...Writing a Literacy Narrative A literacy narrative is telling a story. To be exact, it is giving an account of an experience, most likely a personal one, which tells about a time when reading and/or writing helped you to learn something significant. The main idea of a literacy narrative is to speak about a time you were able to learn and grow from a specific experience. When writing any sort of essay or paper, it is always necessary to do the following: Pick a topic that you feel very strongly about but are willing to share. Title your paper (something suitable to your topic) Engage the reader (“Show” the reader rather than “telling” the reader.) Give vivid descriptions throughout the essay. Use sensory details, such as what you see, smell, touch, etc. Include dialogue, but use it sparingly. Dialogue is most effective when it is only used for key moments. Remember to punctuate dialogue correctly. For example: “I don’t know what happened, but I’m not going to give up,” Jasmine said. Know that an important tool in narratives is imagery, which can be defined as visually descriptive language. These details are important because recalling a day such as this shows it’s importance to you, allowing the reader somewhat of an emotional connection to the event. This method is called reflecting. Whenever you’re writing an essay that involves something from you past, it is vital that you ask yourself these following questions: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What...
Words: 510 - Pages: 3
...The Story of Hamlet in Hamlet Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet has one outstanding character, namely the protagonist Hamlet. His character is so complex that this essay will scarcely present an adequate portrayal of his character. John Russell Brown in “Soliloquies and Other Wordplay Let the Audience Share Some of Hamlet’s Thoughts” explains the interplay of dialogue, soliloquies and narrative in Hamlet’s role: By any reckoning Hamlet is one of the most complex of Shakespeare’s characters, and a series of soliloquies is only one of the means which encourage the audience to enter imaginatively into his very personal and frightening predicament. The play’s narrative is handled so that a prolonged two-way chase is sustained between him and the king, during which the audience knows more than either one of them and so thinks ahead and anticipates events. In interplay with Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Polonius, and perhaps with Claudius, Gertrude and Ophelia, Hamlet has asides to draw attention to what dialogue cannot express(55-56). Marchette Chute describes the opening scene of the drama: “For two nights in succession, just as the bell strikes the hour of one, a ghost has appeared on the battlements, a figure dressed in complete armor and with a face like that of the dead king of Denmark, Hamlet’s father. [. . .] The hour comes, and the ghost walks” (35). Horatio and Marcellus exit the ramparts of Elsinore intending to enlist the aid of Hamlet...
Words: 1599 - Pages: 7
...When Piquette doesn't reveal nature's secrets, Vanessa concludes “as an Indian, Piquette was a dead loss” (191) 3. What do the loons symbolize? “My dad says we should listen and try to remember how they sound, because in a few more years when more cottages are built at Diamond Lake and more people come in, the loons will go away” (190-91). Years later when Vanessa visits the lake, after the deaths of her father and Piquette, she realizes that the loons are no longer there. The loons become associated with death and loss, and while symbolic of Piquette, they are also an allegory of Canadian history. 4. What does Vanessa mean by the last sentence of the story? When Vanessa encounters Piquette as a young woman, she recognizes in Piquette what she hears in the loons' cries—“self-pity” (192) and “terrifying hope” (193); when Vanessa learns of Piquette's death soon after, she responds with silence. Vanessa's personal loss—of her father and of Piquette—is connected through the symbol of the loons with the Metis' loss of their land and their culture. Vanessa's realization at the end of the story, that only Piquette “had heard the crying of the loons” (194), signals the loss of her political innocence. Vanessa faces the reality of Canadian history at a direct personal level. 5. How does Laurence connect the personal with the political in “The Loons”? 6. How does Laurence...
Words: 4556 - Pages: 19
...Hamlet’s Revenge It does not matter how old a person is or if that person likes literature or not, it is very probable that he or she has heard these words pronounced by Hamlet: "To be or not to be; that is the question..." (Act III, Scene I). This quote is not only one of the most popular quotes in history of literature, but also one that describes Hamlet’s dramatic situation after his father’s death, when he contemplates suicide as an option. This dramatic story is considered one of the greatest in history and, for many people, the best book written by Shakespeare. The influence of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in many modern narratives can be easily identified. Scott Leslie’s presentation is a good example of how Hamlet’s tragedy has influenced modern authors to write similar stories like “The Lion King”. In fact, Scott literally said, “The Lion King is the light version of Hamlet”. The story of Hamlet is based on revenge and Hamlet’s internal conflicts. Revenge is a concept that is not well considered today due to the strong moral values the society seems to have. However, anyone with my same perception of both modern justice and honor will claim that Hamlet’s revenge is justified. The first point to be discussed in order to demonstrate that Hamlet’s revenge is justified is the concept of justice. Many people will state that revenge has nothing to do with justice and it is nothing else than a primitive behavior. However, what is justice? According to Oxford’s dictionary, “justice...
