The Multimodal Language & Literacy Narrative

Our perspectives on language and literacy don’t arise out of thin air. How and why we learned and presently “do” speaking, reading, and writing depends on our individual backgrounds, experiences, and motivations: where and how we grew up and what we want out of life, language, and literacy.

And it depends on societal realities, including dominant beliefs that deem some language “good” and others not. We never speak, read, or write in isolation—there is always some history, issue, person, structure, institution, standard, or belief system affecting our language and literacy practices.

One way to reflect on the reading, writing, and language experiences that shape a part of who we are today is to narrate these experiences.

During Phase 1, you will study a variety of texts and ideas and practice skills like rhetorical reading, narrative writing, self-reflection, and analyzing social/political forces in writing. Among other smaller assignments, you will compose two Language & Literacy Narratives, one spoken and one written.

This page will provide everything you need for this phase of our course.