Sample 1

ENC 1101 Hybrid
Essay Assignment #1

“A literacy narrative is a particular kind of [autobiographical] narrative that recounts a writer’s personal experience with language, reading, writing, and thinking skills, or with education as a process and a social institution” (Ramage, Bean, and Johnson 119).

As a first-year college student, you are entering FIU’s academic discourse community. Here, you’ll be asked to contribute to a variety of formal and informal conversations. To voice your unique message in a powerful and persuasive way, it is crucial to first understand who you are as a communicator. For this reason, your first essay assignment asks you to reflect and critically consider your relationship with language in the open form of a literacy narrative.

To complete this assignment, you’ll begin by asking questions and brainstorming ideas about your linguistic and literary background. As the authors of your textbook suggest, “you could explore positive or negative experiences in learning to read or write, breakthrough moments in your development as a literate person, or some educational experiences that have shaped your identity as a person or student” (119). If your literacy background includes more than one language or culture, I encourage you to delve into those guiding influences too. Once you’ve gathered your ideas, evaluate them to find a focal point that is significant and interesting to you and your audience, i.e. your ENC1101 peers, teaching assistant, and instructor. Please see the questions listed on pages 121-122 of The Allyn & Bacon Guide to Writing for assistance.

As this is an open-form essay, no thesis statement is required for this assignment. Instead, your response to the topic question(s) will become the organizing principle or theme of your story. By focusing your writing around one theme, you’ll be able to achieve depth over breadth. Use the literary elements of plot, character, and setting to bring your story to life. You also have the option to include dialogue, if it helps convey your story’s theme to the audience.

After drafting, conferencing, peer review, and revision work, you should emerge from this assignment with a new, more complex understanding of yourself as a member of FIU’s writing community.

Grading Criteria
To succeed in this assignment, your work will need to achieve the following objectives:
•Produce a final written project that indicates a clear rhetorical purpose and that is appropriate for a diverse audience of peers
•Use the conventions of open-form prose including literary elements
•Show engagement with issues of language, literacy, rhetoric, or cultures
•Demonstrate knowledge of persuasive appeals and rhetorical concepts learned in the introductory unit
•Use specific language (descriptive, figurative, with attention paid to word choice)
•Produce a final draft that shows significant evidence of a thoughtful writing process including invention, revision, and proof-reading
•Use syntax, punctuation, and spelling effectively in service of rhetorical purpose

Page length: 3-5 double-spaced pages in Times New Roman, font size 12. Use MLA or APA formatting without a cover page. All drafts must be uploaded to Turnitin.com with a self-evaluation cover letter.

Grading Criteria and Rubric