Words: 851 - Pages: 4
...The Gender Politics of Narrative Modes I want to challenge two linked assumptions that most historians and critics of the English novel share. The first is that the burgeoning of capitalism and the ascension of the middle classes were mainly responsible for the development of the novel. The second is that realism represents the novel's dominant tradition. [note 1] I want to propose instead that, as surely as it marked a response to developing class relations, the novel came into being as a response to the sex-gender system that emerged in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. [note 2] My thesis is that from its inception, the novel has been structured not by one but by two mutually defining traditions: the fantastic and the realistic. [note 3] The constitutive coexistence of these two impulses within a single, evolving form is in no sense accidental: their dynamic interaction was precisely the means by which the novel, from the eighteenth century on, sought to manage the strains and contradictions that the sex-gender system imposed on individual subjectivities. For this reason, to recover the centrality of sex and gender as the novel's defining concern is also to recover the dynamism of its bimodal complexity. Conversely, to explore the interplay of realist and fantastic narratives within the novelistic tradition is to explore the indeterminacy of subjectivities engaged in the task of imposing and rebelling against the constraining order of gender difference. ...
Words: 5434 - Pages: 22
... Narrative Essay Unit 1, Assignment 1 Jeffrey Wayne Van Egeren ENGLISH 106 2 Document Contents This document contains the author’s narrative essay involving the topic chosen for a thesis statement. The thesis statement will be on the subject “A Family Reunion”. The final page holds an outline used to perform this essay. ENGLISH 106 3 A Family Reunion With this assignment, I have chosen “A Family Reunion” to incorporate within my thesis statement. I believe that this topic is best suited for me because my family has never had a happy or joyous reunion that I can remember. The disease of alcoholism runs very deep within the family history, and for that reason, I grew up in a very dysfunctional family setting. With that being stated, I will begin by saying, “Family Reunions are nothing but chaos, arguments, and showing off. Nothing enjoyable or happily memorable ever arises from having times put aside for this said occasion.” My parents were divorced when I was only 4 years old and to this day I still see the burnt images of their final argument instilled within my mind. My mother, rest her soul, had done what she could for our family, regardless of the fact that my father had given absolutely no support for the 9 children. I remember seeing my father, maybe twice, within the time of the divorce and my 12th birthday. My mother had serious health...
Words: 769 - Pages: 4
...Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale—And Here My Troubles Began The Holocaust was one of the worst epidemics in the entire world. Many people were killed, more importantly the Jewish community, with millions dead. Families were torn and never mended. Among these families were the Spiegleman’s. Art Spiegleman was the son in the family who wrote about his father’s experience in the Holocaust. Maus I and Maus II are his two works of art that share historical information and his personal struggle. Within Maus II, Art talks about the start of his father’s struggles and what will be the beginning of a life changing event. The Holocaust affected victims just as the American Great Depression did its victims. This chapter starts out with Vladek continuously counting his pills, and then Artie and Francoise are staying with him just for a little since Mala left. Vladek keeps everything; he doesn’t want to get rid of anything, even crumbs. In chapter three, page 78 of Maus II, he is trying to give Artie a piece of fruitcake, and Artie refuses, and says he isn’t hungry. Vladek then tells Artie, “So, fine. I can pack the fruitcake in with the cereal for you to take home,” then Artie refuses to let Vladek give him the food because he doesn’t want it. Vladek then says, “I cannot forget it…ever since Hitler I don’t like to throw out even a crumb.” This shows that Vladek is still afraid to get rid of anything, because he is still in fear of the past. They begin talking more about Auschwitz, and how in...
Words: 1585 - Pages: 7
...greatest desire. With Victor, on the other hand, there seems to be a gulf between him and the rest of society. * Justine’s trial testifies to the inhumanity of man. What is important to note is the way this links in to a vital theme of the novel, which is the presentation of the creature himself. He starts off innocent and wanting a relationship with his maker. It is the way that he is shunned by his maker and by humanity and treated cruelly that forces him into cruelty, but this cruelty is only paralleled by the monstrous nature of humanity as displayed in incidents such as the trial of Justine. We cannot expect the creature to be good when he has no model of goodness on which he can base his behaviour. * Frankenstein's lack of personal responsibility lead to tragedy? 1. Victor's decision to make the monster and then doing nothing to take care of him demonstrates his selfishness and unwillingness to accept that what he does has consequences not just for him but also for many others. He creates the monster to bring himself...
