When it came it writing my literacy narrative, I was glad that it was my first paper because it didn’t make me feel as though I was being restricted to writing one particular thing. I heard that English teachers usually assign literacy narratives as the first essay for their students so that they can get to know them, which I thought was nice. I felt that it was easier to express my thoughts and feelings more openly through this type of writing because it was simply focusing on something about me. Most of the time when I am tasked to write something, it’s difficult for me to come up ideas and supporting details right away on the top of my head, but it was easier with this narrative. Since it was about me, I had more information at my disposal that I did not need to look up or search for, which made planning the paper easier.
In terms of creating an outline, I did find it helpful because it helped me to write my rough draft and not waste too much unproductive time on it. To be frank, I am very, very lazy when it comes to writing because writing is not something that comes natural to me due to my dislike for it. I would prefer doing tons of math problems than to be spending hours trying to write a decent draft. The outline allowed me to properly order my thoughts so that I would not get them mixed up in my writing or forget what I was wanting to say. Furthermore, I felt that the outline was a great tool in helping me craft my narrative because I was basically writing all my points that I wanted to include and afterwards, I could look back at it to see whether the ideas I had flowed together smoothly or had some bumps here and there. It saved me time as I wrote because I spent more time on planning the outline, which was what I based my first draft on. With the outline, I was able to structure it to fit my needs in terms of writing my paper. I separated my outline into three sections: introduction, body, and conclusion, and then I made sub sections under each to organize the set of ideas and supporting details I wished to include.
One of the things that I struggled the most with was including descriptive detail and smooth transitions in my narrative. I’m more used to employing simple descriptions of objects rather skillfully adding in captivating details to amaze the audience. I guess part of it has to do with how often I read because the more I usually read, the more naturally ideas and ways to describe things come to me. Not reading more often puts my mind out of the mindset of skillful narration, which leads me to struggle more with my writing since I will have a hard time thinking of the next thing that I should say in my paper. As a result, I dislike writing even more and I tend to push writing assignments away until the last minute. Moreover, I don’t write essays or narratives as often, so my writing skills is always sub-par or mediocre.
In writing I like to slowly take my time to flush out all of my thoughts and be able to look back on a particular piece some time later to have a fresh mindset about it. I’m glad I got the chance to have my paper peer reviewed by other people in my class because then I was able to have more than one set of eyes on it, which was helpful in picking out the mistakes that I would not have seen right after I wrote my first draft. I wrote my draft first, reviewed other students’ papers, and then received their feedback on my paper. Afterwards, I waited a couple days to look back at my paper and the feedback that I received from everyone again to see whether I had met the guidelines and what still needed to be improved.
