Tag: literacy narrative reflection

While I was reviewing the learning outcomes in preparation for writing this, the one focusing on writing as a process immediately jumped out at me. When I first wrote my literacy narrative part one, I was very confident that I had completed the assignment as it should be. However, after discussing it with Professor Morgen, I realized I drifted considerably toward the end and did not follow the format at all. The lightbulb went off for me once I began to think about the “and, but, therefore” thesis format. When I applied that to my childhood reading story, I realized that my essay was truly about how my history in literature became applicable to my life. So while sketching my comic, I dedicated a whole page to that process. I could not figure out for years how my adoration for other kids like me with superhuman traits would end up affecting my life, but that changed when I saw the truly awe-inspiring feats that normal people can accomplish through belief and dedication. I chose to express that through Christianity and baseball because those have both been huge parts of my life for as long as I can remember. But I do not believe there is a facet of life where there is not an example of someone who overcame their perceived limitations. This process of writing and then learning from my mistakes revealed to me what my essay was about all along.
I enjoyed writing my literacy narrative as a comic because of the opportunity to visualize my internal beliefs as a way of testing them. Coming into this class, I had very little confidence in myself as an artist. But over the past few weeks, I have realized that a belief in what I am drawing opens my mind to higher levels of creativity and interest as a whole. It felt as if I could better imagine and bring to reality the concepts I felt to be real about my life. In terms of thinking analytically, I think my mental process became more simple while I was drawing compared to writing. It could have been because I had a basis for the story already from the first literacy narrative, but this process was less stressful overall.
When I was transitioning from the rough draft that I brought to class to the final sketch, I wanted to diversify the shape of my frames. I decided the thought bubble presented a great opportunity to create a more malleable frame for the subject of my sketch. I also got great feedback in class on the targeted capitalization, so I made sure to continue that throughout the rest of the project. It seemed to me the best way to show emphasis in a way that is understandable to anyone. One piece of criticism that I got initially was that my pictures were difficult to identify, so I made sure to add identifying attributes to each. For example, I added a “Camp Half-Blood” sign in one of the Percy Jackson frames and some quotations from characters in others.

While writing this literacy narrative, I reflected on experiences that made me a better reader and writer and how my emotions play into it.

As I wrote the X-Pages Exercise, I noticed how writing about an experience I was not fond of resulted in the writing having a negative tone. When writing about experiences that positively impacted my writing, I noticed an underlying positive connotation that made reading more enjoyable. I incorporated this trend into my essay, where I could touch on my observation in multiple instances. Other people could relate to this, as many people write their works based on their emotions; the covers of some of the comics we will cover this semester show this concept, including Zoe Thurgood’s It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth.

This narrative allowed me to reexamine the methods I use while reading and writing and look for patterns to predict how my ways of reading and writing may develop in the future. I am excited to see the impact this class will have on me and the reader and writer that I am!