Words: 5247 - Pages: 21
...Indian Camp The Horror of Life from Birth to Death During the Modernist Movement, existentialist writers wrote about the meaninglessness of life. Existentialists believe that life is a struggle against the nothingness of the world. They believe there is no higher meaning to the existence of man, and they deny the existence of God. Ernest Hemingway portrays three different ways of coping with the meaninglessness of life in his short story “Indian Camp.” The three characters that portray the three different outlooks are Nick’s father, Uncle George, and the Indian father. Ernest Hemingway uses the environment in his short story “Indian Camp” to develop the thematic vision that there are different ways people can cope with the horror of life from the moment of birth and until death. In the short story, Hemmingway portrays a microcosm of life by including a baby’s birth and a man’s suicide in the short period of the story. The pregnant Indian woman struggles in labor for two days without any medical attention until Nick’s father’s arrival. Nick’s father describes to Uncle George after the procedure, “Doing a Caesarian with a jack-knife and sewing it up with nine-foot, tapered gut leaders” (18). The description of Ernest Hemingway INDIAN CAMP I guess the beginning of the story is quite usual and perhaps even banal. The son wants to watch his father brings new life into the world. He is a young boy who helps his father. But on the other hand, despite the fact that there is only...
Words: 7296 - Pages: 30
...around the main character, Oliver, who just one week ago had to bare with the death of his mother who had died due to a cancerous brain tumor. Now, one week after his mother has died, Oliver’s father sits across from him and tells Oliver that throughout the many years of his parent’s marriage, his father has secretly been gay. Oliver’s father, Hal, has been living in secrecy for the entirety of his life, because homosexuality was not socially accepted when he was younger and later his marriage prevented him from being free. Hal, now that he is unbound, tells Oliver “I don’t want to be just theoretically gay, I want to do something about it” (Beginners, 2010). Confronted with this Oliver reflects on his life growing up with two parents that never seemed to be the way he thought they should have. Writer and director Mike Mills experienced precisely this, when his father, shortly after his mother died because of brain cancer in 1999, opened up to him about being gay throughout his entire life. At this point, Mills’ father was at the age of 75 years and had been married to his wife for 45 years. Five years later, his father died due to cancer of the lungs. Mills wanted to share this story with the world, because he was so baffled by the adventure that he had lived through, as well as the uplifting and humorous sides that go hand in hand with even such sad topics as death. “The concrete details of my father’s life, the real struggles, and all the real humor gave the film an authenticity...
Words: 2890 - Pages: 12
...black people, exploring divisions within a family that has lived through that past, and chronicling personal quests to reconstruct splintered identity at the personal, family and community levels. To create the conscious experience that brings so much of Morrison’s work to life, she imbues Song of Solomon not only with vibrant, directly encountered realism, but also magical themes and experiences. Magical Realism—in essence—is a way of telling a story with two sides. One based on a so-called rational view of reality and the other on the acceptance of the supernatural as everyday reality. Song of Solomon features many instances of the image of flight as it plays a major role in the narrative. Flight signifies true life and the living of it, as well as a sense of freedom and release for the main characters in the book. Of all the characters in the novel, one seems the most affected and that persona is Milkman—someone whom embarks on a journey of self-discovery and discovers the true meaning of flight. Milkman experiences flight in many different ways—through song, imagery and literal experiences. The onus is on us, the reader, to distinguish what is “real” and what is pure mysticism. The first instance of Morrison's use of the image of flight is at the very beginning of the book. "At 3:00 p.m. on Wednesday the 18th of February, 1931, I will take off from Mercy and fly away on my own wings. Please forgive me. I loved you all. Robert Smith, Ins. Agent" (3). Smith is unable to...
