Assignments

1. Literacy Narrative: After reading Allegra Goodman’s “O.K., You’re Not Shakespeare. Now Get Back to Work”, write a literacy narrative of your own, perhaps recalling how you learned to read or write. Describe books that changed you or any ambitions you might now have to pursue a writing or media career. However, you don’t have to be an aspiring writer to make sense of this assignment. Remember that there are many kinds of literacy. The narrative you compose may be about your encounters with paintings, films, music, fashion, architecture, or maybe even video games. Or it may explore any intellectual passion — from mathematics to foreign policy.
2. Memoir/Reflection: Using Miles Pequeno’s “Check. Mate?” as a model, compose a short narrative describing how an individual (like Pequeno’s father) changed your life or made you see the world differently. Give readers a strong sense both of this person and of your relationship to him or her. Make this a paper you might want to keep.
3. Graphic Narrative: Persepolis demonstrates that a story can be told in various media: This graphic novel even became an animated film in 2007. Using a medium other than words alone, tell a story from your own life or from your community. Draw it, use photographs, craft a collage, create a video, record interviews, or combine other media suited to your nonfiction tale.
4. Your Choice: Compose a personal narrative about a subject and for an audience of your choosing. Perhaps you have to prepare a personal statement for a scholarship application or you’d like to turn some blog entries you wrote while traveling in South America into a more coherent tale. You may experiment with media too, combining prose and images in a Web project or trying your hand at creating a photo narrative.