helpful because I was able to learn from it and improve my narrative paper.

When I first completed my first draft, I found it horrendous. That’s when my peer’s comments helped me. I was able to challenge myself to correct mistakes which my peer pointed out. I also sought help from a writing tutor, who helped me fix some of my grammatical errors. Most of the suggestions given by my peer and the tutor were grammatical errors, and therefore I tried to adopt those grammatical suggestions. I also proofread my paper several times, which made me learn that I tend to make small mistakes in grammar and spelling. By learning this, I was able to fix my mistakes, and therefore, I am extremely glad that peer review exists.

In the end, by working hard, I was able to write my final copy. This paper challenged me to organize my writing by planning, gathering evidence, and by seeking help. By doing these, I was able to explore my writing and learn from the mistakes I made. This pushed me to fix my mistakes and enhance my paper in a better direction. Overall, the Literacy Narrative is a challenging paper that helped me learn and grow to be a better writer.