Words: 1599 - Pages: 7
...for what it truly is, a work of flawed genius which continues to attract strongly despite its age. Emily set what was to be her sole novel in and around her beloved moors creating, in Cathy, a character as wilful as herself. However the reader acquainted but not familiar with the narrative, is often surprised by how little actual description of the natural environment is extant within its pages though ‘metaphors drawn from nature provide much of the book's descriptive language’. Simply expressed, it is the author’s own vicarious resonance with the land, expressed via her frequent use of what Ruskin termed ‘pathetic fallacy’ that gives the intensity of the connective between the central protagonists and the land in which they are imbedded, even beyond life itself. The plot concerns the family of the Earnshaws, owners of the eponymous ‘Wuthering Heights’, where the surly urchin, Heathcliff, is brought by the father of the household who has found him abandoned in Liverpool, and who describes him ‘as dark almost as if it came from the devil’ for ‘when Mr. Earnshaw first brings the child home, the child is an “it” not a “he”’. From the first, he is Cathy, the daughter’s favourite, as he is her father’s, and the thorn in the flesh of the heir, Hindley. Both boys, indeed, loathe each other with a passion partly born of ‘sibling rivalry’, even though they are not blood relatives (at least such is not openly stated even if critics have inferred more than an act of philanthropy in Mr...
Words: 999 - Pages: 4
...of identity” (449). Similarly, Aritha van Herk identifies “fear, unpredictability, secrecy, [and] loss” (44) as the central features of the novel and its female protagonist. Anil’s Ghost, van Herk argues, presents its readers with a “motiveless world” of terror in which “no identity is reliable, no theory waterproof” (45). Ondaatje’s novel tells the story of Anil Tessera, a Sri Lankan expatriate and forensic anthropologist working for a UN-affiliated human rights organization. Haunted by a strong sense of personal and cultural dislocation, Anil takes up an assignment in Sri Lanka, where she teams up with a local archeologist, Sarath Diyasena, to uncover evidence of the Sri Lankan government’s violations of human rights during the country’s period of acute civil war. Yet, by the end of the novel, Anil has lost the evidence that could have indicted the government and is forced to leave the country, carrying with her a feeling of guilt for her unwitting complicity in Sarath’s death. On one hand, Anil certainly embodies an ethical (albeit rather schematic) critique of the failure of global justice. On the other, her character stages diaspora, in Vijay Mishra terms, as the “normative” and “ exemplary … condition of late modernity” (“Diasporic” 441) — a condition usually associated with the figure of the nomad rather than the diasporic subject — and thus raises questions about the novel’s regulatory politics of diasporic identity. In contrast, Anita Rau Badani’s The Hero’s Walk represents...
Words: 12618 - Pages: 51
...peculiar with the influence of modernism and psychologism. However, it was characterized by its attention to details, as well as its attempt to recreate reality as it was, without any decorative language. It tried to reproduce the most detail and objective life of Great Britain before and after World Wars. Realism represented the social life and paid much attention to domestic problems. Its representatives showed tragic vision of life using satire and dark humour, but still their vision of life is much more optimistic than the modernistic one. Talking about their characters, they were social types depicted in their everyday life dealing with their virtues, morals, profession, relationships, worldview etc. Narrative form used by realists is characterized by several narrative characters in order to create an objective vision of life. The most prominent among the writers who continued the traditions of realism were: J. Galsworthy, A. Bennett, H. Wells, B. Shaw; and their followers R. Aldington, G. Orwell, J. Priestley, and E. Waugh. The Novel is certainly the most important literary form of the period. The realistic novel is represented by such novelistic forms as: the social and social-psychological novel (J. Galsworthy, E. Waugh, R. Aldington) the social-domestic novel (A. Bennett, H. Wells) the comic or satirical novel (E. Waugh) family chronicle or epic cycle (J. Galsworthy) science fiction (H. Wells). Despite all this, realism and his representatives suffered...
Words: 2915 - Pages: 12
...Genia and Yossl (Joe), on an historical journey through memory, to uncover the origins of his past and act as a catalyst for future generations to also connect with their history. Mark Baker’s journey through history and memory is also executed through his conventional ideas that memory is biased and less valid than history. There are numerous references to the discrepancies between the personal memories of his parents and the documented history Mark as an historian believes. In this way it is apparent that Mark is on a quest for verification, “my facts from the past are different”. This displays the flaw Mark traditionally notes in memory and his need for historical evidence. As responders accompany Mark on his journey, they also encounter the complexity of simultaneously being a son and an historian. This attested via the following when Mark collates his parent’s memories with documented historical evidence “His was a past written on a page…mother couldn’t point to anyone”. This quote represents the way Mark requires documented evidence, history. This is because he believed his father’s memories only when had had evidence and didn’t believe his mother as she was the sole survivor in the town...
Words: 23607 - Pages: 95
