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College-level writing classes often begin with what has been called a “literacy narrative”–a reflective assignment that asks students to reflect on the key factors that have shaped their literacy. One goal of these assignments is to become more aware of your relationship to language–how it has formed you, and how it has helped you form your world. Deborah Brandt calls these shaping factors literacy sponsors, which she defines as “agents, local or distant, concrete or abstract, who enable, support, teach, model, as well as recruit, regulate, suppress, or withhold literacy—and gain advantage by it in some way” (167). The strict definition of literacy relates to our ability to read and write, to understand and communicate in a distinct system of linguistic signs. But literacy can be defined more broadly as a fundamental knowledge base that allow us to navigate any areas of experience. What, for example, does emotional literacy, or technological literacy, or financial literacy mean to you? What about sustainability literacy?
For this first assignment–the final version of which will be a blog post of around 750-1,000 words–please reflect upon precisely this question by composing a sustainability literacy narrative. You can focus on a defining moment, or a series of defining moments, where one of these sponsors is explored in richer narrative detail. The goal is to start thinking about sustainability, to start thinking about yourself in relation to sustainability, and to start putting the proverbial pen to paper–this is, after all, a writing class. A few quick pointers: remember to come up with an interesting title, include vivid details–especially as you hone in on a specific moment–and give some thought to how you want to organize your narrative.
As you begin to identify a possible narrative focus or arc, be sure to take a broad view of sustainability. It’s not all about trees, mountains, and nature. As we discussed in class, sustainability encompasses business practices, the images we receive through popular culture, ideas of social justice and equality, and changing urban environments in addition to the grounding question of how nature shapes us and how we shape nature. It also has to do with inward elements: compassion, creativity, connection, and consciousness.
An important part of all our major assignments will be conferencing one-on-one to discuss your draft. Please come to your conference with some ideas about what media you might include. Please also come prepared to discuss the following:
- What are the strengths of your literacy narrative? What are its problems?
- What were the challenges you encountered writing the literacy narrative and how did you address them?
- If you had two more days to revise the literacy narrative, what additional changes would you make and why?
- What media might you include in the final blog-post version?