WRITING ASSIGNMENTS

Fall 2006

Writing Assignment 1: Literacy Narrative. What does literacy mean to you? What makes the current contexts in which you are most literate relevant to you? How can you help someone else understand the significance that literacy has to your own life? This first essay asks you to reconstruct key moments in your literacy history in order to help your reader understand what literacy means to you (and for you) in your life thus far.

Writing Assignment 2: Literacies at School. What are the “rules” and/or expectations writers should follow when writing for school? How do we learn these rules? Who made the rules and who determines whether nor not writers are following them? How do you feel about these rules and/or expectations? How have they shaped you and your approach as a writer and/or reader? This essay asks you to reconstruct key moments in your literacy history by identifying “rules” that have shaped your experiences with literacy at school.  This is your chance to deeply revise WA1 by “re-seeing” it through the productive lens of “rules.” You should also use the interview as fodder for this project.

Writing Assignment 3: Literacies Beyond the School. What are the “rules” and expectations governing “literate” practices in a discourse community other than those involved with school? How did you learn those rules? Who made the rules and who determines whether or not members are following them? This essay asks you to examine the expectations governing what may be considered literate practice in a discourse community with which you have quite a bit of familiarity but actually extends beyond the “school” literacies you examined in WA2.  Again, use your interviews and previous writing assignments as fodder for this project.

Writing Assignment 4: Literacies at Work. What are the “rules” and expectations governing “literate” practice in specific occupations with which you have some familiarity? How did you learn these rules? Who made them and who determines whether or not employees are following them? This essay asks you to examine the expectations governing what may be considered literate practice in a discourse community associated with the workplace. Here again, use your interviews and previous writing assignments as fodder for this project.  

Writing Assignment 5: Literacies at Play. What are the “rules” and expectations governing “literate” practice in one or more discourse communities associated with leisure activities with which you have some familiarity? How did you learn these rules? Who made them and who determines whether or not participants are following them? This essay asks you to examine the expectations governing what may be considered literate practice in a discourse community associated with play.  Just as with WA2-4, use your interviews and previous writing assignments as fodder for this project.

Writing Assignment 6: Literacies at School (revision). This essay is your chance to revisit the idea of “rules” in school literacies (see WA2). Now that you’ve had a chance to explore the rules and expectations shaping literate practice in areas beyond the school (and you’ve been writing for college for some time), can you list new rules? Why or why not?

Writing Assignment 7: Literacies Beyond the School (revision). This essay is your chance to revisit WA3, WA4, WA5, or all of the above in order to reconsider what it means to be considered “literate” in a discourse community beyond the school. Now that you’ve written about literacies at work and at play, what do those less familiar with a discourse community beyond the school need to know in order to be considered “literate”? 

Writing Assignment 8: What Alternative Literacies Have to Teach Us about Academic Ones. What are some of the similarities between what it takes to be considered literate at school and what it takes to be considered literate in the discourse community you illustrated in WA7? What are some of the differences? This essay asks you to compare and contrast WA7 and WA8 in order to reveal what literacies beyond the school may have to teach us about writing for school.

Final Reflections. This last assignment asks you to look back over the reading, writing, and thinking you’ve done this term so you can tell your reader (specifically) how your Final Portfolio should be read. You want your reviewer to understand exactly how this portfolio works as evidence of your growth as a reader, writer, and critic this term. What have been the key moments in your work this term? How are you writing differently now than you were at the beginning of the term? What new things have you learned about yourself as a writer and reader? I also want you to examine each of the pieces you have written: think about the story each assignment tells, from your earliest invention, to your peer, tutor, and instructor responses, to your final choices for revision. How did your writing change within and across these different assignments? What did you learn about writing? Play a “movie of your mind” for us so we may learn what you were thinking and feeling when you pulled your portfolio together and/or developed these final revisions. What is your reaction to the collection of work that your portfolio represents? If you see this process as important to your development or growth as a thinker (or something else), why do you see it this way, and what have you gained from the process? This is your chance to wow us! To complete this assignment successfully, you must reflect on and quote from selected writing you’ve done this term, as well as from the readings. You choose what you want to quote and use, determine how to best use it, and make sure your reader understands how everything you quote works as evidence in support of your growth as a writer. Think of this as your final exam. Show us what you learned.