Quick Write

What should the reader take away after reading your narrative?

Learning To Read

  1. In “Learning to Read,” Malcolm tells us that he learned to read by teaching himself. What else did he teach himself while he taught himself to read?
  2. “In fact, up to then, I never had been so truly free in my life” (par. 11) What does he mean by free?

Responding Templates

The book includes many templates. Including to Disagree p. 60, Agreeing p. 62, and Agreeing and Disagreeing Simultaneously p. 64.

Write a response using the templates in chapter 4.

Why did we do this exercise?

Metaphors of Life

We use metaphors to help people understand what we are trying to say. Instead of explaining that life comes with many surprises and so on, you can use a simple metaphor.

Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.

Forrest Gump

The metaphor explains how Forrest sees the world. His philosophy of life that he learned from his mom. It’s short and explains a lot.

Now you will write some “I am like” statements and perhaps link them to times, places, or memories in your narrative.

Here are some templates to follow that will help you make some of your own.

At five years old, I was like a . . .

At ten years old, I was like a . . .

At work, I am like a . . .

At school, I am like a . . .

These statements can be used to illustrate scenes and examples, that further explain the points you are making in your narrative.

If you want to see some other metaphors, here is a long list of life metaphors.

Grading Criteria

  1. Literacy
  2. Lesson
  3. Story
  4. Dialogue/Description
  5. Title/Images

So What? Making the Point Clear

An important aspect of writing is making sure that your point is clear. Even in these narratives where we are exploring ourselves. You want the reader to know the lesson or point you learned from reflecting and writing.

Here are some questions to consider when concluding your narrative:

  • What did you learn about literacy?
  • How do you learn?
  • How have others helped you?
  • What should the reader take away after reading this?
  • Why does this matter?

The literacy narrative helps us to understand how we learned something. Whether we had a teacher, an instruction video, or from trial and error. Make sure the literacy lesson or point is clear to your reader. We are going to publish this online for the benefit of others. Think about your audience and how you can help them to learn something from your experience.

Quick Write

What is the point or lesson of your narrative? What should your readers learn or take away from reading your narrative. So what? Why is it important? Why does it matter?”

Jonathan Haidt: Can a Divided America Heal?

20 Minutes. Jon Haidt is a Social Psychologist. Write down anything you think is important or that stands out to you. Write down any words you don’t know so we can make a list for everyone.

So the first thing that you have to always keep in mind when you’re thinking about politics is that we’re tribal. We evolved for tribalism. One of the simplest and greatest insights into human social nature is the Bedouin proverb:
“Me against my brother; me and my brother against our cousin; me and my brother and cousins against the stranger.”